The Salary-vs-Subscription Trap: Why Your IT Decision Isn’t About Price at All
You’ve probably run the numbers already. A mid-level IT hire costs somewhere in the £35,000–£45,000 range annually, and the managed service provider quote sitting in your inbox looks steeper on a monthly basis. Case closed, right? Except that comparison is a bit like comparing the price of a car to the price of a taxi ride and concluding the car is always cheaper — you’ve only counted the fuel, not the insurance, the repairs, the parking, or the years it sits idle in the driveway. When founders and small teams make IT staffing decisions this way, they’re not comparing costs. They’re comparing two different categories of financial and operational risk and pretending they’re the same number.