MSP vs MSSP on Security Advisory Services: Two Businesses Under One Label

The industry files MSPs and MSSPs under one label, and the two groups are running different businesses. 24% of MSPs sell strategic advisory as a separate paid service, against 39% of MSSPs, according to Cynomi’s State of the vCISO 2026 report.

That split runs through the rest of the survey, and it sorts the two groups cleanly. MSSPs have built out the security stack and rate their own flagship service as a commodity. MSPs have not built the stack, and they are still deciding what to do with the advice they already give.

Almost no survey puts the two groups on the same questions about security advisory services; this report put one questionnaire to 200 US service providers, 60% of them MSSPs and 30% MSPs.

How MSPs and MSSPs Answer the Same Advisory Questions

The table puts the MSP and MSSP columns side by side on five questions from the report. The MSP column is 59 respondents, so read every row as a pattern rather than a measured gap.

The second and third rows describe one practice from two sides. The group that believes most strongly that advice retains clients is the group least likely to charge for it. Where an MSP’s strategic advice does show up, it is inside the package. 25% of MSPs include advisory only in standard service packages against 19% of MSSPs. 15% of MSPs provide it informally at no charge against 13% of MSSPs. The advice gets delivered either way; on the MSP side it sits inside a line item that says something else.

Across the whole provider sample, 23% of all providers name stronger compliance support, and that blended figure tells an MSP its peers rate compliance support higher than they do.

MSSPs Built the Stack and Their Flagship Is a Commodity

If you run an MSSP, you have already done the hard building. The security stack is in place, it is staffed, and it is sold. Outside the report, the picture is the same: MSSP Alert’s 2025 pricing report found that every MSSP it surveyed offers SOC services and 98% provide MDR. When 98% of your peer group sells the same service, that service stops differentiating anyone. In the survey, 57% of MSSPs put MDR among their three most commoditized offerings, 15 points above the MSP reading on the same question.

The next dollar is in advisory and compliance support, the two things procurement is hardest put to price-check. 39% of MSSPs already sell strategic advisory as its own paid service, and 29% count compliance support as a retention driver. Both sit higher than the MSP reading, and both mean charging for judgment as well as for monitoring.

The pressure point for an MSSP is margin on the flagship. When a 400-endpoint client comes up for renewal, the MDR line is the one procurement benchmarks against three other quotes. The advisory line is the one they cannot price-check as easily, because most of your competitors still bundle it or skip it. Give advisory its own SKU and its own renewal conversation, and you walk into that renewal with a line the three other quotes do not carry.

For MSPs, Advice Is the Retention Bet

If you run an MSP, the problem is different. 68% of MSPs say more strategic security advice would be the biggest driver of client retention over the next year, 16 points above MSSPs on the same question. As a group, MSPs believe advice is what keeps a client. Kaseya’s 2025 global MSP benchmark found the same thing: 64% of MSPs say clients want guidance on best practices rather than tools alone.

24% of MSPs sell advisory separately. The rest deliver it inside a package, in the quarterly review, and on the phone when a client calls about an insurance questionnaire. None of those places puts a price on the advice itself. That is work the client would recognize as a service if it had a name on the invoice.

The vCISO line shows the same gap at its widest. 5% of MSPs in the survey offer vCISO services, against 33% of MSSPs. Among 59 MSP respondents, 5% is three people, so treat that as a pattern and nothing stronger.

That makes the MSP decision a different decision from the MSSP’s. The MSSP is deciding what to add on top of a stack it already runs. The MSP is deciding whether to build that stack at all, or to lead with the cyber advisory it already gives and partner for the detection layer. For a developing practice with two techs and one senior, the second route uses what you already have, and it is the route the MSP figures point at.

Your Next Move as an MSP or MSSP

Pick your move by how you earn, since the label on your website settles nothing. If the bulk of your MRR is per-seat IT management with security as a line inside it, take the MSP move even if your signature block says MSSP. If the bulk is per-endpoint security services with a SOC behind them, take the MSSP move even if you still run the help desk for half your book.

If you run an MSP

Start by naming what you deliver now, since most of it is already in writing somewhere. Pull the last four quarterly decks for your three most engaged clients and list every recommendation that was not a ticket: the roadmap items, the budget asks, the help with the cyber insurance questionnaire. That list is the advisory service you are giving away inside the standard package. Price it as its own monthly line, start with the accounts that plan and pay, and let the motion pull the rest of the book along behind them.

Leave the detection stack decision for later, after the advisory line has revenue of its own. A partner can cover MDR while you sell the thing MSPs say retains clients, and you can revisit building it once advisory revenue is covering a senior’s salary. The packaging and staffing side of that first year is laid out in how to start a vCISO practice.

If you run an MSSP

Your move is on the renewal, since your flagship is the line most exposed to price comparison. Separate the advisory SKU from the MDR SKU on the next renewal for every account above a threshold you choose, and attach the compliance support MSSPs already rate as a retention lever. Make the advisory line the one you report against, with a posture trend and a roadmap the client’s leadership can read on its own, so the renewal conversation starts from the service procurement cannot benchmark. There is more on the positioning side in five ways to differentiate your MSSP.

If you run both

Plenty of practices carry both revenue lines, with a help desk on per-seat pricing and a SOC on per-endpoint pricing. Run both and you have both problems: advice you give away on the IT side and a flagship you cannot defend on price on the security side. Pick the move by the larger MRR line, run it first, and run the other the following quarter. Running both in the same quarter splits your senior’s attention and ships neither.

Standardizing Advisory Delivery for MSPs and MSSPs

Either way, the delivery problem is the same once advisory has a price. It has to come out looking the same for every client, from whichever tech runs the engagement, or the first account that gets a thinner version of it will say so at renewal. That is the part Cynomi is built for, with a track for growing MSPs and one for mature MSSPs. The track for growing MSPs standardizes assessment and advisory delivery so your whole team can run it, and on the mature-MSSP track your team runs continuous security programs across the full client portfolio.

The next benchmark report you read will give you the blended number. Before you measure your practice against it, check which provider type produced it. The 24% and the 39% are the same question answered by two different businesses, and the one that looks like yours is your benchmark.