When evaluating any new tool for your MSP, one of the first questions is: what’s the return on investment (ROI)? With MSPCFO, the ROI depends on three key factors, which we will assume you achieve.
- How well your PSA data is captured and structured.
- How often you review and act on reports.
- How effectively you execute on the actionable insights surfaced.
Let’s walk through what the “I” in ROI looks like—and then show how MSPCFO delivers the “R.”
How Much Does MSPCFO Cost?
MSPCFO is designed to scale with your business.
- Base price:$400/month for up to 25 engineers.
- Additional engineers:$100/month for each block of 25 engineers.
- Onboarding:One-time $500 fee for setup and training.
Example:
An MSP with 30 engineers pays $500/month.
So the question becomes: can you find at least $500 per month in cost savings or new revenue? Let’s see.
The Hidden Cost of Building Reports
Yes, you can build reports internally with your PSA data, SQL queries, and Power BI. But the cost adds up quickly in time and resources.
- Hiring a data analyst: $50,000–$80,000 annually ($4,000 – $6,500/month).
- Internal leadership time: hours lost to data extraction, manipulation, and formatting.
Example:
Your COO spends 13 hours building a client profitability report (8 hours planning, 5 hours pulling data). At $75/hour of combined leadership time, that’s nearly $1,000 for one report. Even if maintenance drops to 1 hour/month, that’s another $75 each month. Multiply that by multiple reports, and the “DIY” path is suddenly far more expensive than MSPCFO.
Improving Your Lowest-Profit Clients
Every MSP has clients who consume disproportionate time compared to their revenue.
Across MSPCFO clients, the bottom 5 clients account for an average 8% revenue shortfall. By addressing pricing or operational inefficiencies, you can recover that lost 8%.
Example:
Your bottom 5 clients represent $17,500 in MRR. By improving those by 8% you’d get back $1,400/month.
That alone dwarfs the $500/month investment.
Protecting High-Profit Clients from Churn
Your most profitable clients—the ones with standardized stacks and smooth operations—sometimes pose the biggest risk. They might not “see” your value because they rarely need help, making them wonder why they’re paying you.
In fact, 13% of revenue across MSPCFO users is at risk from “flight risk” clients. MSPCFO identifies these clients so you can act—whether it’s proactive QBRs, lunch-and-learns, or executive relationship-building. Retaining just one of these clients could easily cover years of MSPCFO subscription fees.
Example:
An MSP with $200,000 in MRR has about $26,000/month at risk in their top 5 accounts. Just one of those clients could represent $5,200/month in revenue at risk. That scales up as you grow.
Finding Missed Revenue in Uninvoiced Time
Uninvoiced time is an instant ROI lever. Sometimes it’s valid (write-offs, ongoing projects), but often it’s simply missed billing. MSPCFO highlights this hidden revenue so you can collect on work already done.
Think of it as a “found money” feature—many MSPs recoup their entire annual fee in the first quarter just from catching uninvoiced time.
Making Projects Predictable and Profitable
Fixed-fee projects can make or break profitability. MSPCFO helps you:
- Track open projects in real time against budgeted hours.
- Identify overages early so you can course-correct.
- Learn from historical project data to improve future scoping.
Catching just one project before it goes over budget often saves more than MSPCFO costs for the year.a
Conclusion: What’s the ROI of MSPCFO?
MSPCFO pays for itself many times over. For a typical MSP:
- Thecost is $500/month (for 30 engineers).
- Thereturn can thousands of dollars a month through improved client profitability, retention of high-value clients, recovery of missed billing, and prevention of project overruns.
The ROI is not just financial—it’s strategic. With MSPCFO, you gain visibility to run your MSP like a portfolio of clients, making data-driven decisions that boost long-term profitability.
In short: If you can act on the insights, the ROI of MSPCFO is exponential.
About MSPCFO
Winner of both the Partner Innovation and Partner Advocate awards at IT Nation Evolve 2022, MSPCFO is a business intelligence platform designed to solve the unique profitability and productivity challenges managed services providers face. Since the application’s introduction in 2014, MSPCFO has helped thousands of MSPs and TSPs in the United States, Canada, APAC, and Europe identify improvement targets that directly boost their bottom line. Founder and CEO Larry Cobrin’s consulting, investment banking, private equity and product management experience coalesced in his development of the MSPCFO software and business model.
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