The questions buyers actually ask.
Pricing, scope, contracts, security responsibility, credentials, switching. Answered the way we would want them answered if we were the buyer.
What it costs and what you sign.
Published rates, defined exclusions, and terms that do not trap you. The three questions most providers would rather you not ask.
How much do your services cost?
Pricing starts at $150 per user per month, with most multi-site engagements landing between $150 and $200 once security requirements, sites and onsite needs are scoped. It covers employee support, a security baseline (identity, MFA, endpoints, email, backup), Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace administration and licensing, device lifecycle, vendor management and executive reporting. Dedicated onsite coverage, hardware, travel and major projects are scoped separately, in writing, before work begins. Full detail on the pricing section.
What is NOT included in the monthly price?
Four things, and you will never discover a fifth on an invoice: hardware and equipment purchases, travel to field sites, dedicated onsite staffing, and major projects (buildouts, migrations, relocations). Each is scoped and approved in advance. If it is not on that list and it is not a project, it is included.
Is there a minimum company size?
Managed plans start at 25 users. Onboarding is a fixed-fee project with a 50% deposit, scoped in writing before work begins, then a fixed monthly rate. Smaller teams are usually better served by a one-time project or the Insurance Readiness Review.
What are your contract terms? Are we locked in?
No long-term lock-in. Agreements start with a 90-day initial period, then run month-to-month with 60 days’ notice. Offboarding assistance is defined in the agreement and included, not improvised at premium rates if you leave, and your documentation and credentials belong to you from day one. We keep clients with performance, not paperwork.
Who owns our documentation, credentials, and licenses?
You do. All of it, from day one. Admin credentials live in a vault your leadership can always access, licensing agreements are in your company’s name, and documentation is written so a successor could take over. Providers that hold these hostage are the reason this question exists. Ask it of everyone you evaluate.
What actually makes Ironguard different?
Three things you can verify rather than take on faith: we publish our pricing (almost no one in this industry does); we define what is not included before you sign; and your credentials and documentation are yours from day one. The rest, fixing causes instead of closing tickets, you will see in the first ninety days.
How the work actually gets done.
Who answers, who is responsible, what switching looks like, and what leadership sees each month.
How do you handle urgent issues?
Urgent, work-stopping issues are raised as urgent in the client portal and handled ahead of standard requests. Either way, you will always know who owns your issue, what is happening, and what comes next. If we ever miss on something we committed to, you hear it from us first, with what happened and what we changed.
Do you outsource or offshore your help desk?
No. Your support is handled by the same senior people who run your environment. We do not outsource or offshore the help desk. The person who answers has context on your company, not a script.
What happens when the person who knows our environment is unavailable?
Nothing stalls. Ironguard is built so the service never depends on one person’s calendar: every client environment is documented to the standard that a qualified engineer can pick it up cold, monitoring and alerting are automated, escalation paths are written down, and coverage is arranged in advance for planned absences. If a provider can’t answer this question in writing, that is your real risk.
Are you just a help desk?
No. Employee support is part of the service, but Ironguard also owns security, cloud administration, devices, networks, vendors, lifecycle and major projects: one operating model with one accountable owner.
Do you replace our internal IT team?
Only if you want us to. Ironguard operates either as the complete IT function or co-managed, owning defined lanes (support, patching, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, projects) while your team keeps theirs, with full mutual visibility. See Co-Managed IT.
Who is responsible for our cybersecurity?
For the controls in our scope (identity, MFA, endpoints, email, backups, access lifecycle) we are, and we can show you the evidence at any time. Security that is “shared” without named owners per control is how companies get hurt. Our first deliverable is that ownership map.
Can you help with a cyber-insurance renewal?
Yes. The controls carriers ask about (MFA everywhere, endpoint protection, tested backups, same-day offboarding, an incident-response plan) are the same baseline we run every environment on. If the renewal is on a deadline, the Insurance Readiness Review is a fixed-fee, ten-business-day review ($1,500 for 30–75 users, $2,500 for 76–150) that maps every questionnaire item to real evidence. It is credited in full toward onboarding if you become a managed client within 90 days.
What does onboarding look like? Will switching be disruptive?
Switching fear keeps companies with bad providers for years, so we run transitions in phases: parallel access and credential recovery first, then a support cutover with overlap so no ticket falls in the gap, then stabilization. Your employees experience one announcement and one new contact route. The full playbook is in our evaluation guide.
Do you support multiple offices and field sites?
Yes. Multi-site is the core of what we do: offices, labs, warehouses and field locations on one design, one security baseline and one support model. Our home market is San Diego County, we support multi-site teams nationwide, and travel to other sites is scoped in advance.
Do you manage Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace?
Yes, both. Identity, email, devices, file storage and licensing on Microsoft 365 (Entra ID, Intune, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive) or Google Workspace, configured properly and governed so it stays that way, including reclaiming unused licenses and keeping renewals on a calendar.
What reporting does leadership get?
Plain-language reporting a CFO can read: what happened, what it means, what we recommend, and what it costs, plus a forward-looking roadmap and renewal calendar. Ticket counts are available, but they are the least interesting page.
Tell us what needs an owner.
What is growing, what is breaking, and where you keep chasing answers across vendors. We will start there.
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