Let’s get right to it—if your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is stagnant, that’s not a billing problem. It’s a sales problem. A packaging problem. A positioning problem. And yes, sometimes it’s a courage problem—because raising prices and re-educating clients isn’t easy.
But if you want to stop living month-to-month and start building real predictable revenue, you need to rethink how you sell, what you sell and most importantly, how often you’re selling to the clients you already have.
Here’s how to actually increase MRR in a scalable, repeatable way.
Every Client Needs To Be On Managed Services—No Exceptions
If you still have break-fix clients, that’s your first red flag. I don’t care if they’re a “legacy” account or if you “don’t want to rock the boat.” If they’re not on a recurring monthly plan, they’re not your client. They’re a transaction. A ticking time bomb. And they’re keeping you broke.
Every single client should be converted to a managed services agreement. Period.
That agreement should include, at minimum:
- Proactive maintenance and monitoring
- Patch management
- Help desk
- Cybersecurity stack
- Backup and disaster recovery
- Remote and on-site support
Here’s why this matters: break-fix clients cost you money in overhead, chew up your team’s time unpredictably, and never give you the opportunity to optimize your service delivery. MSPs who grow quickly don’t waste time on one-off projects—they focus on building a reliable base of monthly recurring revenue.
Bundle Services To Maximize Value And Margin
You’re not a menu. You’re not a vending machine. Yet so many MSPs hand clients a price list like it’s a diner menu: “Would you like a firewall with that?”
Stop selling piecemeal.
You need to bundle.
Create an “All-In” plan that includes everything your client needs to stay secure, compliant, and productive—and sell it as a solution, not a set of services. Clients love it because it’s simple, predictable, and covers all their bases. You’ll love it because it locks them into longer agreements, eliminates nickel-and-diming, and increases your average MRR per client.
Your service bundles should include:
- Advanced cybersecurity (MFA, endpoint protection, monitoring)
- Compliance support (HIPAA, CMMC, etc.)
- Cloud services (Microsoft 365, Azure, cloud backup)
- Help desk and remote support
- On-site services, with clear SLA terms
- Quarterly Business Reviews (more on this below)
Want to increase your pricing power? Start bundling business outcomes, not just tech tasks. Clients will pay more to stay in business and sleep at night, not for “RMM licenses.”
Upsell Strategic Services: vCIO, Compliance, Cybersecurity
If you’re serious about growing your MRR, you have to go beyond the basics. You have to take your clients up the value ladder—from technician to trusted advisor.
The fastest way to do that? Sell strategic services.
Here’s what that looks like:
- vCIO Services – Act as your client’s part-time CIO. Help them align IT strategy with business goals. Build out roadmaps. Budget their tech spend. Every business needs this—and most SMBs don’t even realize it’s missing.
- Compliance-as-a-Service – HIPAA, CMMC, FTC Safeguards Rule, NIST, PCI-DSS—your clients are already on the hook for these. Step in as the expert and manage it for them. This is a massive revenue stream and growing faster than most MSPs can keep up.
- Cybersecurity Audits – Perform risk assessments. Present executive-level reports that highlight gaps. Show clients exactly where they’re vulnerable, and offer solutions they need to buy.
These services position you as a business-critical partner, not a replaceable vendor. They also open the door to bigger contracts, longer-term commitments and higher fees. According to our keyword research, interest in topics like vCIO services, selling cybersecurity, and compliance management for MSPs is growing month over month—now is the time to act.
Run QBRs Like Your Revenue Depends On It (Because It Does)
If you’re not running Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) with every single client, you are flat-out missing sales.
QBRs are your best chance to:
- Reframe your value
- Resell your worth
- Upsell new services
- Uncover upcoming needs
- Lock in renewals
Think of QBRs as a mini board meeting. You walk in with data, show what you’ve done, where they’re still exposed, and what you recommend next. Done right, a QBR is a natural sales conversation—and the client expects to be pitched, because you’ve earned the right.
Don’t send over a PDF or email some charts and call it a QBR. Sit down with your client—virtually or in person—and walk them through:
- Service performance and SLA adherence
- Security incidents blocked or resolved
- Compliance updates and risks
- Technology roadmaps and budget plans
- New solutions that match their evolving needs
Even just a few well-executed QBRs per quarter can generate thousands in new MRR through upsells alone.
Don’t Chase New Leads Until You’ve Sold Your Current Clients More
Here’s a reality check: your current clients are your most valuable asset. They already know you. Trust you. Buy from you.
So why are you spending all your marketing dollars on strangers when you haven’t even sold everything to your base?
This is where the upsell and cross-sell game comes in.
Start with these moves:
- Offer a cybersecurity upgrade
- Add compliance or governance tools
- Expand help desk coverage
- Add remote work support
- Offer vCIO packages
- Propose cloud migrations
And don’t assume they know what you do. They don’t. Most MSPs never fully communicate their capabilities—and clients end up buying services from someone else simply because they didn’t know you offered them.
Selling more to your current clients is the lowest cost, highest ROI move you can make this quarter.
Fix Your Pricing Strategy Before You Scale
Finally, let’s talk about your MSP pricing strategy—because if your pricing is wrong, everything else breaks.
Here’s what I see too often: MSPs charge based on what the guy down the street is doing, or what the client said they could “afford.” That’s not a pricing strategy—that’s financial roulette.
You should be pricing based on:
- Service costs + margin
- Value delivered
- Risk assumed
- Market positioning
And yes, you should be raising your prices. The average MSP is undercharging by at least 20% for what they deliver. Stop playing small.
Final Word: You Don’t Grow MRR With Hope—You Grow It With Strategy
If you want predictable, scalable revenue, you’ve got to build the machine. That means every single piece of your business—your packaging, your pricing, your sales process, your client conversations—must be engineered to grow monthly recurring revenue.
This is not something you guess at. It’s something you implement.
So get to work:
- Put every client on managed services.
- Bundle like your profitability depends on it.
- Upsell strategic solutions that go beyond the basics.
- Run killer QBRs that sell without selling.
- Price for value, not desperation.
That’s how you increase MRR. That’s how you scale a real MSP.
If you’re asking how to increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR) for your MSP, let me be blunt: stop doing random acts of marketing and start selling strategically. You don’t need to burn more hours or chase new leads to make more money. You need to do three things, consistently and aggressively:
Upsell. Cross-sell. Bundle. These are your new commandments.
Need help implementing a marketing strategy? Schedule a FREE MSP marketing strategy session. In 60 minutes or less, we’ll show you how to get in front of more high-quality prospects who WANT your services and are ready to buy.
