Managed IT with a consequence attached
Every IT company promises great service. We publish our response times in the agreement — and if we miss one, service credits are applied automatically. You never have to ask.
Free, no obligation, around 30 minutes.
The risky part is the handover. We take that risk
We run in parallel with your current provider for thirty days, and nothing is switched off until we have proven it working on our side.
Around ninety days end to end.
Spare devices in your building, not our warehouse
A failed laptop should be a ten minute problem, not a three day one spent waiting on a courier, a supplier and a purchase order.
Standard on every managed service agreement.
A price on the page, and a way out if we fail
Around $250 per user per month, fixed after the assessment. Miss your service levels three months running and you can leave on three months' notice — and we move you to your new provider for nothing.
Two months free on 12, six on three years, twelve on five.
Every business deserves what the enterprise takes for granted
Twenty years inside this industry taught us that the gap between what a global enterprise receives and what a fifty-person business receives has very little to do with technology. Both run the same operating systems, the same cloud platforms, the same security tools. The difference is what the provider is willing to commit to.
Large organisations have the leverage to insist on published response times, tested recovery, real reporting and a penalty when it slips. Everybody else is handed a brochure and told to be grateful for it. That is not a technology problem, it is an expectations problem — and it has been allowed to stand for a very long time.
Read your current agreement. There is a response time in it, and almost certainly nothing that happens if it is missed. That gap — between what was promised and what anyone is actually accountable for — is where poor service lives, and closing it is the reason we exist.
We built Lacuna to do exactly that. To bring businesses of any size the standard of service that, until now, only the largest ones have had the power to demand.
Raising what you expect from a provider matters more to us than winning your contract.
Most IT problems are not technical
They are accountability problems. Nobody is measuring how long anything takes, nothing happens when it slips, and eventually your staff stop reporting faults at all — so the real cost never appears on anyone's report.
Your people stopped telling you
When raising a ticket feels pointless, people work around problems instead. Ask around and you will find someone who has quietly given up — and whatever they have stopped reporting is invisible to everyone above them.
Nobody can say how long things take
No ticketing means no record, and no record means no argument. The problems that get fixed are the ones raised by whoever is most persistent, rather than the ones costing you the most.
The invoice is never the real cost
Forty people losing half a day is roughly $6,000 in salaried time. Six of those a year dwarfs almost any support contract — it is simply harder to see, because it never arrives as a bill.
You have become the escalation path
When something serious breaks, the person chasing it is you. That is the clearest sign the arrangement is not working, and it is the part no provider ever puts on a report.
What we put in writing
Standard on every managed service agreement. Not a premium tier, not something you negotiate for, not an upgrade.
Service credits
Miss a published response time and credits are applied to your account automatically. No claim form, no process, nothing to prove. Being slow costs us money — that is the entire point.
Hot-spare devices
Replacement machines live in your building, already configured. A failed laptop becomes a ten minute problem instead of a three day one waiting on a courier and a purchase order.
Unlimited support
One monthly cost covering remote and onsite support. No per-incident billing, so nobody on your team hesitates before asking for help, and no surprise invoice after a difficult month.
Published response times
P1 through P4 defined in the agreement with a target against each. Response means a named engineer working on it, not an automated acknowledgement landing in your inbox.
An exit if we fail
Miss your service levels three months running and you can end the agreement on three months' notice, on any term. And if it comes to that, we move you to your new provider free of charge.
Monthly reporting
What happened, how fast we responded, what we fixed and what we did not. Sent whether the month was good or bad, with a quarterly review about outcomes rather than ticket counts.
The whole estate, one agreement
One contract, one number to call, one monthly cost. We take responsibility for all of it rather than the parts that are convenient.
Service desk
The day to day. Named engineers who know your estate rather than a rota of strangers reading a script, with every request tracked and measured.
End user computing
Laptops, desktops and mobiles from procurement through build, deployment and replacement — including the hot spares held on your site.
Networks & connectivity
Firewalls, switching, wireless and the links between your sites and the cloud. Monitored continuously rather than checked when something breaks.
Cyber security
Endpoint protection, patching, access control and multi-factor authentication as standard, with monitoring and a documented response when something is found.
Cloud & infrastructure
Servers, storage and the platforms the business actually runs on — in your building, in a data centre or in Microsoft 365. Capacity, resilience and backup included, with restores tested quarterly and the results sent to you.
