Built for Businesses With Internal IT Teams
When your internal IT team is great but stretched thin, the answer isn't replacing them — it's giving them backup. We've spent 20+ years partnering with IT directors, network admins, and CFOs across Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, Kernersville, and Asheboro to provide 24/7 coverage, specialized expertise, and enterprise-grade tooling — without adding headcount. Your team stays in charge. We just make their job easier.
BBB A+ Accredited · Microsoft CSP Partner · 200+ Triad Businesses Served · Zero Cyber Events Since 2018
Table of Contents
Jump straight to the section that matters most to your situation.
The Basics
If your IT team is great but stretched thin, co-managed IT is the answer that doesn't involve hiring or outsourcing.
If you're reading this page, you already have IT covered — at least on paper. Maybe it's a network admin, a small IT department, or a full IT director with a team. They know your environment. They know your users. And they're probably also drowning.
Here's the plain-English version of co-managed IT: instead of replacing your internal team or hiring more FTEs, you partner with us. We take on specific functions — like 24/7 security monitoring, help desk coverage during PTO and sick days, specialty engineering, vCIO advisory, or project work like cloud migrations — while your internal team focuses on what they do best. You stay in control. We provide the capacity, the tools, and the expertise on demand.
Think of it like a hospital that has its own staff doctors but contracts with specialists. The internal team handles 80% of the work — the specialists are there for the complex cases and the second opinion on the hard problems.
A Co-Managed Services Provider is the partner that does this. That's us. We don't replace your IT team — we make them faster, safer, and a lot less burned out.
The Math
When your IT team is stretched, the default reflex is to hire. Before you start a 4-month recruiting process, run the numbers.
Who It's For
Most co-managed conversations involve one of three people — often all three. Each cares about something different. Here's what we deliver to each.
You're responsible for the strategy, the roadmap, and the team. You don't need someone telling you what to do — you need a partner who can execute alongside you, take work off your plate, and bring outside perspective on what's coming next.
What We Provide
You're trying to scale technology capacity without scaling headcount. You want predictable monthly costs, no recruiting expense, and a partner that grows or shrinks with the business.
What We Provide
You're great at what you do, but you can't be in three places at once. You need a teammate — not a replacement — who handles the specialty work, the security operations, and the project capacity so you can focus on what actually moves the business forward.
What We Provide
What We Handle
These are the functions internal IT teams most often hand off to us — not because they can't do them, but because they shouldn't have to.
Tier 2/3 is MSP shorthand for the senior-engineer layer above your frontline help desk. When your team hits a problem too complex for routine troubleshooting — security architecture, cloud configuration, advanced networking, compliance design — they hand it to us. The skill sets that are hard to hire and harder to keep, available on-demand instead of as a payroll line item.
Example: A CPA firm's network admin needed to give overseas employees secure access to firm systems without compromising data controls. We provided Tier 2/3 engineering to design a hardened remote-access plan within their existing Azure environment — clipboard, drive, and USB redirection locked down, plus session policies that kept the team productive while satisfying the firm's compliance posture.
Cybersecurity is the area most internal IT teams admit they can't fully cover alone. Our SOC operates 24/7/365 — monitoring for threats, investigating alerts, and responding to incidents with enterprise-grade EDR, SIEM, and incident response tooling included. We haven't had a client experience a cyber event since 2018.
Example: A manufacturing client had antivirus but no real-time threat hunting. After deploying Sophos EDR with SOC monitoring, our team identified and contained a ransomware attempt over a weekend — before any encryption began.
Azure, Entra ID, Intune, Conditional Access, security baselines, MFA enforcement — the Microsoft cloud stack moves fast and gets deep fast. We handle configuration, tenant security hardening, licensing optimization, and ongoing administration so your internal team isn't chasing Microsoft documentation every week.
Example: A manufacturing client needed to upgrade aging Server 2012 Azure VMs to current Windows Server with under one hour of downtime — and wanted security hardening as part of the move. We built and tested a migration plan, executed the upgrade inside the window, and during the work identified rogue RDP traffic and tightened Azure firewall and NSG rules to lock it down.
For organizations without a CIO — or with one who's stretched too thin — our vCIO service provides quarterly business reviews, technology roadmaps, budget forecasting, vendor evaluations, and compliance guidance. The executive technology layer most internal teams don't have time to build.
Example: A multi-location CPA firm had no formal IT roadmap. After two quarters of vCIO engagement, we built a 24-month plan that consolidated three vendor contracts, eliminated thousands in redundant licensing, and prepared them for an FTC Safeguards audit with no surprises.
When your IT person or team is out, your users still need support. Our local High Point help desk picks up during business hours so coverage gaps don't become crises. Real people, real tickets, real handoff documentation when your team comes back online — no chatbots, no overseas call centers.
