IT Budget Calculator for Canadian Small Business
Build a monthly and 12-month planning allowance using North Star's published support baseline and your own licensing and hardware inputs. See what is counted, what is excluded and what still needs a quote. No market-average claim or guaranteed all-in price.
Build a budget from explicit inputs.
Start with North Star's published support baseline, then enter your own quoted licensing cost and hardware assumptions. A missing selected cost stays unknown, not zero. This is planning arithmetic, not a market survey, all-in quote or promise of included services.
Your planning inputs
Add selected costs
Monthly planning allowance (CAD)
12-month allowance: incomplete
The 10-user Professional support baseline is $1,290/month. Enter the selected licensing and device costs to complete this scenario.
- Support baseline (Professional, 10 users)$1,290.00
- Licensing (your input)Awaiting input
- Hardware planning reserveAwaiting input
Only selected components are counted. Taxes, onboarding, projects, travel, backup, security tooling and other unlisted costs are excluded unless confirmed within the support scope or entered licensing cost; exclusion does not mean free. A hardware reserve is not cash spend. CAD amounts are rounded for display. Verify our published pricing and your written scope before deciding.
Calculation inputs stay in this page: this calculator does not upload, save or add amounts to the review link. Site analytics remain subject to consent.
Discuss my IT budget scopeWhat actually moves the number.
Headcount alone is not a complete scope. Record these decisions before treating a planning allowance as the basis for a purchase.
On-site needs
Confirm which tasks can be remote and which require site access. Grande Prairie, AB and Prince George, BC are the two physical dispatch locations supporting Canada-wide remote service. On-site work depends on scope, availability and agreed travel; it is not automatically included in a per-user baseline.
Compliance obligations
Privacy obligations and customer or insurer requirements depend on your organisation, information and applicable rules. Identify the technical work, evidence, responsibilities and review needed. A selected tier does not establish legal compliance, certification or insurer acceptance.
Backup scope
List the systems and data to protect, retention needs, restore-test responsibilities and recovery objectives. Ask whether backup licences, storage, testing and recovery work are included or separate. This calculator does not silently add or promise those services.
Current environment
Document device support status, account access, MFA, existing contracts and known issues. Onboarding or remediation may be separate from recurring support; confirm a written scope and price rather than assuming a universal fee or savings result.
How the provider charges
Essentials and Professional use published per-user support baselines here. CIS-Aligned uses an entered scoped monthly site fee. Compare responsibilities as well as arithmetic; our guide to MSP pricing models explains per-user, per-device, block-hour and hourly approaches.
Why a quote needs a call
A scoped review should confirm users, sites, support hours, covered systems, exclusions and separately billed work. Compare the written agreement and recurring versus one-time costs. This tool neither books a meeting nor issues a quote.
Check the arithmetic with an illustrative scenario.
The sample button uses 10 Professional users at the published $129 support baseline, a hypothetical $35 licensing input and 10 assumed $1,200 devices reserved over 48 months: $1,290 + $350 + $250 = $1,890/month, or $22,680 over 12 months. These are selected-component planning amounts, not current vendor prices, a customer result or an all-in quote. Read the IT budget for a 10-person company, then verify our published managed IT pricing and your own scope.
Quick answers.
How much should a small business budget for IT in Canada?
Build a scope-specific allowance rather than adopting one market average. North Star publishes Essentials at $89 and Professional at $129 per user per month; CIS-Aligned is scoped per site. Enter your quoted licensing and hardware assumptions, then identify taxes, onboarding, projects, travel and unlisted services that remain excluded or unknown.
Why does the calculator sometimes leave the total incomplete?
A blank selected cost is unknown, not zero. Enter the selected licensing cost, hardware assumptions or CIS-Aligned site fee, or deliberately exclude an optional component. Invalid user counts, negative costs and invalid reserve periods must be corrected before a complete allowance is shown. Excluding a component does not make it free.
Is this an actual quote from North Star?
No. It is arithmetic using a published support baseline and your entered assumptions. It does not assess your environment, confirm service inclusions, establish a vendor price or issue an offer. Request a scoped review to agree responsibilities, included work, exclusions, availability and written commercial terms.
Are Microsoft 365 licences included in managed IT pricing?
Check the written quote rather than assuming licences are included or separate. Enter a separate cost here only when it is not already covered by the support scope; avoid counting it twice. Verify the product, users, billing commitment and current Canadian price. Our Microsoft 365 Business Premium guide explains the buying considerations.
More free tools
Want a scope you can compare?
Request a review of your users, sites, priorities and existing responsibilities. We can agree what information is needed for a scoped proposal. Do not send passwords, private account details or customer data in the inquiry.
Sources
These bodies explain privacy and assurance frameworks, not market prices or this calculator's estimates. Support baselines come from North Star's linked published pricing; licensing and hardware amounts are your own inputs.