Getting it set up, and someone to ring when it breaks
Two things, priced separately, because they are two different jobs. Setup and implementation is project work with a start and an end — get it configured, working, handed over and written down. Support is hours you buy when you need them. No contract sized for an office of thirty people, and no ticket portal to learn.
Why generic IT support does not fit a trade business
Most IT support is built around a desk-based office: a help desk portal, a response time measured in business hours, and an assumption that the problem is a slow laptop or a locked-out email account. That model is designed for thirty people sitting at desks nine to five.
A trade business runs differently. Work starts at six, half the team is in a ute rather than at a desk, and the thing that has gone wrong is costing you a job right now. Being told to log into a portal and wait for a queue position is why most trade businesses give up on IT support altogether and just muddle through.
Setup and implementation
The larger half of what we actually do, and it is project work. New laptops and phones set up the same way rather than each one improvised. A workshop or site office that gets a usable connection. Mail moved without an outage. Users added, removed, and their access actually revoked. Multi-factor switched on across the business. A machine at the office reachable from the road in a way that is not a security hole.
Every one of these has a defined start, a defined end, and a document at the finish showing what was done and how it is set up. Quoted per project, before it starts. Most are small — a day or less. You get the number in writing and it does not move unless the job does.
Support, bought in hours
| What it is | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Support block | Eight hours, prepaid, use them across twelve months. Priority response | $1,188 |
| Ad hoc | When you would rather just ring. One-hour minimum | $165/hr |
| Spam blocking on request | Forward us the emails, any number in one request; done the next business day | $50 a request |
Prices include GST. The block works out cheaper per hour than ringing ad hoc, deliberately — a prepaid block at the same rate as calling would give you no reason to buy one.
Hours come off the block in half-hour increments and we tell you what is left. Unused hours expire at twelve months; we will remind you before they do rather than quietly keeping the money.
What we are not
We are not your software vendor’s help desk. If ServiceM8 is broken, that is their job. We will tell you that plainly rather than bill you to sit on hold on your behalf. We know what ServiceM8, Tradify, Simpro and Xero are, so you do not have to explain the context of the problem — but knowing what a platform is and being its support line are different things, and we do not sell the second one.
We do not take commissions from software companies and we do not sell hardware. When we tell you a platform is the wrong fit or a machine does not need replacing, there is nothing in it for us either way. That is the whole point.
We do not resell password managers. Use Bitwarden. The Teams plan is about US$4 (roughly A$6) a person a month and you buy it direct. We will help you set it up, and that time is billed like any other. You may not need a paid one: Google’s is free and already in your browser. What matters is that you stop sharing the password, and that day arrives when you hire your first person.
We will not put an AI between you and a customer ringing about a problem, and we will not put one between you and us either. You ring a person.
If getting a platform chosen, configured and actually adopted by the crew is the real problem, that is a bigger piece of work with its own page — see Job Management Software.
How we work
Most support happens over a phone call or a text and is resolved the same day. When something needs hands on a machine we say so up front rather than guessing over the phone for an hour. Support hours assume a seven a.m. start rather than a nine a.m. one.
For project work: we scope it, quote it, book it, do it, and hand over a short document showing what changed. If we find something on the way that changes the number, you hear about it before we do the work, not on the invoice.
Who this suits
Any trade business that wants things set up properly and problems solved, without carrying a support contract sized for a business ten times its own. It particularly suits a business that has tried a generic managed service provider and found the response times, the billing, or the total lack of interest in how a trade actually works frustrating.
Common questions
Do I need a contract? No. Buy a block or ring us ad hoc. There is no monthly support fee and no lock-in.
What counts as urgent? Anything stopping you working right now — no email, no invoicing, the office offline. We prioritise those the same day, and we will tell you honestly when something can wait until tomorrow rather than pretending everything is an emergency.
Can you support the software we already use? We can help you use it and connect it, and we will be straight with you about what we have and have not worked with. What we will not do is act as the vendor’s support desk for a bug inside their product.
What if the problem turns out to be the software company? We tell you which it is. If chasing them yourself is the fastest path, we say so. If it is genuinely faster for us to do it, we will, and it comes out of your block like anything else — agreed first.
Is there anything included in my website or email plan? Yes, and it is written down rather than assumed. Your plan covers the platform being set up right and kept that way. New devices, new people, restores, training and break-fix are billed. Both service pages carry the same boundary.
Related services
- Networks & Connectivity — when the fault is the connection your software runs on, not the software
- Job Management Software — choosing a platform and getting the crew actually using it
- Upgrades & Migrations — moving off something that has run out of road
Next step
Book a 20-minute technology conversation and tell us what has been going wrong. Most businesses know within that call whether it is a five-minute fix, a block of hours, or a project worth quoting.