Service management
Monthly reporting, a quarterly review and a forward plan for the estate. The part most providers skip, and the part that stops problems recurring.
The projects that get you there
The managed service keeps the estate you already have running properly. These are the pieces of work that change it — each one quoted on its own, always before anything starts.
How project work is priced
Microsoft 365 & Entra ID
Tenant design, migration from on-premises or from another provider, licence rationalisation, and conditional access with multi-factor authentication enforced properly rather than left optional.
Cloud & server migration
Moving line-of-business applications and file services off ageing hardware into Azure or a hosted platform — sized on what you actually use, rather than on whatever the last server was specified for.
Networks & connectivity
Firewalls, switching, wireless surveys, links between sites and failover circuits — designed so that a single line going down is an inconvenience rather than a closure.
Security & compliance evidence
Endpoint detection and response, email security, phishing simulation, and the written policies and evidence pack your insurer or auditor is going to ask for before they ask for it.
Backup & disaster recovery
Offsite replication, a documented recovery time you can hand to your insurer, and a restore that has actually been tested rather than one everybody assumes would work.
Business telephony
Cloud phone systems and Teams Phone, call flows that match how the business actually answers, and number porting handled without a day of silence in the middle of it.
Five stages, in this order
Switching provider is the genuinely risky part, not the running. This is how we take that risk instead of handing it to you.
01Recognise — evaluate, understand, engage
We audit what you actually run, not what the last provider documented — every device, every licence, every system, every dependency, including the things nobody remembers buying. It takes two weeks and roughly two hours of your team's time in total, and you get the written assessment regardless of whether you go any further with us.
- Full inventory of devices, licences, systems and connectivity
- Recovery position tested rather than assumed
- Risks ranked by business impact, not by technical severity
02Consult — advise, collaborate, aim
We show you what we found and agree the order things get fixed in. You set the priorities — the commonest bad experience with a new provider is being told what matters rather than being asked. Everything is costed before anything starts, so there is no point at which the number moves without you having agreed to it first.
03Adapt — align, design, prepare
The gaps carrying real risk get closed first, on a plan you can see. We run in parallel with your existing arrangement for the first thirty days, and nothing is switched off until we have proven it working on our side.
- Parallel running so there is no cliff edge
- Documentation produced as we go, and it is yours
- Your current provider stays until the handover is proven
04Outcomes — transform, implement, deliver
Changes land and we report what moved. Not activity, not ticket volumes — the specific risks that are now closed and the ones still open with a date against them. This is also the point at which the service credits and response times start applying, so the commitments become measurable from day one rather than after a settling-in period.
05Manage — proactive, maintain, improve
Proactive monitoring, published response times, monthly reporting and a quarterly review with someone who can actually make decisions. The estate gets a forward plan rather than drifting until something fails. And if any of this stops being true, three consecutive months of missed service levels lets you give notice and leave — which is how you hold us to it rather than having to argue about it.
Tell us what you are running
A few details so the first conversation is useful rather than exploratory. We reply within one business day, usually sooner.
A number, on a page
Depending on what you run. You get the exact figure after the assessment, and it does not move afterwards. Almost nobody in this industry publishes a number — which is precisely why we do.
Everything in that number
No modules, no tiers, no upgrade path, nothing held back for a premium plan. Everything below is in the monthly fee. Project work is the single exception — it is quoted on its own, always before it starts, and running it afterwards is included.
