Category: Uncategorized

MSP Valuation: How UK MSPs Are Valued and What Yours Could Be Worth

Many MSP owners carry a rough figure for what their business is worth. It usually comes from a multiple someone mentioned at a channel event, or from what a peer sold for. That figure can be a long way from what a buyer would pay, and the gap is often large enough to change an owner’s plans.

This guide explains how UK MSPs are valued, what multiples they typically sell for, which factors move the multiple up or down, and how much difference pricing and profitability make. It is useful whether you plan to sell in two years, in ten, or never.

If you want a figure for your own business first, the MSP valuation calculator takes about two minutes and needs only your revenue, EBITDA and recurring revenue mix.

How MSPs are valued

UK MSP acquisitions are usually priced as a multiple of adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation).

Valuation = adjusted EBITDA × multiple

Adjusted EBITDA is your profit after a buyer has made some corrections. The most common is replacing whatever the owner pays themselves with a market-rate salary for the role they perform. Buyers also remove one-off costs or income, and personal expenses run through the business. If you pay yourself a small salary and take the rest as dividends, your adjusted EBITDA will be lower than your accounts suggest.

The multiple reflects how confident the buyer is that those earnings will continue and grow. Two MSPs with the same EBITDA can receive very different offers, because one has predictable, contracted revenue and the other depends on a few clients and its owner.

Revenue multiples appear in some smaller deals, usually where the buyer is mainly acquiring a contract base. They tend to produce a lower figure than a well-run MSP would achieve on an EBITDA basis.

What multiples UK MSPs sell for

Published M&A market data, including Aventis Advisors’ analysis of MSP transactions, suggests that UK MSP transactions have generally landed between 3.5x and 7x adjusted EBITDA in recent years. Where a business sits in that range depends mainly on its size and the quality of its earnings.

Size has a clear effect. Aventis Advisors’ analysis of MSP transactions, which covers international deals and was updated in 2026, puts the smallest businesses, with revenue under $1–2 million, at around 3–4x EBITDA, and smaller companies generally at 5–8x. The median across the 120 transactions it analysed was around 8.9x, but the median deal in that sample was worth $38.5 million, far larger than a typical owner-led UK MSP. Larger MSPs attract more buyers, including private equity, and are seen as lower risk.

For a typical owner-led UK MSP with £1–5 million of revenue, a realistic starting range is around 3.5x to 6x. Quality factors can move a business by up to about 1.5x in either direction within that range.

What moves your multiple up or down

Buyers look for evidence that revenue will continue after the sale and that the business can run without its founder. These are the factors they examine most closely.

Factor	Raises the multiple	Lowers the multiple
Recurring revenue	A high share of revenue from contracted monthly services	Recurring revenue below around 60%, with a large share from projects and hardware
Contracts	Multi-year agreements with auto-renewal and 90-day or longer notice periods	Month-to-month terms, or services delivered without signed contracts
Client concentration	Revenue spread across many clients	One client providing more than around 20% of revenue
Retention	Low churn, with clients who have stayed for years	Regular client losses that have to be replaced to stand still
Growth	Steady year-on-year growth	Flat or falling revenue
Owner dependence	A management team that runs sales, service and key relationships	An owner who is involved in every sale and every major client
Security capability	A defined cybersecurity practice with recurring security services	Security handled ad hoc, or not offered
Specialisation	Recognised depth in one or two sectors	A generalist offer competing mainly on price

Many of these factors come back to how well the business serves its clients. Clients who get clear results stay longer, sign longer contracts and accept price increases, which is exactly what a buyer is paying for.

Worked example: the effect of margin and multiple

Take an MSP with £4 million of revenue, of which £3 million is managed services. After adjustments, its EBITDA margin is 12%, so adjusted EBITDA is £480,000. With patchy contracts and one large client, a buyer might offer 4x, valuing the business at around £1.9 million.

Lever 1: pricing. An 8% increase on the £3 million of managed services adds £240,000 of revenue. The cost of delivering those services does not change, so adjusted EBITDA rises to £720,000. At the same 4x multiple, the business is now worth around £2.9 million, an increase of about £960,000 from the price change alone.

