24/7 maintenance of IT systems – cost analysis: Outsourcing vs. in-house service team

9 March 2026

Lidia Oktaba

Ensuring the continuity of IT systems around the clock, 7 days a week, is now a standard in many industries. Retail, e-commerce, logistics, or the financial sector cannot afford downtime – even outside of standard working hours. Therefore, companies very often face a dilemma: should they invest in the expansion of internal structures and their own team, or should they bet on a proven external model – outsourcing? Let’s find out!

IT outsourcing or your own service team – which is more profitable?

The short answer: in most cases, IT outsourcing is cheaper and more flexible than maintaining your own team 24/7.

Having your own service team means that you need to hire a few or a dozen specialists to ensure that you can work shifts around the clock. Outsourcing, such as the IT Service Desk from Exorigo-Upos, allows you to use a ready-made structure, experienced teams, and proven procedures – without incurring fixed costs.

What are the costs of maintaining your own IT team 24/7?

Building an internal service team is not only about employee salaries. It’s a whole ecosystem of costs that are often underestimated at the planning stage.

The most important cost components are:

remuneration of IT specialists (including allowances for night work and on-call duty),
recruitment, onboarding, and employee rotation,
technical training and certifications,
tools for handling reports, monitoring, and reporting,
holidays, sick leave, absences,
team management and operational supervision.

For many companies, this means high fixed costs, regardless of the actual number of incidents.

What are the costs of IT outsourcing?

IT outsourcing costs are typically more predictable and scalable. In a model such as the one offered by Exorigo-Upos, the company pays for a clearly defined scope of services and an SLA level.

The key financial benefit here is risk transfer: for your own team, the costs of errors, delays, or restructuring are directly charged to your budget. In outsourcing, the supplier assumes financial responsibility for meeting deadlines (ASAP mode) and maintaining service standards.

The cost of outsourcing is influenced by m.in:

The number of users or locations supported
the scope of support (1st, 2nd or 3rd line),
24/7 availability or at specific times,
response time and resolution of requests,
additional services, e.g., monitoring or reporting.

Why is the Service Desk from Exorigo-Upos more than a hotline?

When choosing a partner, it is worth considering whether they only offer “accepting applications” or provide real technical support. IT services from Exorigo-Upos stand out from the competition in several aspects:

Single Point of Contact (SPOC): Your employees don’t have to think about who to call. One number solves software, hardware, and network issues.
Proprietary ITSM system: The system allows you to group requests by status, SMS notifications, and user satisfaction survey (NPS).
On-site support: In addition to the remote Service Desk, Exorigo-Upos has a nationwide network of field service technicians who can show up at your point in the event of a critical failure.
Experience in the Retail industry: As a device manufacturer and software developer, the company has unique expertise that reduces the time it takes to diagnose problems.

Own team vs. Service Desk

Feature	Own team (In-house)	Service Desk Exorigo Upos
Availability	Limited (holidays, illnesses)	24/7/365 without interruption
Entry costs	High (recruitment, equipment)	Low (Service Model)
Expertise	Narrow (only what is in the company)	Wide (experience from many industries)
Tools	Costly ITSM licenses	Own mature ITSM system
Scalability	Difficult and slow	Instant

When does outsourcing make the most sense?

IT outsourcing works especially well for companies that:

operate continuously (24/7),
have a dispersed structure (multiple locations),
they are growing rapidly and need scalability,
want to mitigate operational risk,
They don’t want to build large internal teams.

That is why organizations often choose the IT Service Desk offered by Exorigo-Upos from the trade, service, and logistics sectors.

Maintenance of IT systems 24/7 – Summary

Maintaining IT systems 24/7 on their own is a challenge that becomes a barrier to growth for many companies. Comparing the costs and organization of work, IT outsourcing – especially in the Exorigo-Upos Service Desk model – proves to be a more effective, predictable, and secure solution than building your own service team. In addition, it allows not only to reduce expenses but, above all, to remove the operational burden from the management board and IT departments. Thanks to this, you can focus on developing your business, knowing that your IT infrastructure is supervised by a team of professionals equipped with the best tools on the market.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to outsource a 24/7 IT Service Desk?

The cost of outsourcing a Service Desk depends on several factors, including the number of users, location, scope of support, and the required SLA level. In the case of Exorigo-Upos, the price is set individually, allowing you to tailor the service to your business needs and avoid unnecessary costs.

Is IT outsourcing cheaper than hiring your own full-time employee?

In most cases, yes. Outsourcing eliminates the costs of recruitment, training, vacations, and employee turnover, and clearly distributes expenses through a predictable fee. Having your own team 24/7 generates significantly higher fixed costs.

Do IT outsourcing costs increase as the company grows?

Yes, but in a controlled and scalable way. Unlike your own team, outsourcing allows you to flexibly adjust the scope and costs of support to the current scale of your business without the need for sudden personnel investments.