Why we won't unbundle the baseline (even when you ask nicely)
Every few months a prospect asks if they can have just User Support without Device Care, or vice versa. We always say no — and here's the reasoning.
It happens roughly once a month. A prospect — usually a 12-person professional services firm — asks if they can take just our User Support package and skip Device Care because "we've got our own laptop guy" or "we use a leasing company who handle hardware."
We always say no. And it's not a sales tactic — it's about whether we can actually do the job properly.
The baseline is a system, not two products
Our Baseline package bundles two halves of the operating model: a user-side layer (helpdesk, identity, M365) and a device-side layer (RMM, patching, EDR). On paper they look like two services. In practice they're one system, and we sell them as one £55/user/month bundle.
When something goes wrong — a phishing click, a mysterious slowdown, a dodgy login from Sofia at 3am — the diagnosis lives across both layers. The user-side telemetry tells you what happened. The device-side telemetry tells you what the malware did once it landed. Without both, we're guessing.
We've tried the unbundled version. It didn't work.
Years ago we offered "user only" support. The pattern was always the same — a ticket would land, we'd fix the user-side issue, and three weeks later the same problem would resurface because nobody had patched the underlying device fleet. We were treating symptoms.
The clients weren't happy either. They were paying for outcomes (working IT) and getting outputs (closed tickets).
SecureState alignment
Our baseline maps directly to the SecureState framework — the UK government-aligned baseline for managed IT providers. SecureState requires both endpoint management and identity protection working together. Half the controls live on the device, half on the user account. Pick one and you fail the assessment.
What about clients with no devices?
We do have one or two clients who are entirely cloud-native — Chromebook fleets, BYOD policies, no traditional endpoints. For those situations we have a specific shape of agreement. But it's the exception, not the menu option.
If you're shopping around and a provider offers user-only or device-only at a discount, ask them what happens when the diagnosis spans both. The answer tells you what you're really buying.
Want to talk to a human about this?
We're a Manchester-based MSP serving small businesses across Greater Manchester. Genuinely happy to give straight answers, even if we're not the right fit.
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