Lever 2: quality. If the owner also moves clients onto longer contracts, reduces dependence on the largest client and hands day-to-day management to a team, the multiple could move towards 5x or more. Every half-point of multiple on £720,000 of EBITDA is worth £360,000.

These figures are illustrative, and the right numbers depend on your business. The principle holds for many MSPs: pricing is usually the fastest way to raise EBITDA, and the quality factors decide how much each pound of EBITDA is worth. The MSP price increase case study shows an 8% increase in practice: the client kept every customer and grew profit by 43%.

Why your MSP may be worth less than you think

Your EBITDA gets adjusted down. Paying yourself below market rate flatters your profit. A buyer will correct it.
Revenue you count as recurring is not contracted. Buyers discount services delivered without signed, current agreements.
The business depends on you. If clients call you directly and sales run through you, the buyer is taking a risk that you will not be there, and prices that in, often through an earn-out.
Prices have not moved in years. Low prices hold down margins, and buyers can see the gap between your pricing and the market’s.

All of these can be fixed, but they take time. Tightening contracts and client concentration can show results within a year. Building a security practice or changing your revenue mix usually takes longer. Planning 12 to 24 months ahead gives you more options.

How to increase what your MSP is worth

Work out your adjusted EBITDA with a market-rate salary for yourself, so you start from the figure a buyer would use.
Review your pricing. If you have not raised prices in two years or more, start here. The guide to communicating a price increase includes letter templates.
Put every client on a current contract with a sensible term and notice period.
Reduce concentration by growing other accounts, and review which clients are worth keeping. A client scorecard helps.
Step back from day-to-day delivery so the business runs without you.

The six fixes that improve MSP profitability and valuation cover these areas in more detail.

Next step

Use the MSP valuation calculator to get an indicative figure for your business and see which factors are holding the multiple down.

If you want to see where your pricing stands, the MSP Pricing Scorecard takes three minutes and gives you a score and a full report by email.

Valuation multiples in this article are indicative, based on published M&A market data, and are not financial advice. Individual valuations depend on the specific circumstances of each business.

28 September, 2026

Should You Fire a Client? How to Decide Using a Client Scorecard

A business owner once told me, with some pride, that they had never lost a customer. I asked whether they enjoyed working with all of them. They admitted a few were difficult: always asking for free work or discounts, disliked by the team, and never given a price increase because the owner could not face the argument.

Those clients were taking a large share of the team’s time, holding down margins and making the work less enjoyable. A retention rate of 100% was hiding the problem.

This guide explains how to decide whether a client is worth keeping, using two simple scorecards: one before a client signs and one while you work with them. It includes example scorecards you can adapt and the options you have when a client scores badly.

Why keeping every client can hurt your business

Many owners treat retention as a score where higher is always better. The costs of a poor-fit client rarely show up clearly in the accounts. They show up in time spent on rework, scope arguments, late payments and a tired team.

A marketing consultant I worked with had a client paying £1,800 a month. On paper it looked like a good account. When we added up the hours the team spent on it and the effect it had on morale, the client was costing the business money.

Owners usually keep clients like this for three reasons: worry about replacing the revenue, reluctance to have a difficult conversation, and concern about what the client might say to others. Meanwhile the time those clients take up is time the business cannot give to clients who value the work and pay properly for it.

Some client turnover is healthy. Needs change, key contacts move on and your business moves in a different direction. The aim is to decide deliberately which clients to keep, using criteria you have set in advance, so the decision rests on evidence you can point to.

Case study: how scoring cut churn at a logistics company

A global logistics company came to me losing 35% of its clients every year. The leadership team believed the problem was in customer service. When we looked at the whole client lifecycle, the cause turned out to be earlier.

The company mainly served American businesses expanding into Europe. The offer was attractive and plenty of companies signed up, but many left after about six months. They liked the idea of expanding into Europe but were not ready to do it.

We built a scoring system that rated prospects on five factors:

Product fit for European markets
Previous experience with third-party logistics
Language capabilities
Understanding of UK and EU regulations
Marketing plans for European customers

The scores predicted which clients were likely to leave within six months. Early terminations fell by 55%. Over the following three years revenue grew by 140% while the team’s workload fell by 20%.

