Question 1

How do I know if I'm ready to hire full-time infrastructure help?

Accepted Answer

Typical signals: You're spending 20+ hours/week on infrastructure (or your developers are). You're at €500K+ annual revenue and infrastructure is holding you back. You have multiple incidents per month. You need 24/7 coverage. You have complex compliance needs. General rule: below €1M revenue, fractional or managed makes more sense. €1M-€5M revenue, fractional starts making sense. Above €5M revenue, full-time usually pays for itself. But revenue isn't everything—some low-revenue SaaS companies need full-time because complexity demands it. Use the tool's 6 questions to get a personalized answer.

Question 2

What's the difference between fractional help and just hiring a consultant?

Accepted Answer

Fractional = ongoing relationship, set hours per month (e.g., 16 hours/month), proactive maintenance. Consultant = project-based, they come in, fix something, leave. Fractional is better for ongoing needs: monitoring your infrastructure, handling incidents, gradual improvements. Consultants are better for one-time projects: migrations, audits, major architecture changes. Most growing companies need fractional, not consultants. You want someone who knows your infrastructure intimately and can respond quickly when things break, not someone you have to onboard every time you need help. Typical fractional: €150-250/hour for 8-20 hours/month = €1,200-€5,000/month.

Question 3

Isn't managed hosting just more expensive without giving me control?

Accepted Answer

Managed hosting trades control for expertise and time. What you give up: ability to use any technology you want (they have supported stacks). Direct server access for tweaking. Flexibility to experiment freely. What you gain: expert team managing your infrastructure 24/7. Guaranteed response times and uptime SLAs. No 3am pages when things break. More time to focus on business. The math: managed hosting costs €2,000-€5,000/month. DIY costs €500-1,500/month hosting + €2,000-8,000/month of your time. For most non-technical founders, managed is actually cheaper on total cost. You only need 'control' if you have specific technical needs or in-house expertise.

Question 4

Can I start with DIY and upgrade later when I can afford it?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but know the risks and plan the transition. Starting DIY makes sense when: you're pre-revenue or early revenue. You're technical and enjoy infrastructure. You need maximum flexibility to experiment. Risk: you might never 'afford' it because infrastructure debt accumulates (migrations get harder, documentation never happens, complexity increases). Better approach: start DIY but document everything, use standard technologies (easier to hand off later), set a revenue threshold for switching (e.g., 'when we hit €200K ARR, we move to managed'). Common trap: staying DIY too long because it 'works' until a disaster proves it doesn't.

Question 5

How do I justify the cost of managed services to my co-founders or investors?

Accepted Answer

Frame it as ROI, not cost. Calculate: 1) Your current time spent on infrastructure (hours/week × hourly rate). 2) Downtime cost (use downtime calculator). 3) Opportunity cost of not building features. Example: 'We spend 15 hours/week on infrastructure (€3,000/month of founder time) plus we had 2 incidents last quarter costing €25,000 total. Managed hosting costs €2,500/month but eliminates 80% of that time and reduces incidents by 90%. Net savings: €2,500+/month plus we ship features faster.' Investors and co-founders care about growth velocity and risk reduction. Show how managed infrastructure accelerates both.

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