Some of the best recurring revenue opportunities don’t require a major reboot of your service stack. They come from adding services that address pain points your existing clients are already experiencing.
That could mean turning email governance into recurring revenue, uncovering technology waste that leads to new advisory work or helping clients meet cyber insurance requirements.
At ChannelPro LIVE: Parsippany, the ChannelPro editorial team spoke with five innovative vendors to learn how IT providers can add profitability without completely reinventing their businesses.
Here are the opportunities MSPs should consider.
1. Turn every email into a managed branding opportunity
- New opportunity: Centralized email signature management
- Business problem solved: Branding consistency, compliance and communication governance
- MSP advantage: Easy deployment across an existing customer base
Ashley Bork
For nearly every small and midsize business, email is a primary communication channel. Yet there’s real danger in letting individual employees maintain their own signatures, disclaimers and branding.
Ashley Bork, MSP account manager at Exclaimer, said the issue is often overlooked for years before business leadership decides to fix it. Even then, standardizing signatures across an organization can be cumbersome.
“It’s a problem that is always there, but people typically don’t look for a solution until somebody high up in the company is like, ‘Hey, why does your signature look like this?’”
Why MSPs should care: Exclaimer gives MSPs a way to turn that headache into a centrally managed service covering branding, compliance and communication governance.
What’s especially attractive is how naturally the technology fits alongside services MSPs already manage. Exclaimer works within the Microsoft and Google ecosystems, allowing a provider to expand its offering without forcing clients into an unfamiliar workflow.
It’s important to note that signature consistency isn’t solely an IT issue. Marketing may need campaign banners updated, compliance teams may require specific disclaimers and HR leaders value consistency and professionalism. That means MSPs can please multiple stakeholders by rolling out one simple service.
“It unlocks something within those MSPs. It positions them to fill more of a trusted adviser role,” she said.
Why it’s easy to add: Exclaimer has put significant effort into making its MSP offering straightforward to deploy and manage. Bork said a basic implementation can be completed extremely quickly, while the platform still offers deep, granular control if the customer needs it.
“Deployment takes all of five minutes if you want a really simple signature,” Bork noted.
Recurring revenue potential: Exclaimer’s model is particularly MSP-friendly because it is usage-based, with per-seat monthly billing. Because email signatures are relevant to a broad range of customers, MSPs can include it in new sales packages and upsell existing clients.
“It’s something that your existing customer base can utilize. The problem is there. The pain is there.”
Where to start: Instead of asking whether a customer needs email signature software, ask who currently controls branding, disclaimers and signatures across the organization. If the answer is “everyone manages their own,” you’ve found the opening.
2. Help clients find technology waste and turn those savings into recurring revenue
- New opportunity: Technology and spend optimization
- Business problem solved: Software sprawl, unused licenses and unmanaged technology spending
- MSP advantage: Better visibility into client environments creates savings and upsell opportunities
Matt Solomon
Technology sprawl can make it difficult for MSPs to see where clients are overspending or creating unnecessary risk.
BetterTracker brings application usage, expenses, contracts and subscriptions into one view. That helps MSPs identify redundant tools, unused licenses and applications customers purchased independently.
BetterTracker co-founder Matt Solomon said MSPs often underestimate how much technology is actually in use. “If I ask an MSP in a crowd, whatever number they give me, it’s 2 to 3x bigger than that number,” he said.
Why MSPs should care: Better visibility can turn technology waste into an advisory opportunity. An MSP might discover a customer has 20 licenses for an application but only 10 active users, creating an immediate opportunity to reduce unnecessary spending.
That same visibility can expose applications the customer bought without involving the MSP, opening the door to new security, management or consolidation conversations. Solomon said the platform is “empowering them to have vCIO types of conversations.”
Why it’s easy to add: BetterTracker is designed to pull usage and spending data together rather than forcing MSPs to track renewals and subscriptions through spreadsheets and calendars. Solomon said those traditional methods simply aren’t efficient enough.
The company is also adding Betty AI, which lets MSPs ask questions about redundant tools, upcoming contracts and other stack data. “It is literally letting an MSP have a conversation with their technology stack,” Solomon said.
Recurring revenue potential: Technology optimization doesn’t have to be a one-time audit. MSPs can use ongoing visibility to continuously identify waste, manage renewals and uncover services they could take over.
Saving the customer money can also make the next sales conversation easier. “It’s a lot easier to get money from somebody when you’ve just saved them $10,000,” Solomon said.
Where to start: Ask customers when they last reviewed every application, contract and subscription they’re paying for. Then offer to find unnecessary spending before the next round of renewals.
3. Make technology procurement a simple e-commerce experience
- New opportunity: E-commerce and automated IT procurement
- Business problem solved: Manual purchasing, rogue technology purchases and fragmented procurement
- MSP advantage: Keeps more customer spending inside the MSP relationship
Andrew Halbeck
Customers increasingly expect the same convenience from business purchasing that they get from consumer e-commerce.
Syndigo’s ChannelOnline platform gives VARs and MSPs an online storefront where customers can purchase products already approved for their environment. That gives clients the convenience of e-commerce without introducing unknown products into a managed network.
Andrew Halbeck, senior account executive at Syndigo, said the platform lets customers self-serve while freeing the MSP to focus elsewhere. “You give them the ability to self-serve where you can spend your time selling and managing and running your business,” he said.
Why MSPs should care: Hardware procurement is often treated as transactional work, but automating it can make the MSP more deeply embedded in the customer’s purchasing process.
ChannelOnline can route orders to distribution partners for fulfillment while also allowing MSPs to include their own products and services in the same environment.
