Switching IT providers
Switching IT providers without the chaos.
Offices put off changing IT because they picture a week of downtime and a lost mailbox. That is not what happens. You keep your tenant, your credentials, and your backups the whole way through, the assessment runs in week 1, and the highest-risk gaps close in the first 30 days. Your staff keep working.
When it is time to switch
It is time when the lines below describe a normal week instead of a bad one. Read them and count the ones that apply to your office.
- My IT person just quit, or is about to.
- It takes too long to get problems fixed.
- Unexpected IT bills keep showing up.
- We have outgrown whoever set us up.
- I do not actually know if we are secure.
- We do not have the compliance expertise we need.
- My staff are pasting client data into AI tools.
- I am not sure we could recover if we got hit.
My IT person just quit, or is about to.Any one of these on its own is a bad month. Several at once is a pattern, and a pattern does not correct itself.
What happens to your data and accounts
You own your tenant, your credentials, and your backups, before, during, and after the switch. That is the standing rule here, not something you have to negotiate for. Nothing is registered in our name and held over you.
You also keep a documented runbook. It records how your systems are set up, what accounts exist, and what each one is for. If you ever leave, the next provider reads it and picks up where we stopped.
There is no lock-in, including to Arain Systems. A switch changes who manages your accounts, not where your mail and files live. Nothing about your mail or files changes without your approval.
The timeline
Week 1 is the assessment, and the highest-risk gaps close inside the first 30 days. The process runs the same way for every office, so you know what comes next at each point.
Week 1
Assessment
Your office is reviewed end to end, and you get written findings. Nothing is changed while we are still looking.
Weeks 1 to 2
Prioritized fix plan
The findings become a fix list ordered by risk, so you can see what gets addressed first and why.
First 30 days
Stabilize
The highest-risk gaps close first: a second login step, threat monitoring, encrypted backup, email protection.
Ongoing
Management
Monitoring, after-hours patching, and the written program kept current, with an annual program review.
Keeping your current IT person
You do not have to let them go. We work alongside an existing IT person, or take the work over in full, and the choice is yours to make.
Your IT person keeps the computers running. The written security program and the controls behind it are a different job, and it is rarely the job a generalist was hired to do. We do both.
Co-managed can be where you stay, or a step toward handing over the rest later. Either way, when you call you talk to an engineer, not a call center.
What switching costs
Flat monthly pricing, billed per user, across four tiers. Tier 0 Helpdesk starts from $47 per user per month, Tier 1 Manage from $78, Tier 2 Comply from $103, and Tier 3 Accelerate from $124.
Each tier includes unlimited in-scope support. Work outside your plan is quoted separately and approved before it starts, so an invoice never lands as a surprise.
The 14-Point Safeguards Gap Report is free, so you can see where you stand before you commit to anything. Every tier and what it includes is laid out on the plans page, and the per-user math is broken down in what managed IT costs per user in Houston.
The 90-day money-back guarantee
It is a 90-day money-back guarantee on the managed service. That is the whole of it.
It exists because asking an office to change providers on faith is not a reasonable thing to ask. If the first 90 days do not work out, you are not stuck with the decision.
Some offices carry extra rules through a switch. Financial offices should read FTC Safeguards. Medical practices should read physician practices.
Common questions
See what you have before you move anything
The free 14-Point Safeguards Gap Report documents where your office stands today, in writing. Have it in hand before you change providers.
Get a free gap reportWritten by Hammad Arain, founder of Arain Systems. CCNA, CompTIA Security+, Microsoft AZ-104. Updated June 2026. Educational, not legal advice.