Managed IT & business IT support · Madison, Wisconsin

Managed IT for Madison businesses.

Managed IT services, business IT support, IT consulting, and cybersecurity for Madison and Dane County companies with 5 to 50 employees. Built around a knowledge-economy city: insurance HQs, biotech startups, healthcare adjacencies, and the small and mid-sized firms working alongside them. Nobody here carries a sales quota, and there's no account management layer between you and the technician.

// Service mix

Managed IT
IT support
Cybersecurity

// Drive time from HQ

~50 min
Hwy 12 → Beltline

// Sweet spot

5–50 employees
Knowledge-economy fit

// Contact

(262) 220-7884

Book a discovery call →

// The short version

Find your situation, skip the rest.

5 to 50 staff and nobody owns IT
Fully managed IT. One flat monthly rate covers monitoring, patching, security, backup, helpdesk, and on-site visits.
Managed IT →
You have an IT person who is stretched thin
Co-managed IT. Your person keeps the day-to-day, and we take monitoring, security, patching, and after-hours escalation.
Co-managed IT →
A UW Health, Epic-adjacent, or carrier security questionnaire just landed
Start with a security assessment. We close the gaps and document the controls so the questionnaire can be answered honestly.
Cybersecurity →
One project, not a monthly relationship
Fixed-scope project work. Server retirement, a cloud move, an office buildout, or cabling, quoted in writing up front.
Cloud migration →
You just want a number
Managed IT runs $85 to $120 per user per month, all-in. A 10-person Madison office lands around $850 to $1,200.
Pricing guide →

// Your options in Madison

Three ways Madison businesses get IT support.

Factor	Break-fix shop	Large Madison MSP	BadgerLayer
Who answers	Whoever is free that day	A dispatcher, then a tier-1 tech	Someone in our Whitewater office, with Riley on every account
Pricing	Hourly, billed per incident	Per user, often $100 to $200 a month	$85 to $120 per user, all-in
Security	Only if you ask for it	Usually included, sometimes as add-ons	Included: EDR, email security, MFA, tested backup
Vendor questionnaires	Not their job	Often a paid compliance project	Documented controls you can point to
Contract	None	Often multi-year	12 months, with a 90-day pilot for small offices
Documentation	Rarely written down	Varies, often held by the provider	Written, current, and owned by you

// Which to pick

Pick by situation, not by package.

No internal IT

Fully managed IT

For Madison offices where IT is currently whoever is least busy. We run all of it on one flat rate.

See managed IT →

Have an IT person

Co-managed IT

For biotech, state contractors, and larger firms with an internal person who needs a security bench and after-hours backup.

See co-managed IT →

Healthcare-adjacent

Clinics & Epic-orbit vendors

BAA-ready environments, documented access controls, and answers for hospital vendor risk teams.

See healthcare IT →

Insurance & legal

Agencies & law firms

AMS and document management support, plus the controls carriers and E&O underwriters ask about at renewal.

See insurance IT →

// The Madison thesis

Madison isn't Milwaukee. The IT problems aren't the same.

Madison is a knowledge-economy city. The University of Wisconsin employs over 21,000 people. Epic Systems employs more than 10,000. UW Health adds another 10,000-plus. American Family Insurance and TruStage (formerly CUNA Mutual) run insurance HQs that drive the financial services layer. Promega, Exact Sciences, Illumina, and University Research Park anchor a biotech corridor. About one-third of the regional workforce is in some form of government, education, or healthcare.

Madison's small and mid-sized businesses don't exist in isolation. They're vendors to UW Health, contractors for state agencies, suppliers to Epic-orbit healthcare systems, spinoffs from UW research labs, professional services firms for insurance executives, and consultants embedded in biotech pipelines. Their IT requirements get shaped by what their customers and partners demand. Generic MSP playbooks don't cover it.

We work for the small and mid-sized businesses adjacent to these anchors, not the anchors themselves. The Epic-adjacent vendor managing PHI in a side workflow. The biotech startup scaling from 8 people to 40 with a Series A pending. The insurance broker preparing for a carrier security audit. The state government contractor whose IT environment has to pass procurement standards. These businesses need IT that can be audited and defended, not just IT that works.

// Where our model fits Madison

Four sub-markets we know how to support.

