Local IT Support
Be the tech person small offices call first.
Local IT support is on-site and remote tech help for small businesses and households: troubleshooting, new-machine setup and data migration, Wi-Fi and networking, backup that actually restores, basic security hygiene, and recurring managed-support retainers for offices too small to hire anyone. The economics hinge on a number most courses skip: roughly 0.8 unpaid hours for every billed hour, because drive time, quoting, ordering parts, waiting for updates, and writing notes are all real work nobody pays for directly. Two things end IT businesses — losing a client's data during a migration, and taking responsibility for other people's credentials without the habits to hold them safely.
You'll do well here if
- You genuinely enjoy fixing things other people find frustrating, and you stay patient through the fifth password-reset call of the week
- You can explain a technical problem in plain language to someone embarrassed to be asking — that skill, not the fixing, is what gets you rebooked
- You are methodical: you take notes, finish the job, and check that the fix actually held before you leave
- You want recurring monthly retainers from small offices, not just a stream of one-off repairs
- You take security seriously enough to run a password manager and two-factor on your own accounts before touching anyone else's
Skills you'll use
- Troubleshooting, setup/migration, networking, and backup-and-restore across common small-office and home environments
- Backup-before-touch discipline — never migrate, reinstall, or 'clean up' without a verified, restore-tested copy the client acknowledged in writing
- Credential and client-data hygiene, plus written authorization before touching any system
- Pricing and scoping: per-visit labor, prepaid block hours, and retainers, with parts and licenses passed through at cost
Startup costs
- Professional toolkit (drive imaging, adapters, spare parts, network tools)$400
- Business + professional liability (E&O) insurance (first payment)$300
- Business registration / license$100
- Software stack (remote-support/RMM, password manager, backup)$300
- Cyber liability insurance / higher E&O limits (optional)$500
- Loaner laptop and expanded parts inventory (optional)$1,000
Recurring monthly costs
- Business + professional liability (and cyber consideration)$160/mo
- Remote-support/RMM and backup software$120/mo
- Phone, internet share, and vehicle allowance$120/mo
- Ongoing marketing, tools, and subscriptions$75/mo
- Per-visit travel and consumables (~$3.20/visit at ~50 visits/mo)$160/mo
Pricing assumptions
- The base case is $95/hour labor (on-site and remote alike) with a one-hour on-site minimum, plus $325/month small-office retainers that include up to 3 support hours.
- Model roughly 0.8 unpaid hours for every billed hour (drive time, quoting, parts, waiting on installs, notes) — ignoring it is how people think they earn double what they earn.
- Parts, hardware, and per-seat software licenses are billed to the client at cost and itemized separately — never marked up by a beginner — so they wash out of the profit model.
First-customer opportunities
- Your warm circle — the people already calling you when the printer stops talking to the laptop
- Small offices with no IT person: accountants, clinics, law offices, trades, and nonprofits
- Referrals from bookkeepers and accountants who see their clients' tech pain firsthand
- Local business groups and chambers of commerce
Advantages
- Retainers turn an unpredictable break/fix trade into a recurring, roster-based business
- Low physical intensity and low consumable cost — most of every billed hour is margin above fixed costs
- Plain-language service quality gets you rebooked and referred in a market where most providers cannot explain themselves
Trade-offs
- Higher startup than most starter trades ($1,100 required, ~$2,600 typical) for tools, insurance, and software
- Roughly 0.8 unpaid hours per billed hour means your calendar is fuller than your invoices
- Real liability exposure (data, credentials, security promises) demands discipline and insurance homework you cannot skip
Risks to respect
- Data loss is the career-ending risk: one migration done without a verified backup can destroy a client's business records, your reputation, and your finances at once — which is why backup-before-touch is a hard rule, not a best practice.
- You hold client data and credentials — inboxes, accounting files, customer records, passwords — a genuine legal and ethical responsibility that careless handling can turn into real harm.
- Clients confuse advice with responsibility: promising security or compliance outcomes you cannot control (HIPAA, PCI, 'we'll make you safe') is a liability trap — refer that work out.
- General liability usually does not respond to a bad recommendation, a corrupted file share, or a breach; errors-and-omissions and cyber liability are separate considerations, and availability, price, and terms are location- and carrier-dependent.
- Unbilled time is the quiet profit killer, scope creep is constant ('while you're here, can you look at my phone?'), demand is lumpy, and no income is guaranteed.
Seasonality
Break/fix demand is lumpy and a quiet month is normal — fixed costs do not shrink when you are slow — which is exactly why retainers exist: a base of four small-office retainers smooths the swings. Predictable spikes cluster around office moves, new-year hardware refreshes, and tax season for accounting-heavy clients.
Try the numbers yourself
Every figure is an editable assumption — change them to match your market.
- Monthly revenue
- $6,050
- Monthly profit (before tax)
- $5,415
- Jobs per month to break even
- 5
- Months to recover startup cost
- 0.5
Assumptions
- Solo operator; no employees. No income is guaranteed — results depend on your market, pricing, and effort.
- Every dollar here is an owner-reviewed ESTIMATE, not a measurement and not AI output: it is the source course's own stated planning base case, projected into this profile and flagged for local verification.
- Monthly figures are operating profit BEFORE TAX and before anything you pay yourself — not take-home pay.
- There is no reviewed Discover profile for this trade, so the course states its own base case and every figure inherits it: an established solo month of 50 billable per-visit hours at $95 ($4,750) plus 4 retainers at $325 ($1,300) = $6,050 revenue, minus $160 variable (fuel $120 + consumables $40) and $475 fixed = $5,415/month before tax. A part-time ramping month is ~$1,680; the working range is ~$1,700–$5,400, and the hard capacity ceiling at a full 40-hour week is ~$7,825. Startup is $1,100 required, ~$2,600 typical. Verify every number in your own market.
- The simulator collapses both streams into one blended 'job' = a billable hour: 50 billable hours/month (12.5/week × 4 weeks) at an effective $121/hour ($6,050 revenue ÷ 50 billable hours, folding the four $325 retainers into the per-hour figure), with $160 variable spread to $3.20/hour. Computed profit is exactly the course's $5,415, so the base case (an established book) sits near the top of the working range.
- The stated public range rounds the established month to $5,400; this profile uses the course's exact $5,415 as the high so the simulator default remains inside the range — and well under the $7,825 capacity ceiling, which is not printed.
- Written authorization before touching a system, errors-and-omissions and cyber liability, the security/compliance outcomes you must never promise, an EIN being free from the IRS, and taxes are education only and location- and carrier-dependent — verify locally.
Profit shown is operating profit BEFORE tax — not take-home pay. These are estimates, not guarantees; verify prices and costs in your own market.
Educational guidance only — not legal, tax, or financial advice.Details
OwnerLaunch provides educational business guidance, AI-generated drafts, and checklists. It is not a law firm, tax advisor, CPA, registered agent, or government agency. Information may not be complete or current for your specific location. Always verify requirements with official federal, state, city, and county sources and consult qualified professionals when needed.