Managed IT for a CPA or accounting firm is priced by device and by mailbox, not by headcount. Braintek’s packages run $150 to $250 per device per month plus $15 to $35 per mailbox per month, with Microsoft licensing billed separately. Accounting firms are close to a one device per person business, but not exactly: most partners and many managers carry a laptop alongside their desktop, which puts the typical firm at about 1.1 to 1.2 devices per employee.
Here’s what that looks like for two common firm sizes, assuming roughly 1.15 devices per employee and one mailbox per employee:
| Firm size | Devices (~1.15x) | Device cost | Mailbox cost | Estimated monthly range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 employees | 12 | $1,800 to $3,000 | $150 to $350 | $1,950 to $3,350 |
| 25 employees | 29 | $4,350 to $7,250 | $375 to $875 | $4,725 to $8,125 |
Your real number depends on your actual counts. A firm that keeps its tax and accounting software on an in house server adds a device or two to the list, and a firm where every person runs a single laptop lands right at headcount. The math above is honest, not padded. For where these numbers come from, see our pricing page and IT support for CPAs and financial advisors.
Why do accounting firms pay by device instead of by employee?
Because the device is the unit of work. Walk a 25 person firm and count what’s actually in play:
- Staff workstations running tax and accounting software
- Partner and manager laptops alongside their desktops
- A server or two if tax, accounting, or document management runs on premises
- Scanners and multifunction devices feeding the document workflow
- The firewall and network gear holding it together
Two firms with identical headcount can be very different environments. One runs everything hosted with single laptops per person, the other keeps two servers, dual monitors and desktops at every desk, and laptops for everyone who visits clients. Pricing by device means the quote tracks the environment you actually have. When you request a quote, bring your device count, mailbox count, and whether your software runs on premises or hosted. Those three answers set the price.
What’s included in the monthly fee?
Two quotes at the same per device rate can cover very different things. Before comparing anyone’s number, get the inclusion list in writing. At minimum, a managed rate should cover:
- Help desk support by phone and email
- Remote monitoring and patching on every covered device
- Endpoint protection and email security
- Backup management and verification
- Microsoft 365 administration
- Network and firewall management
- Vendor coordination for your tax, accounting, and document management software
- Regular technology planning, not just break fix
At Braintek that’s the baseline. Phone calls are typically answered within about 60 seconds and emailed tickets typically get a response within about 2 hours, with staff in Houston, DFW, and the Philippines covering the desk. The full scope is on our managed IT services page. Anything a provider lists as excluded, ask what it costs when you need it, because you will.
What accounting firm factors move the price?
The things that push a firm toward the upper end of the range are the ones a generic office MSP rarely handles well:
- The tax and accounting software stack. Whether your firm runs its applications on a local server, in a private hosting environment, or as cloud subscriptions changes what has to be supported. We support the servers, workstations, hosting, backups, and performance those applications depend on, and coordinate with the software vendors when an issue lives inside the application itself.
- FTC Safeguards Rule work. Firms handling client financial data need a documented information security program: MFA, encryption, access controls, monitoring, risk assessment, and a named accountable person. The controls overlap heavily with good managed IT. The documentation and assessment work is where quotes diverge, so pin down what’s included. Our FTC Safeguards guide for CPA firms walks through the requirements.
- Seasonal staff. Tax season hires need accounts, devices, and secure access on a schedule, and they need to be cleanly offboarded after. That swing affects both the covered counts and the setup work, and a firm that plans it in December has a much smoother January.
- Remote and hosted access. Partners reviewing returns from home and staff working client sites need secure remote access that doesn’t crawl. Whether that’s a hosted desktop environment, VPN into an office server, or fully cloud applications, it has to be both fast and locked down.
- Document management. Firms live in their document systems and the file shares around them. Storage growth, retention, permissions, and reliable backup of that repository are part of the real support load.
None of these are exotic to a provider who supports accounting firms, but they are exactly where a cheap quote gets expensive. A provider learning the Safeguards Rule on your engagement is not a discount. Our tax season IT readiness guide covers the seasonal side in more depth.
How do you compare MSP quotes fairly?
Normalize the scope before you look at the price. Line every proposal up against the same list:
- Monthly cost and exactly which devices are covered
- Security stack: endpoint detection, MFA, email filtering, awareness training
- FTC Safeguards coverage: which requirements the quote addresses, in writing
- Backup coverage for servers, Microsoft 365, and your tax and document systems
- Written response expectations, not verbal ones
- How seasonal staff changes are handled and billed
- What counts as a project billed outside the agreement
- After hours coverage and its cost, especially during filing deadlines
- Contract length and exit terms
- Google reviews: the count, the recency, and whether reviewers describe firms like yours
Only when those columns match does the price column mean anything.
Reviews deserve one extra note: a wall of five-star ratings from two years ago says less than a steady stream of recent ones that mention response times and named technicians. Read each provider’s Google profile with that lens, ours included. For a fuller version of this comparison process, see how to choose an MSP for your CPA or accounting firm.
When does fully managed stop making sense?
Fully managed support fits firms in roughly the 10 to 50 employee range, where a dedicated internal IT hire is hard to justify but client data, compliance obligations, and deadline pressure make winging it a bad bet. Above that size, co-managed IT usually wins: your internal staff keeps day to day ownership and we supply the depth behind them, security, projects, escalations, and after hours coverage. We support co-managed environments up to around 1,500 employees.
Who does this in Houston and DFW?
Braintek has supported Texas businesses since 2002, with staff in Houston, DFW, and the Philippines, and accounting and advisory firms, with their compliance requirements, seasonal rhythms, and software stacks, are a core part of that work. Start with the CPAs and financial advisors industry page for the full picture of what we cover, check the pricing page for how packages are structured, or see the manufacturing company cost breakdown if you want the same math applied to a different industry. When you’re ready for an exact figure, a short discovery call turns your device and mailbox counts into a flat monthly number.