Example: A construction company with a single network admin used to scramble every time he took vacation. With our team as backup, he took his first uninterrupted week off in three years — without a single user-impacting issue.
Migrations, server refreshes, office moves, M&A integrations, ERP rollouts — the projects your internal team never has time for. We bring engineers and project management to handle the heavy lift, then hand off documentation and operations back to your team when it's done.
Example: An international client opening their first US office and warehouse needed the facility infrastructure ready before staff arrived. We managed the project end-to-end — handling network cabling, security infrastructure, and vendor coordination — while staying inside their budget and keeping their overseas leadership in the loop.
Pricing
No surprises, no opaque "call us" pricing. Here's the honest breakdown of what co-managed IT costs and what shapes the number.
First, let's define a term that matters: a "user" is an employee at your company who has a computer, laptop, or device that needs IT support. A 50-person company with 50 employees on computers = 50 users, regardless of how many devices each person has.
Co-managed IT is typically priced per-user, per-month — similar to fully managed IT, but at a lower rate because your internal team is still doing the day-to-day. Across the industry, co-managed engagements run between $25 and $100 per user per month, depending on which functions you want us to handle.
Lighter Engagement
$25–$40/user/mo
Best for: Internal IT teams that own daily ops and want senior-engineer backup plus security tooling.
Standard Engagement
$50–$70/user/mo
Best for: Internal IT teams that need strategic depth and want help desk coverage during their team's time off.
Heavier Engagement
$75–$100/user/mo
Best for: Companies in active growth, M&A integration, compliance prep, or major infrastructure projects.
For a 50-user company, those tiers translate to:
Compare that to roughly $8,000 per month in loaded cost for one additional network admin in NC. For most engagements, co-managed costs less than half of hiring — and you get a team of specialists instead of one person's expertise.
Two things every Trinity engagement includes — at every tier:
Why It Works
Most co-managed engagements don't fail because of pricing or tooling. They fail because of politics.
The pattern is depressingly consistent: an MSP shows up acting like they're going to replace the internal IT team. The internal team gets defensive. Tickets stop flowing. Information gets gatekept. The partnership collapses inside six months — and the company is back to square one, except worse.
We've been doing this for 20+ years across the Triad. Here's our actual operating principle:
We treat your internal IT team as the lead. Period.
They know your environment better than we ever will. We follow their direction, document everything we do, and hand off cleanly. Our job is to make them look good — not to make them obsolete.
What Makes Us Different
Every MSP says they're different. Instead of telling you, here's the operational record.
Most MSPs see co-managed as a stepping stone to fully managed. They take small footholds at first, then quietly maneuver to expand scope and squeeze out the internal team. We don't operate that way. Our co-managed engagements are built to stay co-managed. If your internal team grows, our scope shrinks. If they shrink, we expand.
Your internal team isn't going to escalate complex problems to someone reading a script in another time zone. Every engineer who handles your engagement is based in North Carolina — most of us in High Point. They're peers your internal team can collaborate with directly, not gatekeepers they have to fight through to reach someone who knows the environment.
Most MSPs lock you into 2–3 year contracts because they know their service won't keep you around otherwise. We don't. Every co-managed engagement is month-to-month. The fact that many of our clients have been with us for over a decade tells you everything about how that works out — we earn the relationship every month instead of trapping you into one.
When you call, you can ask for Andy or Ron. The Decision Makers. Not gatekeepers. Not account managers reading from a CRM. That access doesn't disappear after the sale — it persists for the life of the engagement. If something matters enough, escalating to management takes one phone call, not a support ticket.
We've been doing this since 2003. We're BBB A+ accredited (since 2011). Expertise.com names us a top managed-service provider in Greensboro. We support 200+ Triad businesses across healthcare, manufacturing, legal, financial services, construction, and nonprofits. We haven't had a client experience a cyber event since 2018. That's not marketing copy — that's the operational record.
Industries We Serve
Co-managed IT works particularly well for the larger end of our industry verticals — companies that have outgrown a single IT person but aren't ready for a full department.
Co-managed HIPAA-compliant infrastructure: 24/7 SOC monitoring, EHR and PMS administration, and security operations alongside your internal team.
Learn more →ERP support (Epicor, QuickBooks Manufacturing), industrial cybersecurity, and plant-floor connectivity as a backstop for your internal IT.
Learn more →Document management security, encrypted communications, e-discovery support, and retention compliance — co-managed with your internal IT lead.
Learn more →FTC Safeguards compliance, tax-season capacity scaling, AVD environments, and secure remote access for distributed teams.
Learn more →Co-managed pricing that maximizes mission spend, grant-writing tech support, and donor data protection alongside your IT volunteer or staff person.