Not every Madison business is a fit for every MSP. These are the four sub-markets where what we do lines up with what the work requires.

Insurance & financial services

Independent agencies & financial advisors

Madison's insurance presence is anchored by American Family and TruStage, but the independent agency ecosystem is enormous. We support agency AMS deployments (Applied Epic, AMS360, EZLynx, HawkSoft), the cybersecurity controls that carrier E&O underwriters increasingly require, and the documentation that gets requested mid-claim or during a renewal.

See insurance IT →

Healthcare adjacency

Epic-adjacent vendors & small clinics

If your business touches UW Health, Epic, or any of the major Madison healthcare systems as a vendor, contractor, or referral partner, you live under their security expectations. We handle BAA-required IT environments for small clinics and the Epic-orbit vendor security posture: documented access, MFA enforcement, secure exchange, and the audit trail your partners ask for.

See healthcare IT →

Biotech & life sciences

Early-stage biotech & URP-orbit startups

Biotech companies scale non-linearly. You're 8 people one quarter, 25 the next, suddenly answering pharma due-diligence questionnaires the quarter after. Cloud-first builds, identity-as-perimeter, documented controls, and a cybersecurity posture that holds up to a Series A diligence call. This is the right IT model for University Research Park-orbit companies.

See cybersecurity →

Professional services

Law firms, accounting & consulting

Madison's professional services layer is dense: law firms practicing in state and federal courts, accounting practices serving the insurance and biotech corridors, management consultancies embedded with state agencies and large employers. The IT requirements are document security, matter or client-level access controls, encrypted file exchange, and the kind of compliance posture professional E&O insurance now expects.

See legal IT →

Across Dane County.

Service area within flat-rate distance of our Whitewater office. If you're inside the Beltline or in a Dane County suburb, you're in territory.

Madison core

Downtown / IsthmusCapitol SquareEast SideWest SideSouth SideNorth SideUniversity Research ParkEast Washington corridor

West suburbs

MiddletonVeronaFitchburgCross PlainsMount HorebBlack Earth

East & north suburbs

Sun PrairieCottage GroveWaunakeeDeForestWindsorMarshall

South & toward Whitewater

MononaMcFarlandStoughtonOregonBellevilleEdgerton

// How we're different

What a small, owner-run MSP looks like in practice.

Most Madison MSPs

Sales rep on the front end
Account manager between you and the techs
Dispatcher routing tickets
Junior tech handles your day-to-day
Senior tech for escalations only
Quarterly business reviews on PowerPoint
Pricing built around metro overhead
Quota-driven upsell cycle

BadgerLayer

Someone in our Whitewater office picks up
No account manager layer
No ticket queue or dispatch
Riley stays on every account
Same person who built it answers the call
Honest conversation when something needs attention
Pricing built around our actual cost
No sales team, no quota, no upsell pressure

Questions Madison businesses ask.

What Madison owners, office managers, and operations leads ask when they're weighing an independent MSP.

Book a discovery call →

What's the difference between IT support, IT consulting, and managed IT?

IT support is reactive: something breaks, you call, we fix it. Billed per incident or hourly. IT consulting is strategic: you have a decision to make (vendor selection, network redesign, compliance posture, cloud migration, security assessment) and you need an independent expert opinion that's not tied to selling you a product. Managed IT bundles both into a flat monthly fee with proactive monitoring, patching, backup, and the day-to-day support that prevents most problems from happening in the first place. Most Madison businesses end up wanting all three things, but they often start with one and discover the others matter too. We offer them as a single relationship rather than three separate vendors.

Do you support Madison businesses that work with Epic or UW Health?

Yes, with one caveat worth stating up front. We don't manage Epic itself. That's Epic Hosting's job and your internal healthcare IT team's job. What we do support is the long list of Madison businesses that interact with Epic and UW Health as vendors, contractors, referral partners, or adjacent service providers. Those businesses live under their partners' security expectations: BAA-required documentation, MFA-enforced identity, documented access controls, secure file exchange, and a cybersecurity posture that holds up when a hospital's vendor risk management team sends a questionnaire. We handle that side. If you're an Epic-orbit vendor and your current IT can't answer those questionnaires confidently, that's the gap we close.