The company did not simply turn low-scoring prospects away. The scores showed a gap in the market, and the company built a new service line that helps businesses prepare for European expansion. Prospects who were not ready became clients of that service first.

Scorecard 1: before a client signs

A pre-engagement scorecard helps you spot poor-fit clients before you commit. Choose five to eight factors that predict a successful engagement in your business, and score each from 1 to 5. The example below suits many service businesses; replace any factor that does not apply to yours.

Factor	Scores 1 if…	Scores 5 if…
Budget fit	They want your full service at well below your price	Your price is within their budget without negotiation
Readiness	They like the idea but cannot act on it yet	They have the people, time and data to start now
Decision-making	Several people must approve, and you have not met them	You are speaking to the person who decides
Provider history	They have been through several providers recently	They have long relationships with their suppliers
Openness to advice	They want you to do exactly what they say	They ask for your view and act on it
Fit with what you do best	The work sits at the edge of your services	The work is what you do best

Set a threshold before you start using it. With six factors, a total below 18 out of 30 might mean you walk away, or that you address the weak areas before signing (for example, a paid discovery phase for a client who is not yet ready).

Being clear about what a good client looks like also improves your marketing and sales conversations, because you know which prospects to spend time on.

Scorecard 2: while you work with a client

Client relationships change. A new finance director may care only about cost, or a client who used to accept your advice may start questioning every recommendation. Score every client each quarter against factors like these.

Factor	Scores 1 if…	Scores 5 if…
Profitability	The time spent is out of proportion to the fee	Margin on the account is at or above your target
Scope discipline	Regular requests for work outside the agreement	Changes are raised and paid for properly
Payment	Invoices are regularly late	Invoices are paid on time
Results	They are not getting value from the work	They can point to results from your work
Ease of working together	The team dreads their calls	The team enjoys the work
Growth potential	No prospect of the account growing	Clear scope to do more for them

Agree in advance what happens when a client falls below your threshold, for example two quarters in a row. Scoring is most useful as an early warning, because it lets you raise problems while the relationship can still be fixed. Clients who value the work usually respond well to an open conversation about the scores. A client who will not engage with the facts has given you useful information too.

What to do with a low-scoring client

Ending the relationship is one option of several.

Reset expectations. A frank conversation about scope, communication or payment can change the relationship.
Adjust the price. If the account takes more time than it pays for, raise the price to reflect the work. The client will either pay a fair rate or leave, and both outcomes improve your position.
Offer a different service model. A simpler, lower-touch package may suit them better and take less of your time.
Help them move on. Introduce them to a provider that suits them better, and hand over properly so the relationship ends well.

A client who is wrong for you is often not getting your best work either. Helping them find a better fit is usually good for both sides.

Next step

Score your current clients against the second scorecard this month. Many owners find a few accounts that take far more time than they pay for. Decide which of the four options above fits each one.

If you would like help building scorecards around your own client journey, customer journey mapping is where that work starts. For a wider view of your pricing, profitability and client base, the Value Transformation Assessment gives you a picture in around five minutes.

If you run an MSP, the MSP case study shows how one IT company improved profit without taking on new clients.

