Economics
The wholesale number is public. The math your retail price has to cover is yours.
$39 and $49 CAD are the published reference bands for the delivery side. Everything between that number and what you charge your client is margin - but margin is more than subtraction, and it erodes in specific, predictable ways.
Review the reference bands firstIllustrative only
The basic arithmetic, worked through with sample numbers.
These figures are an example of the calculation, not a suggested price. Your retail price is your own commercial decision, informed by your market, your positioning, and what your account-management time is worth.
| Line | Sample figure | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Your illustrative retail price | $79 CAD / user / month | An example only - chosen by you, not implied by this site. |
| Essential reference band | $39 CAD / user / month | The published wholesale figure for the delivery side. |
| Illustrative gross margin | $40 CAD / user / month | Retail minus wholesale, before anything else below. |
| At 25 qualified users | $1,000 CAD / month gross | Before your own time, tools, and overhead are counted. |
Gross margin is not net margin
Four costs the subtraction above does not include.
- Your own time on account management, sales, and renewals
- Exceptions and out-of-scope requests you choose to absorb instead of billing separately
- Payment processing, collections, and bad-debt risk on your own invoicing
- Any tools, licences, or overhead you carry independently of the delivery lane
A number that looks healthy on paper can disappear into unbilled time if the boundary between included and exceptional work is not tracked.
Bundled retainer
IT folded into a broader monthly fee.
Common where the firm already bills a retainer for other services. Simpler for the client to understand; harder for you to see whether the IT line is actually profitable on its own.
Watch for
- Scope creep hidden inside a fee that never itemizes what changed
- Difficulty raising the IT-specific portion without renegotiating the whole retainer
Line-item invoice
IT billed on its own, per user.
Clearer margin visibility and easier to adjust independently. Requires the client to see a distinct IT charge, which means the offer boundary needs to be legible on its own.
Watch for
- A client questioning the line item without the value being visible elsewhere
- Needing your own clean invoice description, separate from delivery-side terminology
Where margin quietly erodes
Four patterns worth naming before they become habits.
- Out-of-scope favours absorbed silently instead of surfaced as a decision
- Recurring exceptions that never get folded into scope or billed separately
- No renewal review, so retail pricing stays flat while costs or scope grow
- Bundling so much into one fee that no one can tell what the IT line actually costs
Price changes
Decide who owns a pricing change before you need one.
If the reference bands or your own retail pricing ever need to change, the practical questions are the same either way: how much notice is reasonable, who communicates it to clients, and how existing agreements are treated. These are written-agreement questions, not public commitments - ask them directly during qualification rather than assuming a default.
Bring your intended retail range, not a final price.
A fit conversation can test whether the reference bands leave room for the margin your firm needs.