A part-time IT department for your business
For businesses of 1 to 20 people with no IT staff. A senior engineer looks after your IT and security every month, for a fixed fee, all remote. Plans are $1,500, $2,500 or $3,500 a month.
Sound familiar?
- New people wait days for an email account and a working laptop.
- Nobody is sure who to ask before buying software or hardware.
- When someone leaves, their accounts stay open.
- Backups and two-step sign-in were set up once and never checked again.
- There is no written security policy, and a client or insurer is asking for one.
What's included
- Advice on which tools and services to buy, before you buy them.
- New people set up on their first day, and leavers' access closed when they go.
- Two-step sign-in and backups kept working, and checked.
- Your policies written down, in plain language.
- A review every quarter of where things stand and what comes next.
- Written updates by email, and calls on a schedule.
Plans
| Plan | Monthly fee | What’s included |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $1,500 | Up to 10 hours, one scheduled call, email support in the support hours |
| Standard | $2,500 | Up to 16 hours, two calls, written policies, quarterly review |
| Security lead | $3,500 | Up to 20 hours of security-led work: risk register, policies, incident plan, vendor reviews |
Prices in US dollars, reviewed each January. Plans run month to month. Unused hours don’t roll over. Extra hours are $150 an hour, or $175 an hour for security work, and only by written request.
How support works
- Support hours
- Weekdays, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. US Eastern.
- Replies
- Messages sent during support hours get a reply the same business day.
- Outside those hours
- Urgent issues go to the vendor’s support line. Emergencies are defined in the agreement.
- One engineer
- The person you email does the work. No hand-offs, no staff.
- Remote only
- All work is done remotely. There are no site visits.
- Your accounts, your hardware
- You buy hardware and licenses in your own name, on the practice’s advice. Nothing is resold to you.
How it starts
The part-time IT department begins after the onboarding assessment, so the work starts from a scored picture of where you stand instead of guesswork. The first months usually go on the top of the fix list.
Common questions
How is this different from hiring an IT company?
You deal with one engineer, the same person every time. The fee is fixed, the plans run month to month, the hours are written down, and everything is bought and owned in your name. How the practice compares →
What if something breaks at night or at the weekend?
Urgent problems outside support hours go to the vendor’s own support line, such as your email or internet provider. What counts as an emergency, and what happens then, is written into the agreement.
Do you come on site?
No. All work is done remotely, which is how the fees stay where they are.
Getting started
Email contact@mercitlabs.com. It goes straight to the engineer who would do the work. Taking new clients starting March 2027.