Learn more →Mobile device management, jobsite connectivity, multi-location WAN, and project software integration with your internal IT.
Learn more →We serve businesses across the Piedmont Triad:
Self-Check
Not sure if co-managed is right for you? Here are the patterns we hear most often when IT directors and CFOs reach out.
Every PTO request becomes a coverage scramble. The answer to "what happens when our admin is out?" is some version of "we just hope nothing breaks."
Cybersecurity threats don't keep business hours. If a ransomware attempt fires at 3am Saturday, someone needs to be watching. If your honest answer is "nobody until Monday," that's the gap co-managed IT was built to close.
The cloud migration, the security baseline rollout, the compliance prep — they're all on the roadmap, but they never actually move because daily ops eats every hour.
You bought EDR, SIEM, RMM, or a backup platform — but nobody has time to fully configure, monitor, and tune them. They're shelfware with a license fee.
FTC Safeguards, HIPAA, SOC 2 — every audit cycle is a 60-day fire drill instead of a quarterly review. You always pass, but the process is exhausting.
Your team is constantly behind, and the backlog is starting to affect user productivity. Every escalation that should take a senior engineer is sitting in a queue waiting for someone with bandwidth.
The single-point-of-failure risk just became reality, and you're realizing how dependent you were on one person's institutional knowledge. Co-managed IT is how you make sure it doesn't happen again.
If you checked even one of those, a 30-minute conversation with us is worth the time.
FAQ
Answers to the questions IT directors, CFOs, and CIOs ask most often when evaluating co-managed IT.
With fully Managed IT, Trinity becomes your entire IT department. With Co-Managed IT, we augment your existing internal team — taking on specific functions like 24/7 SOC, cloud administration, vCIO advisory, or specialty projects. Your team stays in control. We provide the additional capacity, tools, and expertise on demand. Many clients move between models as their team grows or shrinks.
Co-managed IT is typically priced per-user, per-month — where a "user" is an employee with a computer or device that needs IT support. Across the industry, co-managed engagements run between $25 and $100 per user per month depending on which functions you want us to handle. For a 50-person company, that translates to $1,250–$5,000 per month. We build custom plans based on what your team actually needs, and every engagement is month-to-month with no lock-in.
No. Co-Managed IT is built to extend and support your existing team, not replace them. Many of our co-managed engagements have lasted 5–10+ years with the same internal IT lead in place. We treat your internal team as the lead, follow their direction, and hand off cleanly. Our job is to make them more effective — not obsolete.
Yes for security operations — our SOC monitors threats around the clock, every day of the year. For help desk, our standard engagement covers business hours plus pickup during your team's PTO and sick days. True 24/7 help desk coverage is available as a custom arrangement, which requires us to dedicate additional headcount to your account. We're upfront about this because we don't ask our team to work nights and weekends as part of standard service — and we're proud of that.
Our co-managed clients gain access to enterprise-grade tools they typically can't justify alone: 24/7 SOC monitoring, RMM (remote monitoring and management), PSA (ticketing and automation), vulnerability management, EDR (endpoint detection and response), SIEM, security awareness training, backup and disaster recovery platforms, and Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider tooling via Pax8. These are bundled into the engagement.
Most co-managed engagements are operational within 2–3 weeks. We start with a discovery and documentation phase, configure tooling and access, hold an alignment session with your internal team, and then begin support. For organizations with urgent needs — a key staff departure, an active security incident, or an audit deadline — we can accelerate the timeline.
Yes. For organizations without a CIO — or with one who's stretched too thin — our vCIO service provides quarterly business reviews, technology roadmap planning, budget forecasting, vendor evaluations, compliance guidance, and risk assessments. This is especially popular with CFOs and CEOs at growing companies who need executive-level technology guidance without an executive-level salary.
That's why we do month-to-month contracts. Co-managed engagements naturally evolve. If your internal team grows, we scope down. If they shrink — or if you face a major project — we scope up. Quarterly business reviews give us a structured chance to re-evaluate the fit and adjust. You're never locked into a scope that no longer matches your business.
Yes. While our office and help desk are based in High Point, NC, we serve businesses across the entire Piedmont Triad — Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Kernersville, Asheboro, and beyond — as well as multi-location clients with offices outside the region. Our co-managed model is largely remote, so geography rarely matters.
If you've read this far, your IT team is probably one or two specific things away from running smoothly. Maybe it's PTO coverage. Maybe it's the security operations gap. Maybe it's that nagging feeling that one staff departure would put you in a tough spot. We've been having that first conversation with Triad IT directors, CFOs, and owners for over 20 years — and it always starts the same way: we listen. No sales pitch. No pressure. Just a real conversation about what's going on and whether we can help.
336-303-1730 Ask for Andy or Ron