Why pick a Whitewater-based MSP over a Madison one?

Two things, mainly. The first is accountability. Madison MSPs above a certain size have an org chart between you and the technician: a sales rep on the front-end, an account manager who's your "single point of contact," a dispatcher routing tickets, a junior tech handling your day-to-day work, a senior tech you only meet during escalations. We're a small Whitewater team, and Riley, the owner, stays on every account. You call (262) 220-7884 and you reach someone who knows your environment. The second is cost structure. Madison MSPs build their pricing around Madison overhead: West Towne or Old Sauk Road office rent, regional sales managers, quarterly business reviews, layered management. None of that improves your IT environment. Whitewater overhead is meaningfully lower, and that shows up in your flat-rate monthly fee.

How fast can you be on-site in Madison?

Madison is about 50 minutes from our Whitewater office via Highway 12 and the Beltline. Remote response for critical issues is usually within minutes during business hours and within an hour after-hours. On-site response for a true emergency is around 90 minutes from call to door. Most production IT issues resolve faster remotely than on-site anyway, regardless of where the technician starts. For planned on-site work like hardware deployments, cable runs, and network installs, we schedule Madison days in advance and batch the work efficiently.

Do you work with biotech and life sciences startups around University Research Park?

Yes. Early and mid-stage biotech is one of our better fits because the work pattern matches our model. Biotech companies scale non-linearly: you're 8 people one quarter, 25 the next, you sign a partnership with a pharma major and suddenly you're answering vendor security questionnaires that assume an enterprise IT department exists. We build for that trajectory from day one: cloud-first deployments, MFA-by-default identity, documented access controls, automated patching, immutable backup, and the cybersecurity posture that lets you answer a Series A due-diligence call without scrambling. We don't replace your internal IT person if you have one; we work with them.

Are you actually an IT consulting firm or just an MSP that calls itself one?

Both, and that's deliberate. The IT consulting work we do is independent and isn't tied to any product or vendor commission. If we recommend you stay on your current firewall instead of buying a new one, that's what we say. If we recommend you move from a $500/month MSP arrangement to break-fix support because you don't need full managed services, we'll say that too. We're small enough that nobody's career depends on closing your deal a specific way, and that changes the conversation. A lot of Madison "IT consulting" is dressed-up sales for hardware or service contracts. We're trying to do the consulting part.

What does IT support cost for a Madison business?

Managed IT runs $85 to $120 per user per month, all-in, so a typical 10-person Madison office lands between about $850 and $1,200 a month. That covers monitoring, patching, helpdesk, security tooling, backup, and on-site visits as needed. Environments with heavier compliance requirements, multi-site networking, or specialized line-of-business systems sit toward the top of the range. Project work and IT consulting are quoted as fixed scope or billed at $125 to $175 per hour. Standard agreements run 12 months, and smaller offices can start with a 90-day pilot. We quote after a 30-minute discovery call, so the number comes from your environment rather than a headcount guess. The Madison and Milwaukee managed IT pricing guide breaks the numbers down further.

Do you cover Middleton, Verona, Fitchburg, and Sun Prairie businesses?

Yes. All of Dane County is standard service area at the same flat-rate pricing as the city of Madison. That includes Middleton and the Greenway business parks, Verona, Fitchburg, Sun Prairie, Waunakee, Monona, McFarland, Stoughton, Oregon, DeForest, Cottage Grove, Cross Plains, Mount Horeb, and Windsor. Offices on the west and south sides of the metro are actually closer to our Whitewater office than the Capitol Square is, so on-site visits there are routine rather than a special trip.

Can you take over from our current Madison IT provider?

Yes. Transitions typically run 2 to 4 weeks. The first week is documentation: we write down what we're inheriting, because in most cases nobody else has. Then our management tooling goes on, email and backup move over if they need to, and your team learns how to reach us. We coordinate with the outgoing provider where they're willing. On cutover day your staff shouldn't notice much. What they notice later is how fast someone picks up, and how short the org chart is between them and the person fixing the problem.

An honest 30-minute conversation about your Madison business.

No pitch deck and no account executive following up afterward. It's a structured discovery call about your current setup, what's working, what isn't, and whether an independent MSP fits the way your business runs.

Call (262) 220-7884 Send a message