Managed IT FAQ: The questions we get asked.
If yours isn't here, email it. A person replies within one business day, and good questions end up on this page.
Is there a phone number I can call?
Not a public one. Our team works tickets rather than phones, and a published number would ring in the middle of another client's job. New enquiries go through the intake form or support@sentinelgrid.us, and a person replies within one business day. Clients raise tickets in the portal, and a P1 outage at any hour goes to the on-call number given at onboarding.
Do we have to pay for business email?
No. Every SentinelGrid client gets business email on their own domain at no extra cost. You can send up to 300 emails a day and receive as much as you need. If your team sends more than that, talk to us and we will work out the right setup together.
Where are you located, and do you come on site?
SentinelGrid has its headquarters in downtown Orlando, Florida, a location in Sanford in Seminole County, and service hubs in Jupiter, Florida, and Laurel Park, North Carolina, and we are not tied to them. We go on site wherever a client is, and we support clients remotely too. Almost everything a managed IT provider does is remote by design: monitoring, patching, helpdesk and identity management don't depend on where you are. On-site visits are for jobs that need hands on hardware.
It's a beta, so what am I signing up for?
Nothing binding, at first. Joining the beta list gets you a conversation and a free written audit of your infrastructure. You see the scope and the price before anything is agreed, and if you walk away at that point you keep the audit document. That's the whole downside.
Who works on our systems?
Only people named to you in advance. Managed IT is the newest thing our team does, and we are actively bringing on contractors and technicians to support managed IT clients, and every one of them goes through the same vetting process before touching a client system: identity verified, references checked, a technical assessment, a signed contractor agreement with confidentiality and access limits, per-engagement access that is revoked when the work ends, and fingerprint-based background checks for CJIS work. Three beta spots is what can be supported properly while that team is built around them. You are told by name who has access to your environment, before they have it, and you can say no.
What happens if SentinelGrid goes away?
Every small MSP should be asked this. Your documentation, inventory and credentials live in your possession, not locked in our tooling, so another provider can pick them up and be useful on day one. That's a deliberate design choice and it's the same reason there's no lock-in contract.
Which parts are working today?
Helpdesk and ticketing is finished and live. That's the portal our clients raise tickets in once they're onboarded. Remote support and device management run in production. Monitoring and alerting is live, and you can see it yourself at status.sentinelgrid.us. The client portal is live at portal.sentinelgrid.us. Backups, and single sign-on in client environments, are designed but not built. The roadmap is kept accurate. If a row says "planned", it means we haven't built it, not that we're being modest.
Why would I buy something unfinished?
Because the price reflects it, the rate is locked for two years while the rest ships, and the alternative for most small teams isn't a polished MSP. It's nobody, or whoever is best with computers doing it on top of their real job. If what's already live (a helpdesk, remote support, monitoring) fixes more than it costs, that's a reasonable trade. If it doesn't, the audit will show that and we'll say so.
We already have someone who does our IT.
Most of our target clients do, usually one overloaded person, or whoever is most comfortable with computers. The Watch plan exists for exactly that: monitoring, patch reporting and documentation handled underneath your person, so they get their week back and stop being the single point of failure.
How small is too small?
Not very. A five-person office with a couple of servers and a pile of laptops is a completely reasonable client. Below that, a one-off audit and cleanup usually makes more sense than a monthly agreement, and we'll tell you that rather than sell you a plan you don't need.
What does managed IT cost?
It's published: Watch is $149 a month flat for up to 10 devices ($9 per extra device); Support is $45 per user per month with a $195 minimum; Manage is $79 per user per month with a $395 minimum; Operate is $129 per user per month with a $995 minimum and up to 3 servers included ($99 per extra server). The audit and onboarding are free during the beta, project work is $95 an hour and quoted first, and licences are passed through at cost. The audit confirms your seat and device counts, and that's the only thing that moves the number. Once agreed, your rate is held for 24 months, including through everything that ships during that time. No per-incident billing, no surprise line items.
Do you lock people into long contracts?
No. The 24-month beta rate is a commitment from us to you, not a cage. The engagement is month to month with 30 days' notice. Your documentation, inventory and credentials stay in your possession throughout, and we'll hand over cleanly to whoever comes next if you ever move on.
What do I sign?
One document, written in plain English with a one-line summary at the top of every section. Businesses we already know sign the Simple Client Agreement, which runs nine pages. Everyone else signs the Founding Client Agreement, which adds schedules for your plan, response targets, build status and contacts. Both are blank templates you can read before the audit; the real one is signed in the client portal, which records who signed, when and from where. Both say in writing what's built and what isn't, hold your rate for 24 months, and let you leave on 30 days' notice with your documentation in hand. If you handle regulated data there is an addendum for it: HIPAA business associate agreement, PCI DSS responsibility matrix, CJIS security addendum, FERPA student-data addendum. And when it's time to leave, a termination & hand-over notice that walks both of us through giving everything back.
How do I sign in as an existing client?
Use the Client Portal. It's one sign-in for tickets, your private status page, your documentation and the agreements you've signed. Sign-in is a single-use link emailed to the address we enrolled, so there's no password to remember. If your link doesn't arrive, email support@sentinelgrid.us and a person will sort it out.
What if something goes wrong and you can't fix it?
Then we say so, and we bring in someone who can: vendor support, a specialist, or a hardware supplier. Part of what you're paying for is someone who owns the problem until it's closed, including owning the escalation.
Who will have access to our systems?
Only people named to you in advance. Nobody is assigned to your environment without you being told first, everyone has been through the vetting process, access is per engagement and least-privilege, remote sessions are logged by name, and access is revoked the day the work ends.
Do you use AI?
Yes, to build. Much of our software, this website and our documents are written with AI development tools (currently Anthropic's Claude) and then reviewed, tested and deployed by a named person who is accountable for the result under your agreement. Where it is never used: on your data, so tickets, credentials, configs and monitoring output never go into an AI tool without your written agreement; answering your support tickets, which a person does; or making decisions about people. The full statement is in the privacy policy and the reasoning is in a post on the blog.
Do you work with businesses outside Florida?
Yes. Monitoring, patching, helpdesk and identity management don't depend on where you are, and when something needs hands on the hardware we come on site there too.
What if we handle health, card, criminal-justice or student data?
Tell us before we start. There's a signed addendum for each: HIPAA BAA, PCI DSS, CJIS, FERPA. We keep that category of data out of systems we run for you until it's signed. Anyone working on a CJIS engagement is fingerprinted and trained before access.
Stop being the IT department.
Three beta spots. Worst case, you get a free map of your own infrastructure and walk away.