4 September, 2026

How to Explain Your Value-Based Pricing to Clients (Without Losing the Room)
Many service business owners understand the theory of value-based pricing. The harder part is explaining their pricing to clients.
It’s easier to just fall back on hours, day rates and a list of deliverables, because those feel defensible. And the moment you defend a price based on these inputs, you have invited the client to compare those inputs with someone else’s cheaper ones.
Knowing how to explain value-based pricing to clients is a skill, and like many skills it comes down to a repeatable structure. Here is the one I use with my own clients, along with what to say when you get pushback.
Why These Conversations Go Wrong
The problem is usually the order in which things get discussed.
In a typical proposal conversation, the provider explains what they will do, lists the deliverables, and then reveals the price. The client has been given no frame for that number except the deliverables, so they do the only rational thing available to them: they compare the number against other quotes for similar-looking deliverables. At that point your service has become a commodity.
This is a problem with how the conversation is set up. Clients compare on price when price is the only comparable thing they have been given. If you want the full grounding on why this happens and how value-based pricing fixes it, our complete guide covers the model in depth. This article is about the conversation itself.
The Three-Part Structure: Outcome, Approach, Price
The fix is sequencing. Talk about the client’s outcome first, your approach second, and the investment (price) last. The price should come at the end, as the logical conclusion of the conversation.
Step 1: Anchor in their outcome, in their numbers
Start with the result the client is buying, expressed in figures they gave you. “You told me a day of downtime costs you around £8,000, and you had four last year.” Now you are talking about removing a £32,000 problem.
This only works if you did the discovery properly. If you do not know what the problem costs the client, you cannot anchor to it, which is why the discovery work before the proposal matters so much. Ask about the cost of the problem, the cost of it continuing, and what solving it would let them do next.
Step 2: Connect your work to that outcome, briefly
Explain how what you do produces the result, in one or two sentences. Avoid itemising. Clients pay for the finished meal, and a list of ingredients is easy to compare on price. The more you list, the more you invite line-by-line comparison with a cheaper list.
Step 3: Present the price as a share of the value
“The programme is £12,000. Set against the £32,000 this has been costing you each year, it pays for itself in the first five months.” Framed this way, the client compares your fee to their gain. That is the purpose of the structure: it changes what the number is measured against.
What to Say When a Client Pushes Back
A common objection is some version of “another provider quoted less for the same thing.” When you pitch a value-based approach, it usually is not the same thing. The way to say so without sounding defensive is to return to the outcome.
“If the cheaper option gets you the same result, you should take it. What we are pricing is the outcome we have agreed and the accountability for delivering it.” Said calmly, this comes across as confidence in the results you will deliver. A prospect who only wants the cheapest inputs is telling you something useful about fit before you have signed anything: they are unlikely to be a good client.
For existing clients who you are looking to move onto a value-based model, the usual objection is something like “Why has the price changed?” That is a different conversation, because there is a relationship and a pricing history involved, and you need to frame it properly. We have covered it step by step in how to communicate a price increase to clients. The short version: two-stage notice, lead with the value they will receive, and don’t apologise for pricing your work properly.
The Language Mistakes That Invite a Price Comparison
A few phrases can undermine a value conversation, however well structured it is.
Justifying the price with your costs. “Our overheads have gone up” and “that is the market rate” mean nothing to the client. They shift the conversation to your economics, which the client has no reason to care about. Every sentence in a pricing conversation should be about what changes for them.
Apologising for the number. “I know it is a lot, but…” tells the client you do not believe the price yourself. If you do not believe it, the client will not either.
Offering a discount before being asked. Pre-emptive discounting signals that the original price was padding. It trains clients to wait, because they learn the real price usually turns out to be lower.
Quoting a range. “Somewhere between £8,000 and £12,000” means the client usually hears £8,000. Anchor to a single figure tied to a defined outcome. If you offer options, structure each one around a different outcome.
Where to Start This Week
Pick your next proposal conversation and prepare the three parts in advance. Write down the client’s outcome in their numbers, the one or two sentences that connect your work to it, and the price framed as a share of the value. Then have the conversation in that order and see how the client responds to the price.
If you are not confident your current prices reflect the value you deliver, that is the thing to fix first. A Pricing Health Check will show you where you stand and where the quickest gains are.
If you run an MSP, the MSP Pricing Scorecard takes three minutes and gives you a score and a full report by email.
11 July, 2026
AI Isn’t Killing Web Design Agencies. It’s Exposing the Ones With Weak Offers.
I recently posted on LinkedIn about the pressure AI is putting on web design agencies. It generated a lot of discussion, and some of the responses were more interesting than the original post. So I wanted to go deeper on this, because the underlying issue matters well beyond web design.
Let’s start with what prompted it.
The £299 WordPress site is already under pressure
There are web design agencies across the UK right now selling WordPress brochure websites from around £299. Some charge more, some less, but the point is that there’s a huge market of agencies whose core offering is: give us some money, we’ll build you a website.
The problem is that AI website builders like Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and a growing number of newer tools can now generate a complete, responsive site from a text description. In many cases, the result is perfectly adequate for a small business that just needs a functional online presence. Plans typically run from free to around £30 a month.
This is already happening.
When I shared this observation on LinkedIn, the responses fell into some predictable patterns, and a few that were genuinely useful.
The defensive response: “AI websites are terrible”
