What Is The MSP Playbook?
The MSP Playbook is an independent resource for IT professionals navigating the managed services industry. We provide tools, analysis, and straight-talking guidance that helps workers understand their rights, evaluate MSP offers, and build leverage in an industry that too often treats people as billing units.
No MSP sponsorships. No affiliate kickbacks. No "partnered content" dressed up as editorial. Just information built to serve the people who actually do the work.
Who's Behind It
The MSP Playbook is currently published by a small independent editorial desk, not a corporate newsroom. The publication focuses on Australian managed services, the economics of outsourced IT, contracts, pay, and the working conditions behind service delivery.
The site doesn't claim a larger staff, named credentials, or legal expertise that it doesn't have. As contributors are verified and commissioned, their names, relevant backgrounds, and article responsibilities will appear on their work.
Editorial Process
Articles use a source-first workflow:
- Scope: Define the question, the Australian context, and the people or organisations affected.
- Source: Prefer primary records, company disclosures, official statistics, court or tribunal material, and named trade reporting. User submissions are labelled as submissions, not treated as independently verified facts.
- Separate: Distinguish sourced fact, attributed allegation, lived experience, interpretation, and legal conclusion. The site doesn't present an allegation as an established fact.
- Check: Review dates, figures, links, quotations, and whether the subject has a fair opportunity to respond where the article makes material criticism.
- Correct: Send errors, right-of-reply requests, privacy concerns, or takedown requests to hello@mspplaybook.reviews. The desk records the request, assesses the evidence, and updates or removes material when publication isn't defensible.
This process is editorial disclosure, not a substitute for legal review. Before the review system scales, an Australian defamation and media lawyer should review the moderation, notice, correction, and takedown procedures.
Who It's For
IT workers stuck inside MSPs. If you're an engineer, analyst, or project manager grinding through an all-you-can-eat contract and wondering where your $200/hr goes, this site is for you.
Business owners choosing an MSP. If you're evaluating managed service providers and need a way to cut through the sales pitch, our comparison tools and red flag scanner are built for that.
MSP employees who want better. If you work for an MSP and want to push for fairer contracts, better culture, or just understand what's normal in this industry, the salary data and contract guides are your reference.
Why It Exists
The MSP model creates an inherent power imbalance. Clients pay high rates. MSPs take their cut. And the people delivering the actual work β writing the code, managing the infrastructure, responding to the 2am incidents β often have no visibility into the economics or their own rights.
We've seen sham contracting, 80-hour weeks framed as "commitment," restraint clauses that would make a Silicon Valley startup blush, and salary structures designed to obscure rather than inform.
The MSP Playbook exists because someone needed to pull back the curtain. So we built browser-based tools β the Contract Red Flag Scanner, the MSP Health Score, the MSP Cost Model, and the Procurement Scorecard β and paired them with straight analysis of how the industry actually works.
Our Mission
Transparency. Real salary data, real MSP financials, real contract analysis. No spin.
Worker rights. Understanding your rights under the Fair Work Act, the Professional Employees Award, and your own contract isn't optional β it's how you protect yourself.
Fair contracts. The MSP industry runs on contracts. Most workers never read the fine print. We help you understand what you're signing and what you should push back on.
Industry accountability. When MSPs treat people badly, that should be visible. Our review system and company profiles are built to make the invisible, visible.
How to Get Involved
Submit a review. Share your MSP experience anonymously. Every review helps another IT worker make an informed decision.
Suggest a topic. Got a question about MSP contracts, salaries, or culture? Tell us what to cover next.
Share the playbook. If any of this helps you, share it with a colleague. The more people who understand the model, the harder it is for anyone to exploit it.
Contribute data. Salary data, contract templates, company profiles β the more data we have, the more accurate and useful the tools become.
The Bottom Line
The MSP industry isn't going away. But the information asymmetry can be. The MSP Playbook is one part of that. Built from real experience, for the people doing the actual work.
Your leverage starts with knowing the game. We're here to help you know it.
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