MSP Onboarding Fee: Show the Price and Waive It

Show the Actual Onboarding Scope Beside the Fee

Give onboarding its own description and reference. State what the client will receive and where the work ends. The fee line should point to that scope so the buyer can understand what you are including.

Use a genuinely prepared quote amount for that work. The model doesn't supply a universal gross fee to display before the waiver, so don't manufacture a list price for the purpose. Keep the estimate and scope behind the amount your MSP normally quotes for this engagement.

The model budgets 60 hours of onboarding project work per new client. That is a planning assumption, not a statement that every client requires exactly that effort or that the quote must bill those hours. Have delivery assess the actual environment before accepting the plan.

Put any unresolved discovery into the scope discussion. If the client expects remediation beyond the onboarding you've proposed, decide how it will be investigated and approved. A fee waiver shouldn't quietly expand the deliverable.

Use Separate Lines for the Fee and Its Waiver

Keep the recurring charge visible on its own. Show the onboarding amount and the matching concession as a one-time decision, then show the net onboarding amount. The example below uses placeholders for the genuine gross onboarding quote, rather than inventing a fee the model doesn't contain.

For this example, $4,500 plus $0 in net onboarding leaves the recurring service at $4,500 a month. The gross reference amount doesn't become recurring revenue merely because it appears on the proposal. If the seat count or recurring scope changes, recalculate the monthly fee before showing the waiver.

Where your software uses an included-price presentation instead of a separate negative line, make the same commercial result clear. Have finance approve how the form represents it. The requirement is an understandable fee, waiver, and net amount, not a particular button in a quoting product.

Write the Condition Without Inventing a Deadline

Use a condition your MSP has actually approved. The model's concession is onboarding included free for a signed agreement. It doesn't require an invented signing deadline, a longer contract term, or an unspecified future favor to make the offer work.

Onboarding for the attached scope is quoted at [amount]. We will include that onboarding at no charge for the signed service agreement. The net onboarding fee is $0. Your recurring service fee remains [amount] per month for the agreed scope.

Fill in the fields and attach the actual scope before sending it. If your approved offer has additional conditions, state them clearly and make sure delivery can honor the result. Don't let a salesperson improvise an expiry date that the rest of the business doesn't recognize.

Keep the same condition in the quote and the acceptance record. A verbal assurance that differs from the written offer leaves billing to reconstruct the decision later. Save the final version the client accepted.

Keep the Work in the Project Plan

The model assigns onboarding to onshore project engineers, outside the service desk's spare capacity. Waiving the fee doesn't remove the work from that team's schedule. In the example model, each new client still brings the planned 60 hours even though onboarding revenue is $0.

Have the project owner confirm readiness and the proposed start. Keep client responsibilities visible alongside the MSP tasks. The promise to include onboarding should arrive at delivery with the work and the dependencies, rather than only a discount code.

Erick Simpson recommends documenting onboarding as a project with phase reviews, training, and agreed handling of discoveries and changes. That is his practitioner advice. It supports giving the included work a delivery plan rather than treating free as a reason to leave it undefined.

Free is a billing result; it is an unreliable project manager. Keep the assigned people and hours in the resource plan. If the engagement requires different work from the estimate, bring the scope and commercial question to the authorized owner.

Test the Quote Before Replacing the Template

Run an example through your actual quote-to-billing workflow. Check the monthly amount and the net onboarding amount in the client view, then inspect what the accepted quote sends downstream. Confirm whether the result matches the approved offer before anyone uses the template on a prospect.

Calvin Johnson describes copying a client's preferred quote template and creating integration versions so the original quoting process can continue while revised forms are inspected and approved. That is his implementation account. Use the version-control principle when changing your own onboarding presentation.

Have finance check that the reference amount hasn't become an unintended charge. Have delivery check that the onboarding project still receives its scope. The account owner should check the client wording against the approved concession, with the monthly service unchanged.

Don't report the displayed gross onboarding amount as money collected or as an addition to recurring revenue. The model collects $0 for onboarding. Retain the commercial record and ask finance to apply the appropriate accounting treatment in your actual system.

Take the next proposal and reconcile its seat calculation, recurring scope, and onboarding lines. Show the genuine onboarding quote and its agreed waiver, then verify the net amount and delivery handoff. The client should be able to identify what is included free without guessing whether the monthly price changes.