How To Handle Price Changes During a Disaster

Question to the DL: What pricing advice do you have for MSPs that are suddenly asked/expected to get their clients enabled for remote work from home?

Disaster Lady Answer: When it comes to pricing strategies, you need to be careful. It is appropriate to build an extra margin for contingency (such as future bench time for technicians down the road, etc.). However, if you raise your rates too much, it could be considered price gouging and there are certain laws against that. I think it is always best to think about the long term relationship with your customer. You have an opportunity to cement them to your business for life by being a partner/advocate as they work through the pandemic. I would suggest going to your OEMs and seeing if you can get free/reduced fees for a number of months that you can pass down to your customers and then only charge them what you need to for labor. You would be surprised how flexible some of them are being on terms right now. IronScales is a good example. They are giving away 60 days of free service for email security and end-user cybersecurity training is free.

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