What's the average revenue per endpoint for MSPs?

$100-200/endpoint/month for full stack. Lower end is basic RMM/AV. Higher end includes security stack, backup, vCIO, and compliance. Know your number and trend it monthly.

What percentage of MSP revenue should be recurring?

70-80% minimum. Higher is better for valuation and stability. Below 60% means you're running a project shop that happens to do some managed services. That's a harder business to scale and sell.

How do I reduce MSP client churn?

QBRs that matter. Fast response times. Proactive communication. Contracts with teeth. But mostly: pick better clients upfront. Churn is a symptom of bad-fit acquisition.

Where MSP Revenue Actually Leaks (And Why You Don't See It Until It's Too Late)

Most MSP owners don't wake up worried about revenue leakage. They worry about sales, churn, and hiring. Revenue leakage doesn't feel urgent because it's quiet. It doesn't announce itself. It doesn't show up as a single bad decision. It shows up as a drift.

Most MSP owners don't wake up worried about revenue leakage.

They worry about sales.

They worry about churn.

They worry about hiring, utilization, and whether the next quarter pencils.

Revenue leakage doesn't feel urgent because it's quiet. It doesn't announce itself. It doesn't show up as a single bad decision. It shows up as a drift.

You look at your books one day and think, "We're busy. Clients seem happy. Why does this feel tighter than it should?"

That's revenue leakage.

And the uncomfortable truth is this: most leakage happens in places where good people are trying to do the right thing.

Leakage Starts Where Certainty Ends

Revenue doesn't usually leak where things are clearly billable.

It leaks where things are ambiguous.

Ambiguity is the enemy of margin.

Examples you'll recognize immediately:

"This feels like it should be included."
"We've always done it this way for them."
"It's not worth the fight."
"We'll sort it out later."

Later is where revenue goes to disappear.

The Most Expensive Phrase in an MSP: "It'll Only Take a Minute"

This phrase is said dozens of times a day across MSPs.

It's said by good technicians who want to help.

It's said in moments where stopping to ask permission feels inefficient or awkward.

It's said because the line between support, project work, and advisory has blurred.

A single "minute" doesn't matter.

But when:

MFA troubleshooting turns into tenant cleanup
A ticket turns into undocumented consulting
A project turns into ongoing maintenance
An exception becomes expected behavior

You're no longer delivering a service — you're subsidizing one.

Projects Don't Blow Up. They Bleed Out.

Most MSP projects don't fail loudly.

They fail quietly.

A little extra time here.

A workaround there.

A few tickets routed to the service board "just to keep things moving."

By the time the project closes:

The work is done
The client is satisfied
The margin is gone
And no one can point to a single mistake

That's not incompetence. That's lack of structural boundaries.

Projects require friction to stay profitable.

Friction isn't inefficiency — it's protection.

Billing Breaks Where Inventory Isn't Trusted

Every MSP thinks they know:

How many users they manage
How many devices exist
Which licenses are active

Very few prove it regularly.

Licensing drift is one of the most reliable forms of revenue leakage:

Users added but never billed
Tools enabled "temporarily"
Security features turned on during incidents
Devices that outlive their invoices

If billing is not continuously reconciled against reality, billing becomes aspirational.

Reality always wins.

Exceptions Are Where Strategy Goes to Die

Most MSPs don't design exceptions.

They accumulate them.

One client gets special handling.

Another has legacy terms.

A third was acquired with a weird agreement that never got normalized.

Individually, they're manageable.

Collectively, they become a shadow service catalog no one owns.

The danger isn't the exception itself.

The danger is when no one remembers why it exists.

At that point, you're not honoring a deal — you're honoring inertia.

Time Isn't About Billing. It's About Truth.

Even in flat-rate environments, time tracking matters.

Not because you want to nickel-and-dime clients.

But because time reveals:

Which clients consume disproportionate effort
Which services are underpriced
Which "small" requests are anything but small

When time isn't captured, leadership loses visibility.

When leadership loses visibility, decisions get emotional instead of structural.

That's when revenue leakage turns into strategic confusion.

The Real Cost of "Being Easy to Work With"

Many MSPs pride themselves on being flexible.

That's admirable — until flexibility replaces clarity.

Being easy to work with should not mean:

Undefined scope
Untracked effort
Silent over-delivery
Unlimited interpretation

The healthiest MSPs aren't rigid.

They're explicit.

Explicit protects clients.

Explicit protects technicians.

Explicit protects margin.

Revenue Leakage Is a System Problem, Not a People Problem

If you take nothing else from this, take this:

Revenue leakage is not caused by bad technicians, lazy billing, or weak sales.

It's caused by:

Gaps between systems
Gaps between teams
Gaps between what's sold and what's delivered
Gaps between reality and reporting

People fill gaps with good intentions.

Margins don't survive good intentions.

A Quiet Question Worth Asking

If you want to find where your revenue is leaking, ask yourself:

"What work do we routinely do that never creates a billing conversation?"

That question is uncomfortable.

It's also diagnostic.

Because revenue doesn't disappear randomly.

It leaks exactly where no one is looking.

This is the work most MSPs never get around to — not because it's complex, but because it requires slowing down and telling the truth about how the business actually runs.

That's where durable profitability comes from.

Not better pricing.

Not better tools.

Better clarity.