What Your IT Contract Doesn’t Cover, and How to Avoid a Surprise Bill

An MSP contract covers what its scope section names, and nothing outside it should be billed without your approval. At VJNetworks, hardware, materials, toner and software licensing beyond what we manage under contract sit outside the monthly fee.

I’m Mike Stoveken. The question prospects raise most, before they sign with us, is some version of “what’s included, and what will cost extra?” Underneath it is the fear of being nickel-and-dimed. You sign, and then hidden costs show up. Fair enough.

This is the long answer, and it covers what a managed services agreement includes, what sits outside it, where surprise bills come from, and how to read any provider’s agreement before you put your name on it. The short version is in our managed IT services FAQ. The service itself is described on our managed IT services page.

What an MSP Contract Actually Covers

A managed service provider agreement, or MSP contract, is the written scope of what your IT provider will do for a monthly fee, and what falls outside it. Start with the scope section. Everything the provider owes you, and everything it may bill you for separately, should trace back to that list.

Ours includes these. Unlimited support. Endpoint security, with monitoring and advice. Management and security for the platforms we run for you, typically Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Line-of-business platforms where relevant.

Network security and network maintenance. Repairs. Help meeting your compliance goals, a hand with onboarding and offboarding, and vCIO strategy and roadmapping. Our managed IT services page lists the rest of the service, including backup and disaster recovery, patch management, vendor management and hardware lifecycle tracking, which means we track your equipment even though buying it is billed separately.

The row-by-row version, with what each line means day to day, is in what’s actually included in an IT support contract. No need to repeat it here.

What Your MSP Contract Doesn’t Cover

Hardware, materials and toner sit outside the monthly fee. Our managed IT services page also lists major project work, such as new office buildouts or full infrastructure migrations, and software licensing beyond what we manage under contract.

Yes, toner is on that list.

None of this makes the monthly fee all-inclusive. It isn’t, and nobody should tell you otherwise. The point is narrower. Nothing outside the agreement gets billed until we’ve discussed it with you.

Here is how I put it.

“These are the kind of things that would not be covered, and it wouldn’t be a surprise. We would discuss these things with you before we did any of them. You’re not gonna get a surprise bill for something that you didn’t approve of.”

Where Surprise Bills Come From

A surprise bill doesn’t need a villain. A vague scope and an ordinary business event are enough.

Start with the word “unlimited.” Unlimited calls, yes. Unlimited laptops, no. If an agreement doesn’t say which one it means, you could find out from an invoice.

Next comes work that’s real but unlisted. A new hire needs a machine, a server reaches the end of its life, or an office moves and the new space needs a network. In our agreement, each of those involves hardware or project work, and that part sits outside the monthly fee, but in a contract with a thin scope section nobody may have said so out loud before the invoice arrived. The charge isn’t the shock. The silence before it is.

Third, nobody asked you first. Scott & Scott LLP, a Texas law firm that drafts managed services contracts, lists “excess fees for services not covered in a flat-fee agreement” as an item an MSP contract should cover, next to “any other major exclusions.” In other words, the agreement itself should say how out-of-scope work gets charged. Ours adds a step. We discuss it with you before we do it.

Not every extra charge is a bad one. A new laptop is a real cost. What separates a fair charge from a surprise is whether you heard about it, and agreed, before the work started.

Read the Software Licensing Line Closely

Licensing gets its own section because, in Microsoft 365, which security and compliance features you have depends on the license you hold, and a feature you assume you have may sit in a different tier or in an add-on. Here is how I described it.

“They build everything into 365. If you need to meet certain compliance frameworks, you have to purchase the right licence that gives you access to those features. Some are included in every licence, but a lot are tied to specific licences, and sometimes you need an add-on licence that’s made to go along with another licence.”

Microsoft’s own documentation shows one example. Per Microsoft Learn, Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes Defender for Business, an endpoint security solution, while eligible organizations with up to 300 users, such as those on Business Basic or Business Standard, can buy it as a standalone subscription. Same product. Different subscription. The plan underneath decides which.

So when a provider says it secures your Microsoft 365, ask which license that assumes. Our wording is the one on our services page: software licensing beyond what we manage under contract isn’t included in the monthly fee. For the tier-by-tier detail, see which Microsoft 365 license carries the security features.

How to Read an MSP Contract Before You Sign

Scott & Scott’s article is written for providers drafting these agreements. Its list of what a contract should cover reads like this: the services and who they are for, the service-level agreement, a termination clause, limitation of liability, support tiers, response times and escalation, excess fees for services outside a flat-fee agreement, and other major exclusions. Read from the client’s side, that list becomes a checklist. Here is the order we’d suggest, starting with the scope section and ending with how the arrangement ends.

One more habit is worth building. If a salesperson promised something, find it on the page. Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute explains that an integration clause, sometimes called a merger or entire agreement clause, states that the terms of a contract are the complete and final agreement between the parties.

Earlier agreements that conflict with those terms, whether written or verbal, then can’t be entered as evidence in a contract dispute. The parol evidence rule behind this has exceptions, including fraud, duress, mutual mistake and ambiguous terms, and this post is not legal advice. The practical rule is simpler. If it matters to you, ask for it in the agreement.

For a long or unusual agreement, have your attorney read it. The exit side has its own post on exit clauses and data ownership, and who owns your data and admin logins when a contract ends goes deeper on that clause.

How We Spell It Out at VJNetworks

VJNetworks has provided managed IT services since 2004, and today we serve small businesses across Rockland, Westchester and Bergen. Before you sign, we walk through the services agreement with you and spell out what is covered and what isn’t. Nothing outside it gets billed until we’ve discussed it with you and you’ve approved it.

That walkthrough happens in the sales conversation. It’s a conversation about the agreement, not a separate report or checklist.

“We like to spell everything out. Just for that exact reason, there’s no feeling of being nickel and dimed or surprise charged. Nobody likes that.”

Comparing providers? Set your current agreement and your last few invoices next to whatever the new one writes down. Every line on an invoice should trace back to something the agreement covers, or to something you said yes to.

Before You Sign