Several web developers pushed back hard. The argument was essentially that AI-built websites are poor quality, have no real UX thinking behind them, and that the whole “agencies are doomed” narrative is overblown.
There’s some truth in that. AI-generated sites can be generic. They don’t understand your brand the way a human designer does. The code isn’t always clean.
The weakness in that argument is that the quality bar for a basic brochure site is lower than many web professionals think. A local plumber needs a site that loads fast, looks professional enough, shows their phone number clearly, and has some decent reviews on it. A custom design system adds little for them. AI can do that already, and it’s getting better quickly.
The defensive response is understandable. Nobody likes being told that what they sell is becoming commoditised. But ignoring the change won’t protect anyone’s margins.
What people in the industry are already seeing
More telling were the comments from people in the industry who shared real examples. One commenter described quoting against agencies selling basic websites for $500 to $800, only to find the same clients asking why they’d pay that when AI tools can generate something in 30 seconds.
Another pointed out that hiring a developer for a brochure website will soon be a thing of the past, and that the focus needs to shift to outcomes, problem solving, expertise, and personal relationships.
These are observations from people watching it happen in their own businesses right now.
AI is exposing weak agency offers
One comment summed it up well: AI is exposing weak offers, and that is a different problem from agencies being replaced.
I agree.
If your web design agency sells “a WordPress website” as the product, you’re selling a deliverable. A thing. And when AI can produce a comparable version of that thing for a fraction of the cost, your pricing collapses. It doesn’t matter how good your code is, how clean your CSS is, or how many years of experience you have. If the client can’t tell the difference between your output and what AI produces, you have a positioning problem.
The agencies that will thrive are the ones selling something AI genuinely can’t replicate: strategic thinking about what the website needs to achieve, deep understanding of the client’s customers and market, conversion expertise, ongoing optimisation based on real data, and a trusted advisory relationship where the agency acts as a partner to the client.
Clients will keep paying an agency for the business results a website produces. My Value Transformation Assessment looks at this in more detail for your own business.
Can AI handle the strategy work too?
One of the more challenging responses raised an interesting point. What happens when AI can plug into heatmaps and analytics, advise on why visitors aren’t converting, build strategy around commercial goals, and proactively adapt based on performance data?
It’s a fair question, and the honest answer is that AI is already doing some of this. Tools exist that can analyse conversion paths, suggest layout changes, and run multivariate tests automatically.
But analysis and judgement are different skills. AI can tell you that visitors are leaving your contact page without getting in touch. It can even suggest changes. What it can’t do is sit across the table from your client, understand that their real problem is that they’re targeting the wrong customer segment entirely, and help them rethink their go-to-market strategy.
The client doesn’t necessarily care whether you’re using AI tools in the background. They care about results. If you’re the person who helps them understand why their business isn’t growing and what to do about it, you’re a trusted partner. If you’re the person who builds them a website and sends an invoice, you’re a supplier who’s about to be replaced by software.
Functional and premium purchases: Premier Inn and The Dorchester
Another commenter drew a useful comparison between functional purchases and emotional ones. A Premier Inn room does the job. It’s clean, consistent, and reasonably priced. The Dorchester is a different product entirely. There you pay for the experience, the status, and the relationship as well as the bed.
AI website builders are the Premier Inn of web design. They’ll do the functional job well enough for many basic needs. The question for agencies is: are you selling Premier Inn rooms and trying to charge Dorchester prices? Or have you genuinely built a Dorchester-level service?
Many agencies sit somewhere in between, and that’s uncomfortable for them. They’re charging more than the AI tools but not offering enough differentiation to justify it. Margins get squeezed hardest in that middle ground.
What this means if you run a web design agency
If you’re reading this and recognising some of these patterns in your own business, here are a few things worth considering.
First, look honestly at what you’re actually selling. If your proposals are structured around deliverables (homepage design, 5 inner pages, contact form, SEO setup), you’re selling a list of outputs, and that’s the offer AI can undercut. Restructuring your proposals around business outcomes (increased lead generation, improved conversion rates, measurable revenue impact) moves the conversation on to the value you create. I cover how to do that in how to position your services as an investment.
Second, think about your client relationships. Are you a supplier who gets a brief, builds a thing, and moves on? Or are you a partner who understands the client’s business, tracks what’s working, and proactively advises on improvements? The first role is easy to replace. The second is much harder to replace.
Third, consider your pricing model. If you’re still charging fixed project fees for website builds, every improvement in AI tools puts downward pressure on what you can charge. Retainer-based pricing tied to ongoing value, where your fees are linked to the outcomes you deliver, creates a much more defensible business.
Finally, use AI yourself. The agencies that will do best are the ones using AI to speed up the commodity parts of their work (initial layouts, first-draft copy, code scaffolding) while investing more time in the strategic, relationship-driven work that AI can’t do.
The same pressure applies to other service businesses
Web design agencies are just the most visible example right now because the AI tools are so tangible. You can watch an AI build a website in real time. It’s dramatic and it gets attention.
The same dynamic is playing out across many service businesses where the core offering can be described as a deliverable. IT support, bookkeeping, marketing, recruitment, consulting. If you can reduce what you do to a checklist of tasks, AI will likely do those tasks cheaper and faster in time.
The businesses that survive and grow will be the ones that have moved from deliverables to outcomes, from supplier relationships to trusted partnerships, and from cost-based pricing to value-based pricing.
It’s an uncomfortable message, but an honest one.
