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For most architecture firms with 10-50 employees, outsourcing to a managed IT provider costs less and covers more than hiring one in-house IT person. The salary for a full-time IT generalist in the Houston area typically ranges from $44,000-$81,000 per year. Managed IT for a 25-person firm runs about $40,000-$75,000 per year and includes a whole team: help desk, cybersecurity, compliance, data backup, and vendor support.

In-house IT starts to make sense at around 100+ employees. Even then, most firms pair that person with an IT provider through co-managed IT. Here's how to decide which model fits your firm.

The Real Cost Comparison: In-House IT vs. Managed IT

For a 25-person architecture firm, managed IT typically costs less per year than one in-house hire, and it covers more. The salary figure is only the start. Add benefits, recruiting costs, training, and the months it takes a new hire to learn your network, and the gap usually widens.

An in-house hire gives you one person working about 40 hours a week, while managed IT gives you a full team plus 24/7 monitoring. When your IT person takes a vacation or sick day, there's no coverage; with managed IT, backup coverage is built in. Security and monitoring tools are an extra expense with an in-house hire, but they're included with managed IT. And instead of relying on one person's skill set, you get access to specialists in networking, cybersecurity, cloud and AEC software.

4 Signs Your Firm Has Outgrown "The Architect Who Does IT"

Many small architecture firms start with a tech-savvy project architect handling IT on the side. That works until it doesn't. Watch for these signs:

  1. Billable time is going to IT. If someone spends 5+ hours a week fixing computers, that's 250+ hours a year of lost billing.
  2. The same Revit problems keep coming back. Slow syncs, corrupted local files and crashes get patched, but nobody has time to find the root cause.
  3. Nobody can say when the backup was last tested. If a ransomware attack hit tomorrow, would you know how long it would take to restore your project files?
  4. Your cyber-insurance renewal is full of questions you can't answer. Insurers now routinely ask about multi-factor authentication, endpoint detection and backup testing.

What You Lose With a Single In-House IT Hire

One IT employee can be a great asset, but a single hire has three built-in limits:

  1. No one person knows everything. Architecture firm IT spans networking, cybersecurity, Microsoft 365/Google Workspace, cloud storage, hardware troubleshooting, compliance, and Autodesk and Bluebeam licensing. Few generalists are strong in all of them.
  2. A single point of failure. When your IT person goes on vacation, gets sick or resigns, your firm's network knowledge goes with them. Problems wait until they're back.
  3. Hiring and keeping IT talent is hard. Good IT people want growth and peers to learn from. At a 25-person firm, they're usually a team of one, and turnover is common.

Already Have an IT Person? Co-Managed IT Gives You Both

You don't have to choose. Co-managed IT pairs your in-house IT person or BIM manager with a managed IT provider. It's the best fit for firms with 20-50+ employees whose IT person is stretched thin.

Your in-house person keeps handling what they know best: day-to-day user requests and onboarding; Revit and BIM standards, templates and content; project-specific software setup; and the office knowledge and staff relationships that come from being on site. Alexaur takes on the rest, including 24/7 monitoring and alerting; security tools like EDR, MFA and email filtering; backup and tested disaster recovery; after-hours, vacation and sick-day coverage; and escalations, network and server projects, and vendor calls.

The goal is simple: we don't replace your IT person. We make sure they're never on their own.

Rule of thumb: under 50 employees, choose managed IT. Over 50 with an IT person already on staff, choose co-managed. Over 100, consider a small in-house team plus a provider for security and after-hours coverage.

Why Katy Architecture Firms Choose Alexaur

We've supported architecture, engineering, and construction firms across Katy, TX and Greater West Houston since 2001, and we're still family-owned. The person who answers your call knows why the trailer machine matters.

Check your risk. Can you answer yes to all three: backup tested in the last 90 days, MFA on every account, and cyber-insurance requirements met? If not, you need more expertise than one person typically provides. Book a free Discovery Call and we'll review your current setup. No audit fee, no obligation.