Why it’s easy to add: The platform is designed to complement the systems MSPs already use rather than replace them. Halbeck said ChannelOnline integrates with major business platforms, making it an enhancement to existing workflows.
For larger customers, Syndigo’s PunchOut capabilities can also integrate the MSP’s catalog directly into e-procurement systems. Halbeck said demand for those integrations has increased significantly as customers look to automate purchasing and control spending.
Recurring revenue potential: Once the MSP becomes part of the customer’s procurement workflow, that relationship becomes much harder for a competitor to displace.
“It creates a level of entanglement with their customer that is extremely hard to disrupt,” Halbeck said.
That stickiness can extend well beyond one hardware sale, especially when the same platform is also carrying the MSP’s own products and services.
Where to start: Ask customers how employees currently purchase approved technology. If the process still relies on emails, spreadsheets or independent shopping, there may be an opportunity to automate procurement while keeping more of that spending with the MSP.
4. Expand recurring revenue with partner-delivered pentesting
- New opportunity: Partner-delivered penetration testing
- Business problem solved: Advanced security testing without specialized in-house expertise
- MSP advantage: Expands the security portfolio while keeping the MSP in the client relationship
LaShawn Coleman
Many MSPs want to offer penetration testing but lack the specialized expertise to deliver it in-house. Red Sentry gives providers a partner-friendly path into human-led penetration testing while supplying the expertise, project management and scoping assistance needed to deliver the engagement.
LaShawn Coleman, head of operations at Red Sentry, said partners don’t need to become penetration testing experts themselves. “The MSPs don’t have to know it all. Like, we’re here to support you, and we’re the experts in our area,” she said.
Why MSPs should care: Instead of hiring a specialized security team, MSPs can extend their portfolios through an expert partner while remaining part of the client relationship.
Red Sentry helps partners scope environments, supports sales conversations when needed and assigns a dedicated project manager to guide each engagement through final report delivery.
“We make it easy for you,” Coleman said, adding that Red Sentry’s specialists can help MSPs overcome cybersecurity knowledge gaps.
Why it’s easy to add: Red Sentry offers white-label capabilities, partner guides and assistance with scoping, giving MSPs practical support before and during an engagement.
That makes it easier for providers to introduce a sophisticated security service without building the delivery model from scratch.
Recurring revenue potential: Penetration testing can also create natural expansion opportunities. A customer might start with an external assessment, then identify a need for cloud testing, tabletop exercises or other deeper evaluations.
“There’s an opportunity to test further and deeper into their environment,” Coleman said.
That gives MSPs multiple opportunities to expand security engagements over time rather than treating penetration testing as a one-off project.
Where to start: Ask regulated or security-conscious customers when they last independently tested whether their controls actually work. Don’t lead with penetration testing. Lead with validation.
5. Turn cyber insurance requirements into billable security work
Steve Dahan
New opportunity: Cyber insurance readiness and remediation
Business problem solved: Insurance questionnaires, control gaps and renewal preparation
MSP advantage: Turns compliance requirements into billable security projects
Cyber insurance can be uncomfortable territory for MSPs. That’s also why it may be one of the more interesting emerging service opportunities.
Inscora isn’t asking MSPs to sell insurance. Instead, its platform helps translate insurance requirements into security gaps the provider can remediate.
Steve Dahan, VP of sales at Inscora, sees significant untapped services revenue in that process. “There are a lot of billable hours that live within the cyber insurance space that they’re not capitalizing on yet,” he said.
Why MSPs should care: When an insurer requires additional controls before issuing or renewing coverage, the customer may need new technology, configuration work or a larger security project.
The MSP is ideally positioned to deliver that remediation. Inscora helps surface those gaps before they become a last-minute problem.
“We use insurance as a way to uncover a lot of remediation for MSPs,” Dahan said.
Why it’s easy to add: Inscora also tackles one of the most tedious parts of the process: lengthy cyber insurance questionnaires. Dahan said the platform can prefill roughly 75% to 80% of many questionnaires using the information it already ingests.
That can move the MSP from reacting to an urgent customer request to helping clients prepare before renewal.
“Now, the MSP can be proactive. They lead and start the conversation, and it’s a brand new service that they’ve never offered before,” Dahan said.
Recurring revenue potential: Insurance readiness doesn’t end when a policy is issued. Inscora supports new policies, renewals and ongoing monitoring of a client’s insurability, giving MSPs a reason to stay involved throughout the year.
That creates a strong recurring model: insurance readiness opens the conversation, remediation creates project revenue and ongoing monitoring keeps the MSP engaged.
Where to start: Ask when the customer’s cyber insurance policy renews and whether they know which security controls the insurer is likely to scrutinize. Use that conversation to identify remediation work before renewal pressure hits.
Recurring revenue is hiding in adjacent problems
MSP growth doesn’t always require entering a new market, hiring a new team or making a major investment. Often, the best opportunities sit next to services providers already deliver. The MSPs that can identify and solve those adjacent needs strengthen their position as invaluable business partners, rather than computer support technicians.
If a competitor finds those service gaps first, it might be their foot in the door to woo your favorite client.
Jonathan Browning is executive director of content and engagement for The ChannelPro Network. He has been a leader in the IT channel for close to a decade. He’s an avid fan and early adopter of technology. He believes that the managed services industry is the most important driver of economic growth and human innovation in today’s world.
Images: vegefox.com – stock.adobe.com Ashley Bork / LinkedIn, Matt Solomon / LinkedIn, Andrew Halbeck / LinkedIn, LaShawn Coleman / LinkedIn, Steve Dahan / LinkedIn
