Comparison
Microsoft 365 support vs full managed services
Most small businesses now run almost entirely inside Microsoft 365. That has quietly changed what an IT contract needs to contain — but the contracts on offer largely have not changed. A full managed service was designed for a world of servers, switches and desktops. If none of those exist in your business, you may be buying management for an estate you no longer have.
The short answer
A Microsoft 365-only support agreement is sufficient when Microsoft 365 and a handful of SaaS tools are, in practice, your entire IT estate: laptops that are little more than browsers, no server, no on-premise line-of-business application, no complex network. A full managed service is necessary the moment there is infrastructure that can fail independently of Microsoft — a server, a NAS, a firewall with custom rules, a VoIP platform, a machine on a factory floor. The deciding question is not company size, it is whether anything in your business breaks in a way Microsoft cannot see.
Side by side
| Microsoft 365 support only | Full managed services | |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 user and licence administration | Yes | Yes |
| Email, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive issues | Yes | Yes |
| Identity, MFA and access requests | Yes | Yes |
| Endpoint monitoring agents (RMM) | No | Yes |
| Patch management for servers | Not applicable | Yes |
| Firewall and network management | No | Yes |
| Hardware procurement and lifecycle | No | Yes |
| Backup configuration and verification | Advice only | Managed and monitored |
| On-site attendance | No | Yes |
| Third-party vendor management | No | Usually yes |
| IT strategy and budgeting | No | Usually yes |
| Typical UK cost per user per month | £4–£25 | £45–£120 |
Choose Microsoft 365 support only if
- No on-premise server, NAS or domain controller
- Laptops managed through Microsoft Intune or not centrally managed at all
- Line-of-business software is SaaS, accessed through a browser
- Your last three IT problems were all accounts, email or Microsoft 365 permissions
Choose Full managed services if
- Anything in your office has an IP address you care about
- You need monitored, tested backups with someone accountable for restore
- Hardware needs buying, building, imaging and disposing of securely
- Your cyber insurance or client contracts specify managed endpoint protection
What it costs
Before comparing prices, audit your last 12 months of tickets and sort them into 'Microsoft 365 or account' versus 'everything else'. For all-cloud small businesses the split is frequently 80/20 or better. If 80% of your tickets are in the first bucket and you are paying full managed-service rates on every user, the cost of the mismatch is easy to quantify — and it is usually larger than any negotiation you could win on the existing contract.
Where we're the wrong choice
Microsoft 365-only support has a blind spot that catches people out: backup. Microsoft replicates your data for their availability, not for your recovery, and their retention windows are shorter than most businesses assume. A full managed service usually owns third-party Microsoft 365 backup, tests restores and can prove it. With a Microsoft 365-only agreement — including ours — backup is advice, and the accountability stays with you. If nobody in your business is going to own that, you are better off with a managed service that does.
Frequently asked questions
Microsoft 365 support only vs Full managed services — common questions
Does Microsoft back up my Microsoft 365 data?
Not in the sense most businesses mean. Microsoft protects the platform and provides limited recovery windows — typically 14 to 30 days for deleted items and up to 93 days in some retention configurations — but that is not a backup you can restore from after a ransomware event or a departure six months ago. Third-party Microsoft 365 backup remains a separate decision under either support model.
Is Microsoft 365 support enough for Cyber Essentials?
It can cover a large part of the technical controls — MFA, account separation, access removal, update settings — but Cyber Essentials also covers firewalls, device configuration and software patching across all devices in scope. If nobody is managing your endpoints, you will have gaps in the self-assessment that a Microsoft 365-only contract does not close.
What if we grow into needing full managed services?
The trigger is usually a physical event: an office move, a first server, a piece of production equipment, a compliance requirement. Because Microsoft 365-only support tends to be monthly rather than multi-year, moving up is easier than moving down — which is a reason to start narrow rather than broad.
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