Skipping round-the-clock IT support for small business in Houston might seem like a smart way to save money, but it usually costs way more in the long run. Let us break down the actual costs you’re risking when you don’t have reliable tech support available.
Lost Revenue from Downtime
When your systems go down and nobody’s available to fix them, you’re losing money every minute.
According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. For small businesses, that number might be lower, but even at $1,000 per hour, a 4-hour outage overnight costs you $4,000.
What causes downtime:
- Server crashes
- Network failures
- Ransomware attacks
- Power issues affecting systems
- Software glitches
Without 24×7 IT support for small business in Houston, these problems sit unfixed until regular business hours. That’s money walking out the door.
Data Loss and Recovery Costs
Data loss incidents cost businesses an average of $10.22 million across the U.S., according to research by IBM. When something goes wrong with your backups at 2 AM and nobody notices until morning, you could lose an entire day’s worth of data.
Recovery isn’t cheap either. Emergency data recovery services can be very expensive, depending on what needs to be recovered.
Security Breaches Happen After Hours
Cybercriminals often launch attacks during off-hours when they know businesses are less likely to respond quickly. Without monitoring, a breach that starts at midnight might not get detected until 9 AM the next day.
That’s enough to shut down many small businesses in the Houston area.
Breach-related costs include:
- Forensic investigation fees
- Legal expenses
- Customer notification costs
- Reputation damage
- Regulatory fines
- Lost business
Customer Trust and Lost Business
When customers can’t access your services or their orders get delayed because of tech problems, they remember. A study by Vercara shows that 75% of consumers would stop buying from or visiting a brand if it suffered a data breach.
If you run a clinic, a small business with online ordering, or any business where customers interact with your systems outside 9-5 hours, every minute of downtime directly impacts sales.
Employee Productivity Costs
Your team can’t work when systems are down. The average employee wastes 22 minutes per day dealing with IT-related issues, according to a Robert Half’s survey. Multiply that by your staff count and hourly wages – it adds up fast.
When problems happen overnight and don’t get fixed until morning, your employees show up ready to work but can’t do anything. You’re still paying them, but getting zero productivity.
Compliance and Legal Issues
Many industries have requirements about data protection and system monitoring. Healthcare businesses need HIPAA compliance. Financial services have other regulations.
Without proper IT support for small business monitoring your systems 24×7, you might not even know when you’ve violated compliance requirements. Fines vary but can easily hit $10,000 to $50,000 for small violations.
Emergency IT Repair Costs
When you don’t have ongoing support and something breaks, you end up paying emergency rates. Emergency IT service calls in Houston typically cost 1.5 to 3 times the normal rate.
A regular service call might cost $150. The same call after hours as an emergency? Easily $300-$450. Do that a few times and you’ve spent more than proactive support would have cost.
Competitive Disadvantage
Your competitors who have proper IT support can operate smoothly while you’re dealing with outages. They’re taking the customers you can’t serve. They’re processing orders while your system is down. Over time, this gap grows.
Insurance May Not Cover Everything
Many business insurance policies have specific exclusions for tech-related losses, especially if you can’t prove you had adequate security measures in place. Without monitored IT support for small business, you might not qualify for coverage.
What Actually Makes Sense
The monthly cost of managed IT services with 24×7 monitoring typically runs $100-$200 per user for small businesses. For a 10-person company, that’s $1,000-$2,000 per month.
Compare that to the $15,300 cost of a single incident we calculated earlier. The math isn’t complicated.
Bottom Line
Skipping proper IT support for small business is a gamble. You’re betting that nothing will go wrong outside business hours. Given that 60% of small businesses that experience a major data loss shut down within six months, it’s not a bet worth taking.
The cost of having support is predictable and manageable. The cost of not having it? That’s where things get expensive real fast.
To get affordable IT support for your small business in Houston, Texas, please contact us today.