EngagementsIT services

Check whether your security managed-services rates are competitive

For proposal owners who need rate cards and scope norms for managed security services that a buyer’s security team will accept as standard.

Engagement type
Team Pod
Experts
2 delivery · 1 advisor
Hours
~100
Duration
4 weeks

What the client needed

A services proposal needed defensible rate cards and scope norms for managed security services across three regions, and a proposal section that a buyer's security team would accept as standard — SOC, IAM, SIEM, managed encryption, application-security testing — with the sizing ratios behind each.

The brief

The questions on the table

As the client wrote them, lightly shortened. Client and respondents are not named.

  1. Q1

    What offerings form a standard managed-security catalogue, and what are the scope boundaries and exclusions per tier?

  2. Q2

    What are the prevailing sizing ratios — tickets or events per FTE — for IAM, SIEM, managed encryption and SOC monitoring?

  3. Q3

    What is the typical timeline and team for SAST, DAST and MAST programmes on extra-large applications?

  4. Q4

    What does a defensible rate card look like by role and region, and where do large buyers push back?

The hours

What the work involved

  1. 01

    Defined the role catalogue and the tiers

    Roles by level, the service tiers and what is inside and outside each, written so that the exclusions are as clear as the inclusions.

  2. 02

    Built the rate ranges from the experts' own delivery experience

    By role and region, from programmes the two delivery heads had staffed and priced, with the sizing ratios — events per FTE, tickets per FTE — that the rates assume. Ranges, not points, with the driver of each range stated.

  3. 03

    Wrote the proposal section

    Scope, exclusions, SLAs, staffing model, escalation and reporting — in the language a buyer’s security team expects, with the sizing assumptions visible.

  4. 04

    Advisor review

    The senior advisor read the whole against what large buyers push back on — SLA definitions, transition risk, tooling ownership — and marked what to tighten.

  5. 05

    Final read-through with the proposal owner

    Changes applied; a short list of the questions to expect in the oral.

Deliverables

What the client received

  • A rate card by role and regionWith the sizing ratios the rates assume.
  • Scope and exclusion norms per service tierInclusions, exclusions and SLAs.
  • A proposal section ready to submitScope, staffing, SLAs, reporting.
  • Advisor's review notesWhat large buyers push back on, and the answers.

The terms

What an engagement like this costs

You buy hours in blocks and can change the expert at the end of any block, at no extra cost. Longer projects run in stages: pause after a block, pick up the next stage when you are ready.

Pricing in full →

Rate band
$65–$250 /hr
Senior specialists can be up to $500
Hour blocks
1 · 2 · 5 · 10 · 20 · 50 · custom
This engagement
Team Pod · ~100 hours · 4 weeks

More in IT services

Pricing a security services proposal?

Describe what you need

For example: “We need a managed-security rate card for three regions and a proposal section a buyer’s CISO team will accept.”

We aim to come back with matched experts within 24 to 72 hours.