Servers, systems and someone who picks up the phone
We run the servers, cloud accounts, networks and websites your business depends on: monitoring, patching, backups that get restore-tested, and a real answer when something breaks. Monthly plans start at $300, and every account stays in your name.
What is managed IT support, and what is it not?
Managed IT support is a monthly agreement where an outside team runs the systems your business depends on: servers, cloud accounts, networks, websites and user accounts. IG Digital Lab provides it from Sacramento for business clients. It is not a consumer PC repair shop: we do not fix home laptops, phones or game consoles.
What we take responsibility for
- Business servers: Linux VPS, dedicated machines, databases, Docker
- Cloud accounts: AWS, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr, Azure, Cloudflare
- Websites and web apps, including ones another team built
- Office networks, firewalls, Wi-Fi and VPN access for staff
- Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, mailboxes, DNS and email records
- Staff computers and accounts on a plan: setup, updates, offboarding
What we are not
- A walk-in counter for home laptops, phones or game consoles
- A reseller: your hosting and cloud stay in your name and your billing
- A ticket queue where the reply is "we have escalated it"
- A vendor holding your credentials: the passwords and runbook are yours
- A one-size contract: maintaining one website is a valid plan too
Server, cloud and website work is delivered remotely nationwide. For on-site work our office is at 3550 Watt Ave, Suite 408, Sacramento, CA 95821, and we cover the surrounding area. Local details and pricing are on our Sacramento IT support page, and the hardware side, tablets, kiosks and smart spaces, is covered under devices and smart spaces.
What is covered every month
Six things that happen on a schedule, whether or not anything breaks.
Servers and cloud
Provisioning, hardening, SSH keys, firewall rules, user access, resource sizing and TLS certificates that renew before they expire, on Linux servers and the cloud accounts you already pay for.
Monitoring and alerting
Uptime checks on sites and APIs, plus disk, memory, CPU, certificate expiry and backup job success. Alerts go to us first, so most problems are handled before anyone on your team notices.
Backups, restore-tested
Nightly off-site backups of databases, files and server configuration, with a scheduled test restore to a scratch machine. A backup nobody has restored is not a backup, it is a hope.
Patching and updates
Operating system security updates, framework, CMS and dependency updates on a schedule, staged first where a staging environment exists, so a routine update never becomes a Monday morning outage.
Website maintenance
Content edits, plugin and theme updates, broken forms, page speed, uptime, DNS records and email deliverability (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). We maintain sites we built and sites we inherited.
User support
Mailboxes and accounts in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, laptops and workstations, printers and shared drives, and a written onboarding and offboarding checklist for every new or departing employee.
Response times, and what "supported" means in writing
Support only means something if the response time is written down. Ours are targets we commit to in the service agreement, not a marketing promise. Business hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm Pacific. Outages are handled outside those hours too, and we say plainly what that does and does not cover.
| Situation | What we commit to |
|---|---|
| Site or server down, business stopped | We start within one hour during business hours. Outside them, monitoring pages us and we start when the page arrives, day or night. We do not sell a contractual 24/7 SLA, and we do not pretend to. |
| Broken, but you have a workaround | Same business day, with a fix or a plan and a date by end of day. |
| Normal request: a change, a new account, a content edit | Answered within one business day and scheduled with you, usually done in the same week. |
| Planned work: upgrades, migrations, releases | Scheduled in advance, usually outside your working hours, with a rollback plan agreed before we start. |
In writing means one short service agreement that lists every server, site, domain and account we cover, what the monthly fee includes and what is billed hourly, who holds which credentials, where the runbook lives, and how to reach us. You get a monthly note: what we patched, what we restored, what we are watching. Call or text (916) 618-0502 at any hour. Our own line is answered by an AI agent our team built, so the request is logged and routed even at 2am, and a person calls you back.
Plans and pricing
Care is $300 to $500 per month and covers monitoring, patching, backups and small fixes. Active is $750 to $1,500 per month and adds ongoing development and DevOps work. One-off work is $150 to $200 per hour, and hosting and small services start at $50 per month. The audit before any of it is free.
Keep what is running, running.
