How long are typical MSP contracts?

Contract length varies more than it should. Here's what to expect and what to push back on:

Initial term

• 12 months — common and reasonable. Long enough for the MSP to recover onboarding costs, short enough to leave if it isn't working.
• 24-36 months — common with discounted pricing. Acceptable if pricing is meaningfully lower, but a major lock-in if the relationship deteriorates.
• 5+ years — rare except for enterprise scenarios. Run from this for an SMB engagement.

After the initial term

• Month-to-month — the gold standard. Forces the MSP to keep earning your business.
• Auto-renewing annual — common but watch the cancellation window (often 60-90 days advance notice required).
• Auto-renewing with price increases — watch for "may increase annually by X%" clauses.

Termination clauses to read carefully

• Cancellation for cause — SLA misses, security incidents, performance failures should give you out clauses
• Cancellation for convenience — can you exit without cause? At what cost?
• Data return obligations — how does your data come back? In what format? At what cost?
• Transition assistance — will they help the next provider come up cleanly?

Maverick's stance

We use 12-month initial terms with month-to-month after. We don't lock clients into multi-year commitments because if we're not earning the relationship every month, you should be able to leave.