Why system downtime is so costly—and how MSPs can help

What is system downtime?

For nearly every business, system downtime is a reality. And when systems go down, users lose productivity, customers can’t transact, and businesses forfeit dollars.

Systems and applications suffer downtime for myriad reasons. There may be a hardware or software failure, power outage, cyberthreats, or even scheduled maintenance. But whatever the source, downtime costs organizations serious dollars in terms of productivity, revenue, and lost customer trust.  Organizations need to develop a digital resilience strategy—and they may need the help of a managed service provider (MSP) to do it.

Recovering from downtime can take more time for smaller businesses. According to data, 70% of large enterprises said their outages typically take 60 minutes or more to resolve—and almost half experienced downtime for two hours or more. 

For small and midsize businesses (SMBs) outages can be debilitating: After a cyberattack, 50% of small businesses take at least 24 hours to recover, and 51% of small businesses report that their website is down for 8 to 24 hours after an attack. Moreover, 43% of all cyberattacks in 2023 targeted small businesses, indicating that malicious attackers view SMBs easy prey.

After a cyberattack, 50% of small businesses take at least 24 hours to recover.

Why is recovering from system downtime so costly?

According to one report, 100% reported experiencing outage-related revenue losses in the past year.  About 77% of those outages are due to power-related issues, and 38% are due to cyberthreats.

Outages also take time and IT workers’ attention to resolve—and they are costly. According to some estimates, costs could be $16,700 per server, per minute or $1 million an hour. Even for small and midsize businesses, an “extremely conservative” cost might be $1,670 per minute or about $100,000 an hour.

“If you look at the cost of downtime, it’s a significant amount because there might be 15 senior technical people sitting around a table at x per hour, working out what’s the root cause, what are we going to do?” saidChris Russell Miller, head of IT and cyber risk of BNP Paribas in the report “The hidden cost of downtime.” These “war rooms, are a hidden but a necessary cost, according to 51% of respondents.

Table 1: According to the report, hidden costs can take a toll on executives’ outlook.

Source: “The hidden cost of downtime,” Splunk.

How MSPs can mitigate downtime

If your organization experiences downtime, consider whether you need an IT partner that can address the issue immediately. Each passing hour costs money. Further, consider an MSP that can help build your cybersecurity strategy as a whole to bolster your organization against downtime.

Moreover, having a managed service provider that proactively monitors your environment can make the difference in preventing a potential event—or this monitoring can provide insight if an event does occur. MSPs can also quickly assess which areas of the IT environment have been affected and prioritize remediation efforts.

According to the “MSP Customer Insight Report 2025,” 52% of organizations surveyed want managed service providers to help them manage their cybersecurity strategy and the spiraling number of disconnected security tools and vendors—one of the key sources for downtime. And 51% turn to MSPs to evolve their security strategies as the business expands.  

A managed service provider works as your partner, with an investment in your uptime and business continuity. Businesses gain a partner committed to uptime, data integrity, and operational resilience, and establish a rock-solid service-level agreement to ensure these positive outcomes after an event. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your backup processes, develop a disaster recovery plan, or improve system reliability, a trusted MSP can guide the way.

Change management is also critical, and MSPs can navigate change management effectively. Change management is more than just managing change requests in IT systems. It’s a strategic process to ensure changes to IT systems are executed in a structured and controlled way. MSPs enable change management through smooth transitions when implementing new systems or processes and help stakeholders adapt to change. Poorly managed changes can prompt system outages, security vulnerabilities, and compliance violations. 

“Good MSPs go far beyond traditional break-fix support,” said Kris Laskarzewski, chief transformation officer at Integris. “With enterprise-grade remote monitoring platforms, predictive analytics, and AI-powered insights in the Integris toolkit, we can detect patterns and connect the dots across a client’s entire environment—something that’s typically out of reach for most small businesses. Combined with real-time alerts, proven playbooks, and strategic recovery planning, this proactive approach helps minimize downtime and ensures business continuity, even when the unexpected happens.”

Key benefits in working with an MSP to prevent or address system downtime

High-quality, responsive service 24/7/365. The right MSP will address your system downtime quickly and provide a roadmap quickly to resolve downtime, address vulnerabilities, and prevent similar events in the future. The right MSP understands your industry and business, and it honors your service-level agreements by confirming key performance indicators such as recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives.

According to the “MSP Customer Insight Report 2025,” customers are prepared to pay MSPs up to 25% more for the services and support they need. The same report also indicated that 45% of customers would switch if their MSP cannot demonstrate the expertise required to deliver 24/7 security support.

Reduced costs. According to the Research and Markets report, implementing managed IT services can reduce IT costs by 25%-45%. It can also boost operational efficiency by 45%-65%. And according to a 2024 CompTIA survey, 63% of businesses partnering with MSPs reduced IT expenses by at least 25%, while simultaneously improving security and efficiency.

Proactive monitoring and management. MSPs continuously monitor your IT infrastructure (networks, servers, and applications) to detect potential problems early.  Routine patching, system updates, and preventative maintenance are all part of an MSP’s support model. Proactive monitoring can also prevent a downtime event altogether.

Established relationships with vendors. Because MSPs help in managing your vendor partnerships, they can help escalate issues to tier 3 or 4 engineers and work with vendor support to troubleshoot issues more rapidly. Having a technology partner that “speaks the language” handling vendor and product conversations is invaluable. Your service-level agreement with your MSP will also likely outline how to navigate these vendor relationships in the event of system downtime.

Building disaster recovery and business continuity strategy (DR/BC). Organizations need off-site backup facilities to help in the event of a natural disaster or cyberthreats. But many organizations lack a robust business continuity plan. MSPs can your business operations, identify critical systems and data, and assess potential vulnerabilities. This helps them determine which aspects of your business require the most attention and resources in a disaster recovery scenario.

Customized strategies. MSPs also provide tailored strategies for your business and industry in the even of a disaster or malicious attack. MSPs often build cloud-based solutions and redundant systems to ensure business operations can continue even if organizations With an MSP managing your private cloud, for example, you can offload the protection of your data and applications against cyberthreats and ensure a backup for all your critical business data.  encounter a disaster. They also regularly test those DR and BC strategies to prevent gaps.

Customer churn. System outages erode customer trust. Research shows 40% of customers consider switching banks after a single outage, A significant downtime incident can drive customers to consider alternatives, or at the very least shake their confidence in your reliability. Surveys have noted that a majority of enterprises see customer attrition following major outages  . The cost here is the future revenue that walks out the door due to a tarnished reputation for uptime.

Network redundancy. MSPs implement redundant network connections, network segmentation, and failover systems to ensure business continuity in case of internet or network disruptions.

Minimizing downtime with an MSP

Preventing a system outage—or handling system downtime if it does happen—can cost you time, money, and customer trust. In some industries such as banking, customers will leave after a single system outage, and system downtime costs thousands of dollars to remediate. MSPs can not only address incidents quickly, and escalate issues with third-party providers, but they can also proactively monitor systems to prevent system downtime in the first place.

If your current MSP—or even in-house IT—needs help in getting ahead of system downtime, Integris may be right for you.

Want to learn more? Check out Integris managed services.