How predictable pricing became the game-changer MSPs never saw coming
Every managed service provider (MSP) knows the sinking feeling of opening a cloud storage bill that’s completely blown past your projections. Those advertised per-TB rates looked so reasonable when you built your quote, but now you’re staring at egress fees, API charges, and penalties you never saw coming. The margin you counted on has evaporated, and you’re left explaining unexpected costs to clients or eating them yourself.
What we’re seeing in the field
We talk to MSPs every day, and the same pattern keeps repeating: what looks like affordable storage turns into death by a thousand cuts. Those attractive headline rates are just the beginning of your costs, not the end of them.
The real problem nobody talks about
Here’s what the hyperscalers don’t want you to know: that attractive per-TB price is just the entry fee. The real money comes from everything else: the hidden fees and charges that stack up faster than you can track them.
When we analyse MSP cost structures, we see the same challenges everywhere. You’re building quotes without knowing your true costs. It’s like trying to quote a taxi ride when you don’t know the route or the final destination.
This unpredictability creates a vicious cycle. Either you build huge buffers into your pricing (and lose deals to competitors), or you price aggressively and watch your margins disappear when the hidden costs hit.
Why this goes beyond money
The financial impact is obvious, but there’s something deeper at stake: trust.
When your client gets surprised by fluctuating costs, they don’t blame the cloud provider they’ve never heard of. They blame you. Every unexpected charge becomes a conversation about why your solution is so unpredictable, why their costs keep growing, and whether they should be looking elsewhere.
We’ve seen MSPs lose long-term clients over billing confusion that had nothing to do with the actual service quality. That’s the hidden cost nobody talks about: the relationship damage that comes from pricing you can’t control or predict.
Our solution: Radical simplicity
This is where our story changes. At Exaba™, we asked ourselves: what if storage pricing could actually be simple? What if you could quote a project with confidence, knowing exactly what your costs would be six months from now?
That question led us to flip the traditional model on its head. Our approach is refreshingly straightforward:
- Storage costs <$2 per TB
- No egress fees
- No API charges
- No hidden fees
- No complex pricing calculators needed
We know it sounds almost too simple. That’s because the industry has become so accustomed to complexity that simplicity feels suspicious.
Let’s talk real numbers
When we strip away the pricing games and look at actual costs, the numbers are eye-opening. We’ve modelled scenarios for MSPs of different sizes, and over five years, the difference between hyperscaler chaos and our predictable pricing could be over $3.7 million USD in savings for a typical 3.5PB operation.
Here’s what matters more than the raw savings: it’s the ability to plan, to price with confidence, and to have conversations with clients that aren’t dominated by explaining unexpected charges.
How we built it differently
The best part about our approach isn’t just the pricing: it’s the complete control we give back to MSPs. We designed our platform with real MSP needs in mind:
- Deploy on your terms: Use existing hardware you already own, from enterprise servers to budget-friendly commodity disks
- Scale without limits: Start small and grow seamlessly as your business expands, with no costly upfront commitments
- True multi-tenancy: Built-in per-client usage tracking and billing visibility that makes client management effortless
- Enterprise resilience: Built-in redundancy and fault tolerance protect your clients’ data without the complexity of managing it yourself
- Security without fail: Immutability, encrypted data in transit and at rest.
- Data sovereignty: Keep sensitive client data exactly where you want it, meeting compliance requirements and client preferences for local data residency
- Universal compatibility: Works with whatever hardware you choose, no vendor lock-in or forced infrastructure upgrades
- Pay-as-you-grow: You only pay when you use the storage, and when your customers are paying you
Our focus is on working with your existing workflow instead of forcing you to rebuild everything. Whether you’re deep in the Veeam ecosystem, committed to Commvault, or using any number of other backup solutions, we integrate seamlessly. Plus, with true multi-tenancy built in, you get clean visibility for forecasting and the ability to bill clients accurately without the guesswork.
Where this leads us
We’re at an inflection point in the MSP world. The old model of accepting unpredictable costs and complex billing as “just the way things are” is starting to crack. Our customers are realising they don’t have to play by hyperscaler rules anymore.
The MSPs who embrace predictable, transparent pricing are going to have a huge advantage. They can price more aggressively while protecting their margins. They have cleaner client relationships. And they can focus on what they do best: delivering great service instead of explaining billing surprises.
Your next move
If you feel the house always wins, change the house!
If you’re tired of playing pricing roulette with your storage costs, we’d love to show you what predictable pricing could do for your business. Our technology is ready, the savings are real, and your competitors are probably already looking into alternatives.
The question isn’t whether predictable pricing will become the standard. It’s whether you’ll be early enough to the party to make it a competitive advantage.
Ready to see what your numbers would look like? Most MSPs are surprised by how much they could be saving. Sometimes the biggest changes start with the smallest steps: like spending 60 seconds modelling your current environment and seeing what’s possible.
After all, in a business built on trust, shouldn’t your costs be as reliable as your service?
Want to see how much predictable pricing could save your MSP? Try our Solution Designer. It takes just 60 seconds to get a real quote for your environment.