If you have the option for ‘managed’ hosting / servers — get it, even if you think you cannot afford it! What you cannot afford is downtime or countless hours trying to resolve issues.
Most people with unmanaged services do not know how to manage the servers, firewalls, software, etc. — unless it is something you specialize in, why should you know? Spend your time running your business and making money, not trying to figure out what ports to open on your firewall or how to configure a server.
At least once a week I receive a call from a client saying that there are problems with their setup, wanting us to fix it – NOW, and not wanting to pay for the service. How are we supposed to offer top-notch service, when you need it, without getting paid for it? You wouldn’t go to McDonald’s and expect free food, would you? Many of these same clients say they chose to use our service because we offered support either by contract or ‘as needed’ at a fair and economical rate ($90 / hr — search around, it’s on the low-end).
Managed service may seem expensive, but it is actually the opposite. We often hear from clients with service problems that they are loosing great gobs of money and that they are going to lose everything. If your business relies on your web site, email, server, software, firewall, and everything else we have in our data center, why wouldn’t you want to make sure it is taken care of????