Sooner or later every business that grows past twenty computers asks this question. "Do what everyone does" doesn't work: the right choice depends on your numbers. Here is an honest framework — from both sides, because we are an outsourcing team ourselves and honesty costs us something.
What an in-house admin really costs
On top of the salary, add taxes, a workplace, equipment, training — and the non-obvious part: holidays, sick leave and the risk of resignation. One person is one pair of hands and one skill set: a good network engineer may not know servers, a server person may not know telephony. And when they go on holiday, your entire IT support goes with them.
When in-house is the right choice
If you genuinely have a full day of work for an engineer, every day: your own development, complex manufacturing, hundreds of workstations, specialized equipment that needs a person physically present. Then a staff position is justified — and we'll say so at the first meeting.
What outsourcing actually provides
Not "a cheaper person" but a team: networks, servers, security, automation — different competencies for the price of one staff position or less. Plus continuity: a team doesn't take holidays all at once. Plus processes, which often matter more than people: monitoring that sees problems before the outage, documentation, backups, a defined response procedure.
The main trap: comparing price instead of coverage
The most common mistake is to compare an admin's salary with a monthly outsourcing invoice and stop there. What you should compare is coverage: how many hours of real work you get, which competencies are covered, what happens at night and on weekends, who is accountable for the result and how. A cheap "we'll come when it breaks" contract is not support — it's an emergency service.
Hybrid is often the smartest option
For many companies the optimum is a junior on staff for daily small tasks plus an external team for infrastructure: network, servers, security, monitoring, automation. Everyone does what they do best, and you don't pay a full-time salary for competencies you need five hours a month.
Want a concrete number for your business? Tell us how many people and systems you have — we'll compare the options honestly, even if the conclusion is "in-house is cheaper for you".