- 24/7 monitoring on servers, sites and certificates
- Security patching and updates on a schedule
- Nightly backups with scheduled test restores
- Small fixes and content edits included
- Incident response during business hours
Keep it running, and keep improving it.
- Everything in Care
- Development hours each month for changes and new features
- DevOps: CI/CD pipelines, staging, release support
- User support for staff accounts and devices
- Quarterly review of cost, capacity and security
One job, no monthly commitment.
- Migrations, server moves, incident cleanup
- Security or cost audits of an existing setup
- Estimated in writing before we start
- Hosting and small services from $50/mo
Which band you land in depends on how many servers and sites we cover and how much changes each month, and we give you the number after the free audit, before you sign anything. If a build comes first, a new site or an internal tool, see websites and web apps or custom software, then the support plan starts at launch. Everything we run is priced on our pricing page.
Taking over from a previous provider
Most of the businesses that call us already have a provider, or had one. Handovers are usually messy because nobody wrote anything down, not because anyone was incompetent. This is the checklist we work through, and you get the finished version of it as a document you own.
- Inventory. Every domain, server, cloud account, database, repository, DNS zone, mailbox and third-party subscription, with where it lives, what it costs and who is paying for it. Half the value is usually here.
- Ownership. Accounts moved into your company name and your billing. If a domain or hosting account is registered to the old provider, we start that transfer first, because it is the slowest step.
- Backups before anything else. A full backup of every site, database and server config, stored where we can reach it, before we change a single line of configuration.
- Credentials. New admin credentials in a password manager you control, old ones rotated, and a written list of who has access to what.
- Prove it works. We deploy, restart and restore each system ourselves while the old provider is still reachable. Nothing is switched off until we have done it once.
- Runbook. One document: what runs where, how to deploy it, how to restore it, what breaks it, who to call. You get a copy, and it stays yours if we part ways.
- Switch-off and review. Old access revoked on a date you pick, monitoring and backups moved to our schedule, and a review with you at the end of the first month.
If the problem is more urgent than a planned handover, for example the developer stopped answering, nobody has the login, or the site is down and no one knows where it is hosted, start with website takeover. If the repetitive work around those systems is the real cost, that is AI workflow automation. Either way, the first conversation is the free audit, and we do not need access to your systems to have it.
Frequently asked questions
Straight answers on cost, contracts, after-hours outages and switching providers.
How much does IT support cost for a small business?
At IG Digital Lab, the Care plan is $300 to $500 per month and covers monitoring, patching, backups and small fixes. Active support is $750 to $1,500 per month and adds ongoing development and DevOps work. One-off work is $150 to $200 per hour, and hosting starts at $50 per month.
Do you support Macs and PCs?
Yes, for business users on both macOS and Windows: accounts, email, security updates, shared drives, printers, onboarding and offboarding. Our core work is servers, cloud and websites, so device support is part of a plan for your staff, not a walk-in repair counter for personal computers.
What happens if our server goes down at 2am?
Monitoring alerts us, not you. On a plan, an outage pages our team day or night and we start work when the page arrives. We aim to have you back up, or on a workaround, before your business day starts, and you get a written summary of the cause.
Can you take over from our current IT company?
Yes, and it is normal work for us. We inventory every domain, server and account, move ownership and billing into your name, take a full backup, prove we can deploy and restore everything ourselves, then revoke the old access on a date you choose. Your users usually notice nothing.
Do you manage AWS, DigitalOcean or our existing hosting?
Yes. We work inside your accounts, under your billing, on AWS, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr, Azure, Cloudflare and most shared hosts. You keep ownership and you pay the provider directly. If the current setup costs more than it needs to, we show you the numbers and the options.
Do you require a long contract?
No. Plans run month to month and you can cancel with 30 days notice. We ask for a three month minimum only on takeovers, because the first month is inventory and cleanup. If you leave, you get the runbook, the credentials and the backups, with no exit fee.
Find out what is actually running your business.
Book a free 30-minute audit. We map your servers, sites and accounts, tell you what is exposed or unbacked, and quote a plan. No access to your systems required for the first call.
Or call and text (916) 618-0502. See all seven services.