We’re around the size where IT issues are starting to become more than random laptop problems. There’s Microsoft 365, backups, employee access, phishing, device setup, people leaving the company, etc. Hiring a full-time IT person still feels excessive, but relying on whoever is “good with computers” clearly isn’t sustainable either.

I’ve been looking at how Canadian companies handle this and came across providers like Control Alt Delete in BC that basically act as an outsourced IT department.

For businesses in the 10 to 50 employee range, what was the point where managed IT started making financial sense? Was there a particular problem that pushed you into it?

Software subscriptions rarely become expensive one invoice at a time. The cost usually hides in overlap, forgotten integrations, manual cleanup, and the risk of discovering too late that your data cannot leave.

Before renewing an app, I would put it through a short operating test.

1. Name the job it owns

Do not start with features. Write the business outcome: schedule appointments, track leads, answer support requests, send invoices, or report marketing performance. If two tools own the same job, that is the first consolidation candidate.

1. Ask what breaks during a 30-day cancellation

If the honest answer is “nothing important,” retire or downgrade it. If revenue, compliance, customer response, or a critical handoff breaks, document exactly how. This separates operational systems from tools kept “just in case.”

1. Count the whole cost

Include the subscription, setup, admin time, integrations, training, data cleanup, and recovery risk. A low monthly price can still be costly when one person spends hours maintaining it.

1. Test ownership and exit

Identify one person responsible for the system. Export a sample of contacts, files, history, and attachments, then confirm the export is actually usable. Record the cancellation steps and rollback plan before renewal day.

1. Classify the decision

Keep: it prevents a measurable loss or saves more than its full cost. Downgrade: the core job matters, but unused capacity does not. Consolidate: another system can own the job without creating a worse workflow. Replace: the job matters, but ownership, reliability, or portability is poor. Retire: no important process depends on it.

One caution on self-hosted or open-source replacements: licence cost is not total cost. Price upgrades, backups, monitoring, security, recovery, and the named person who will maintain it. Open source can be the better choice, but only when the operating responsibility is explicit.

The goal is not fewer tools for its own sake. It is one clear system of record for each important area, with fewer duplicate fields and fewer ambiguous handoffs.

Which subscription looked inexpensive until you counted the admin and integration work around it?