Check how exposed your business is to AI
I’ve built a free assessment specifically for service businesses that want to understand how defensible they are against AI disruption. It takes about five minutes, and you’ll get an immediate score across four areas: replaceability, pricing resilience, supplier vs trusted partner positioning, and adaptability.
It gives you an honest view of where you’re strong and where the gaps are.
Take the AI-Proof Assessment here.
6 March, 2026
6 things every MSP should fix to improve profitability and business valuation
If you’re running an MSP and you’ve ever thought about improving your margins, or even considered what your business might be worth if you sold it one day, there are a handful of things that make a big difference.
None of them are complicated. But many MSPs I work with aren’t doing all of them, and some aren’t doing any.
Here are six of them.
If you’d like a number to anchor this against before you start, our free MSP valuation calculator gives you an indicative valuation in about two minutes, based on the same factors covered below.
1. Move away from break-fix
This one comes first because it matters most.
If the majority of your revenue still comes from ad-hoc break-fix support, it’s going to hold back both your profitability and your valuation. Buyers and investors want predictable, recurring revenue. They want to see a business that generates income whether or not something breaks on a Tuesday afternoon.
Break-fix revenue is unpredictable by nature. It’s hard to forecast, hard to staff for, and it positions you as reactive. If you’re still predominantly break-fix, transitioning to managed services contracts should be your number one priority.
2. Get customers onto annual (or longer) contracts
Monthly rolling agreements are a step up from break-fix, but they’re not great for valuation purposes either. A buyer looking at your business wants to see committed, contracted revenue that’s going to stick around.
The higher your percentage of clients on 12-month or longer contracts, the more predictable your revenue looks, both to a potential buyer and to your own cashflow planning. It also gives you a much stronger foundation for planning investments in your team and technology.
If you’re nervous about asking clients to commit, consider this: clients who are happy with your service are usually comfortable signing an annual contract, especially if there’s a small incentive to do so.
3. Track support margins and project margins separately
This is one of the most common gaps I see.
Many MSPs have one set of accounts that blends everything together. Support revenue, project revenue, all the costs, one big number at the bottom. The problem is, you can’t tell whether your recurring support business is genuinely profitable on its own.
And that matters, because when someone values your business, they’ll look at the recurring support revenue with a much higher multiple than project work. Project revenue is lumpy and unpredictable. Support revenue, if it’s profitable and growing, is where the real value sits.
Separating these out doesn’t require a new accounting system. It just requires some discipline in how you allocate costs and report your numbers. Once you can see both margins clearly, you’ll make better decisions about where to focus, what to price, and what to fix.
4. Know your per-customer profitability
Not all customers are equal. Some are profitable, some are breaking even, and some are actively costing you money once you factor in the support time, the scope creep, and the constant back-and-forth.
Many MSPs have never properly worked this out. They have a general sense of who the “difficult” customers are, but they haven’t put actual numbers against it.
Until you do, you can’t make good decisions about pricing, retention, or where your team’s time is best spent. You might find that your largest customer by revenue is actually one of your least profitable. Or that a smaller client you’ve been neglecting is delivering excellent margins.
This is also where a client scoring system becomes useful. By rating clients across factors like profitability, payment behaviour, cultural fit, and growth potential, you can make objective decisions about who to invest in, who needs a pricing conversation, and who might be better served by someone else.
5. Stop selling a menu of services
Many MSPs present their services like a restaurant menu. Network monitoring, backup, helpdesk, security, cloud services, all listed out and priced individually. The client picks what they want, compares your menu to someone else’s, and chooses on price.
That’s commodity positioning, and it reduces your margins.
Instead, package your services around the outcomes your clients actually care about. They don’t want “network monitoring” as an abstract concept. They want their systems to work reliably so their team can focus on their jobs. They want to know they’re protected and that someone competent is handling the technology so they don’t have to think about it.
When you sell outcomes, the price conversation changes. Clients judge you on the value of the result you deliver, which makes a line-by-line comparison with a cheaper competitor much harder.
6. Build in an annual price review process
If you haven’t raised prices in two or three years while your costs have gone up (salaries, licensing, tools, insurance, the usual), you’re effectively earning less every year. Your margins shrink each year, and many MSPs don’t notice until it has become a real problem.
Building an annual pricing review into your business is essential. How you communicate it matters just as much. Give clients proper notice, explain what you’re investing in, focus on the value they continue to receive, and don’t apologise for it. We cover the wording and timing in how to communicate a price increase to clients.
Many clients expect annual increases. The ones who leave over a reasonable adjustment were usually not great clients to begin with. For a worked example, see this MSP price increase case study, where an IT company raised prices without losing a single client.
Where does your MSP stand?
Many MSPs I work with are technically excellent. They deliver great service and their clients genuinely value what they do. Yet they compete as if they’re a commodity, because they haven’t addressed the positioning, pricing, and packaging issues that separate a good MSP from a premium one.
Small changes in these areas can make a significant difference to profitability. And if you’re ever thinking about selling, they can significantly increase what your business is worth.
If you want to see where your MSP’s pricing, profitability and valuation stand, and what to change first, the Value Transformation Assessment gives you a picture in around five minutes.
The free MSP Pricing Scorecard takes three minutes. It checks how you set and raise prices, how you package and prove your services, and how your client conversations about price go. It shows where margin is being lost and what to fix first.
27 February, 2026

