What we learned, speaking to 42 MSPs in 2025

Over the past three months, we’ve been speaking with MSPs across Australia, the United States, and beyond.
We’ve:

• Interviewed over 40 MSPs

• Logged 50+ hours of conversations

• Researched and analysed posts across r/msp, r/connectwise, and industry forums

Support Fusion was developed inside Antler's Residency Program, which encourages founders to deeply understand a problem space before building solutions. This article reflects insights from that exploration, and aims to share them openly with the MSP community.

MSPs are growing; but so is operational strain

On the surface, things look positive:

• $300 billion global MSP market in 2023, projected to reach $520 billion by 2032​

• Roughly 13% CAGR​

Yet many MSPs described a daily experience of rising workload, growing client complexity, and increasing process friction.

Several technical managers noted that while client numbers and ticket volumes are up, internal operations often still rely on manually stitching systems together.

How time is really being spent

Across interviews, three areas consistently stood out for consuming non-billable time:

Combined, that’s over 100 hours per month.

In conversations, service delivery managers frequently described teams spending "half their week" on updating tickets, fixing data sync issues, and manually assembling client reports.

Ticket management remains largely manual

Enterprise clients increasingly co-manage IT environments with MSPs. However, these clients typically retain their own ITSM platforms (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira), requiring MSPs to manually mirror ticket data into systems like ConnectWise or Autotask.

According to multiple operations managers, it’s common for a single enterprise client to generate hundreds of ticket interactions per month, none of which sync automatically between environments.

The absence of automated integration results in substantial double-handling, increased SLA risk, and delayed resolution times.

QBRs are still heavily manual

Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) were identified as essential but burdensome activities.

Most MSP account managers reported:

• Spending 3–8 hours gathering ticket data, SLA compliance metrics, and service reports for each QBR

• Relying heavily on manual compilation across multiple systems

• Spending more time building decks than analysing insights

Several MSPs mentioned that the time invested in preparing QBRs often crowded out higher-value client strategy work.

Automation remains a priority, but progress is uneven

The need for automation is widely acknowledged:

• 95% of MSP leaders agree automation is required for growth​

• 88% believe repetitive tasks are blocking more strategic initiatives​

However, despite the consensus, most MSPs estimate they have automated fewer than 25% of their core operational workflows​.

Common barriers cited included:

• Lack of time to configure or maintain automations

• High complexity and cost of integrations

• Fragmentation across customer environments

As one CTO summarised, while the desire to automate is universal, the capacity to execute on it remains limited.

A deeper shift: MSP ownership is changing

Beyond operational pressures, structural changes are reshaping the industry:

• Many original MSP founders (who started businesses in the early 2000s) are now retiring or exiting

• Private equity roll-ups and holding companies are increasingly acquiring MSPs

• New leadership teams, often with stronger commercial focus, are taking over operations

• Advisory firms and consultants are playing a growing role in technology decisions during M&A transitions

This generational shift is changing expectations:

Several advisors we spoke with noted that incoming owners are quicker to prioritise automation, margin optimisation, and data-driven decision-making - seeing these as critical to maintaining competitiveness.

What’s "normal" in 2025?

Based on our research, if your MSP is experiencing:

• Manual ticket rekeying between systems

• QBR preparation that still requires days of manual effort

• Fragmented toolsets with limited automation

• Difficulty scaling client reporting or billing operations

You are absolutely not alone.

In fact, this describes the majority of MSPs operating today.

The difference now is that market forces - client expectations, M&A-driven efficiency demands, and rising competition - are putting more pressure on MSPs to change faster than ever before.

This research was conducted independently by Support Fusion during the Antler Residency Program, through primary interviews and secondary analysis between January and April 2025. It is published to contribute openly to the MSP community’s understanding of industry trends.