In-House Security Team vs an MSSP: An Honest Cost Comparison
When a business decides to take security seriously, the first instinct is often to hire someone. It feels straightforward: bring a security expert on staff and the problem is handled. The reality is more complicated — and usually more expensive — than it first appears. Here’s an honest comparison.
The true cost of in-house
Hiring one security professional in Canada is a significant commitment — well over $100,000 a year once you include salary, benefits, training, and tools. But the bigger issue isn’t the salary. It’s that one person cannot do the whole job.
Security threats don’t keep business hours. Real coverage means nights, weekends, and holidays — and one person can’t be on call for all of it. Genuine 24/7 monitoring takes a team of several people working in shifts. You’re not comparing the cost of one hire; you’re comparing the cost of a department.
The coverage gap
A single in-house hire also creates single points of failure:
- Vacations, sick days, and holidays leave you uncovered.
- Nights and weekends — when many attacks land — go unwatched.
- If that person leaves, your security capability walks out the door with them.
The expertise problem
Security is broad: detection, incident response, cloud security, compliance, vulnerability management, threat intelligence. No single generalist is an expert in all of it. A small in-house team ends up stretched thin across a wide field.
What an MSSP gives you
An MSSP spreads an entire team — and the tooling, and the breadth of expertise — across many clients. You get:
- Genuine 24/7 monitoring and response
- A range of specialists rather than one generalist
- Security tooling included rather than separately purchased
- A predictable monthly cost, typically less than a single senior hire
We break the numbers down further in how much managed security costs in Canada.
When in-house makes sense
In-house isn’t wrong — it’s a question of scale. Large organizations, or those with very specific or highly regulated needs, often build internal security teams. Many mature organizations land on a hybrid: a small in-house team for strategy and day-to-day work, with an MSSP providing 24/7 monitoring and surge capacity.
The honest answer
For most small and mid-sized Canadian businesses, an MSSP wins on all three counts — cost, coverage, and capability. For larger organizations, a hybrid model usually makes the most sense. The one option that rarely works is a single overloaded hire expected to cover everything alone.
If you’d like help thinking through the right model for your business, get in touch — we’ll give you a straight answer, even if that answer is “you’re fine for now.”