Category: Uncategorized

MSP Valuation: How UK MSPs Are Valued and What Yours Could Be Worth

How MSPs are valued

What multiples UK MSPs sell for

What moves your multiple up or down

Worked example: the effect of margin and multiple

Why your MSP may be worth less than you think

How to increase what your MSP is worth

Next step

Should You Fire a Client? How to Decide Using a Client Scorecard

Why keeping every client can hurt your business

Case study: how scoring cut churn at a logistics company

Scorecard 1: before a client signs

Scorecard 2: while you work with a client

What to do with a low-scoring client

Next step

How to Explain Your Value-Based Pricing to Clients (Without Losing the Room)

Why These Conversations Go Wrong

The Three-Part Structure: Outcome, Approach, Price

Step 1: Anchor in their outcome, in their numbers

Step 2: Connect your work to that outcome, briefly

Step 3: Present the price as a share of the value

What to Say When a Client Pushes Back

The Language Mistakes That Invite a Price Comparison

Where to Start This Week

AI Isn’t Killing Web Design Agencies. It’s Exposing the Ones With Weak Offers.

The £299 WordPress site is already under pressure

The defensive response: “AI websites are terrible”

What people in the industry are already seeing

AI is exposing weak agency offers

Can AI handle the strategy work too?

Functional and premium purchases: Premier Inn and The Dorchester

What this means if you run a web design agency

The same pressure applies to other service businesses

Check how exposed your business is to AI

6 things every MSP should fix to improve profitability and business valuation

1. Move away from break-fix

2. Get customers onto annual (or longer) contracts

3. Track support margins and project margins separately

4. Know your per-customer profitability

5. Stop selling a menu of services

6. Build in an annual price review process

Where does your MSP stand?