What we commit to
- Service credits applied to your account automatically when we miss a published response time. No claim form, no process, nothing to prove
- Published response times — 15 minutes for a P1, one hour for a P2, four hours for a P3, one business day for a P4. All written into the agreement
- Response means a named engineer working on the problem, not an automated acknowledgement landing in your inbox
- Hot-spare devices kept in your building and already configured, so a failed laptop is a ten minute problem
- An exit if we fail — three consecutive months of missed service levels and you can give three months' notice and end the agreement, on any term and with no penalty
- A free transition if you use that exit — we move you to your new provider at no cost. No exit fee, no offboarding project, no holding the estate hostage on the way out
- Monthly reporting and a quarterly review about outcomes, sent whether the month was a good one or not
How support works
- Unlimited support, remote and onsite. No cap on tickets and no fair-use clause waiting in the small print
- No per-incident billing, so nobody on your team hesitates before asking for help
- No surprise invoice after a difficult month. A bad month is our problem, not yours
- Named engineers who know your estate, rather than a rota of strangers reading from a script
- Every request tracked, so there is an actual record of how long things take and whether it is improving
- Proactive monitoring, so most of it is dealt with before anyone thinks to report it
What we take on
- Service desk — the day to day, for every user, with every request measured
- End user computing — laptops, desktops and mobiles from procurement through build, deployment and replacement
- Networks & connectivity — firewalls, switching, wireless and the links between sites and the cloud
- Cyber security — endpoint protection, patching, access control and multi-factor authentication as standard
- Cloud & infrastructure — servers, storage, Microsoft 365, plus backup with restores tested quarterly
- Service management — reporting, quarterly reviews and a forward plan for the estate
And the risk stays with us
Commit for longer, pay for less
| Term | Months free | Service credits | Hot spares | Exit if we fail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 months | 2 months | Standard | Standard | Standard |
| 3 years | 6 months | Standard | Standard | Standard |
| 5 years | 12 months | Standard | Standard | Standard |
A longer term is cheaper because it lets us invest in your estate properly rather than patching it. And length never means trapped: on any term, including the five year, three consecutive months of missed service levels entitles you to give three months' notice and end the agreement. Nothing is withheld from the shorter terms either — every column above reads the same deliberately.
We are not right for everyone
We would rather say so now than six months into an agreement that was never going to work.
A good fit
- Ten users or more
- Regulated, or handling sensitive client data
- More than one site, or people working across several
- IT failures that stop the business rather than just annoy it
- Wanting one accountable provider instead of several contractors
Probably not
- Under ten users and unregulated — the economics do not work in your favour
- Looking for the cheapest hourly rate
- Wanting someone to call only when something breaks
- Happy with your current arrangement and testing the market
The things people ask first
How much does managed IT actually cost?
Around $250 per user per month for a full managed service. The exact figure depends on what you run — how many servers, how much of the estate is cloud, what compliance obligations you carry — and we give you a fixed number after the assessment. What it includes matters as much as the number, and ours covers unlimited support with no per-incident billing, so the monthly figure is what you actually pay rather than a starting point.
What size business do you work with?
Ten users and above. Below that the economics genuinely do not work in your favour and you would be better served by a local contractor — we will tell you so rather than take the work. The exception is regulated businesses: a six-person dental practice or financial advisor carries obligations that a sixty-person marketing agency does not, and those we are happy to talk to at any size.
What are your response times?
P1, meaning the business is stopped with no workaround, carries a fifteen minute target. P2 is one hour, P3 is four hours, P4 is one business day. Response means a named engineer working on the problem, not an automated acknowledgement — and all four are written into the agreement, with the first three carrying service credits if missed.
How do service credits actually work?
If we miss a published response time, a credit is applied to your next invoice automatically. There is no claim form, no process, and nothing for you to prove or chase. The amounts are not large, and that is not really the point — the point is that being slow costs us money, which is a materially different arrangement from one where it costs us nothing.
What happens if we want to leave?
At the end of the term, you simply leave. Before then, there is one route out on every agreement including the five year: if we miss your service levels for three consecutive months, you can give three months' notice and end it, with no penalty and no negotiation about what the clause meant. And if you leave by that route, we transition you to your new provider free of charge — having failed you, billing you to go would be indefensible. Your documentation, inventory and configurations are yours throughout in any case. We do not hold estates hostage; a provider who has to rely on that has already lost the argument.
Do you replace our internal IT person?
Usually not. Where there is internal IT we normally take the infrastructure, monitoring, out-of-hours and escalation, which frees your person to work on the things that actually need someone who knows your business. We will agree exactly where we stop and they start, in writing, before anything begins — ambiguity there is what makes co-sourcing arrangements fail.
How long does switching take, and how disruptive is it?
Around ninety days end to end, of which the first two weeks are the assessment and require about two hours of your team's time. We run in parallel with your existing arrangement for the first thirty days and nothing is switched off until we have proven it working on our side, so your current provider stays in place until the handover is complete.
Where are you based?
Lacuna is a UK registered company serving clients in the United States. Support is delivered remotely by our service desk, with onsite attendance arranged where your agreement includes it. Our privacy policy covers both UK and US data protection requirements, and we are happy to walk your compliance team through the arrangement before you commit to anything.
Book a consultation
Around thirty minutes, free, and no obligation. We will ask what you run and what has prompted the conversation, and tell you honestly whether we are the right answer.