Why OKTO
Why choose OKTO Solutions as your managed IT provider
The question is not who has the nicest brochure. It is who picks up the phone when something is on fire, who writes down what was done, and who is willing to say no.
A good IT partner is judged on four things: the person who answers already knows the file, the backup is tested and not merely scheduled, the invoice matches the amount that was quoted, and the documentation belongs to the client. OKTO Solutions builds its own tools, works in French and English, and puts its limits in writing.
In practice
What sets OKTO apart from another IT provider?
Every managed IT services firm promises to be proactive and to listen. The difference shows up elsewhere: in who writes the software, in the language of the reports, in what happens when the technician who knows your file goes on vacation. Here are six differences you can verify, not six intentions. Each one turns into something visible in the first few weeks: a service note a human being can read, a monthly amount that does not move, a fix delivered because we wrote the tool ourselves instead of filing a request with a vendor.
Our software, not a reseller’s
OKTO RMM, OKTO PSA, OKTO Sign and OKTO Flux are built in house. A real need becomes a feature in a few days, instead of landing in a vendor’s next quarter.
The file follows you, the technician can change
Every intervention is written into the client file. Whoever answers knows what was done last time, even when it was not their hands on the keyboard.
A backup that is restored, not just scheduled
A green backup job proves nothing. From the Standard plan up, a restore is tested twice a year and the result is written into the report.
Reports you can actually read
Plain language, what was done and why it mattered. An owner should be able to read the monthly report without a glossary or a translator on hand.
Law 25 taken seriously
Access management, logging, an incident register, and support for whoever is responsible for the protection of personal information inside your organization.
Your data stays in Canada
Microsoft 365 in the Canadian tenant, Azure in the Canada Central or Canada East regions, backups kept in Canada. That is the default, not an upgrade.
Before and after
What many businesses live with, and what we do instead
The situations on the left come up in almost every discovery meeting. They are not invented and they do not blame anyone: they are the symptoms of a model where the provider sells licences rather than a service.
| Everyday life with many providers | What we do instead |
|---|---|
| The ticket is open, but nobody says who has it or when it gets looked at. | Every request is picked up by a named person, with a note that explains what was done. |
| The backup is configured. Nobody has ever restored from it. | A restore is tested twice a year from the Standard plan up, and the result goes into the report. |
| The monthly invoice carries three lines nobody in the office can explain. | The plan is one amount per workstation or per server. Anything outside it is announced before, not after. |
| The portal, the alerts and the reports arrive in a language half your staff does not read. | Tickets, reports and documentation come in French or in English. You pick the one your team works in. |
| A fix you asked for a year ago is still parked on a foreign vendor’s roadmap. | The tools are built here. A real need gets coded, tested and deployed without asking anyone’s permission. |
| The one person who knows your environment takes a week off and everything stops. | The file, the documentation and the credentials are shared across the team. Vacation does not suspend the service. |
| You find out there is a problem when an employee calls in a panic. | Monitoring runs around the clock and flags the full disk, the stopped service or the missed update before anyone feels it. |
| Leaving the provider means rebuilding everything, because nothing was documented. | The documentation of your environment belongs to you and goes with you, even on your way out the door. |
In-house software
We build our tools instead of reselling licences
Most managed IT providers buy a monitoring platform, put their logo on it and resell it to the client. That works right up to the day something is missing. Then you open a ticket with the vendor, you wait, and sometimes you learn the request does not fit their priorities. Four tools are built in house at OKTO for exactly that reason. What you get out of it is not a technical trophy, it is turnaround: when a need shows up, it gets handled here.
Close by
A local team, working in your language
The office is in Trois-Rivières, in the Mauricie region. Technicians work remotely across Quebec and travel when the job calls for it, in Greater Montreal, across the Mauricie and around Quebec City. Service runs in French from the first call through to the monthly reports, and in English for organizations that work that way. Written down like this it sounds ordinary. It stops being ordinary the day an employee in his sixties tries to describe a printer problem to a service desk three time zones away.
- Regular support Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern
- Around-the-clock emergency line with the Complet plan
- Service notes and reports written in plain French or English
- Scheduled on-site visits when the work requires hands on the hardware
Pricing
What does it cost, and why is there no price on this site?
No amount is posted here, for a plain reason: two companies with fifteen employees do not run the same equipment. One has three servers and a homegrown application, the other moved everything into Microsoft 365. Publishing a shop-window price would mean correcting it at the first meeting, which is the fastest way to lose a client’s trust before the work even starts. The amount is calculated on the number of workstations and servers, and on the plan you choose. It is written in the quote, and anything outside the plan is announced before it is done.
- One monthly amount per workstation or per server, known in advance
- No surprise line for work that was never announced
- The commitment period is written in the agreement, not buried in it
- A block of hours or one-off work for those who do not want a plan
Straight talk
What OKTO Solutions is not
A page that only says good things is worth nothing. Here are four claims we refuse to make, and the reason behind each one.
We are not the cheapest
The lowest price is always paid for somewhere. We would rather walk through what is included, line by line, and let you compare. Some businesses will pick a cheaper competitor, and sometimes that is the right call for them.
We do not have offices everywhere
The office is in Trois-Rivières. Elsewhere in Quebec the work is done remotely with scheduled visits. No storefront address is listed in a city where nobody actually works.
We do not publish a response time we have not measured
Announcing a two-hour on-site response without having measured it is a promise that breaks on the first bad day. Guaranteed response times do exist, and they are written into the SLA of the Complet plan.
We do not name a client without permission
No client logos spread across a page without written consent. The reviews posted on Google can be checked by anyone, and case studies will come when the clients involved have said yes.
The question to ask a provider is not whether they are proactive. Everybody answers yes. Ask instead about the last time a restore was tested at one of their clients, and who signed off on it.
Ask the same about documentation: who holds the administrator passwords today, where the network diagram is kept, and what you would get back if the agreement ended next month. The answers tell you how the account is run day to day, better than any list of certifications.
If you are shopping for a provider right now, the questions worth asking are laid out in how we build a quote, and the full coverage list sits in our managed IT services.
Worth a look next: co-managed IT alongside your internal team, our virtual CIO and IT roadmap work, the Base, Standard and Complet plans and the questions we get asked most often.
Questions and answers
Common questions about OKTO Solutions
Why choose an MSP instead of calling someone when something breaks?
Does OKTO Solutions serve Montreal, Laval and the South Shore?
How long has OKTO Solutions been in business?
Why build your own software instead of reselling a vendor platform?
Is OKTO the cheapest IT provider in Quebec?
What happens if we decide to leave?
Twenty minutes to find out if we are the right fit
We look at your environment, tell you what should change first and hand you a clear quote. If another provider suits your reality better, we will say that too.