NetSys vs. CompassMSP
CompassMSP publishes its Master Services Agreement where anyone can read it, which is rare enough in this industry to be worth saying out loud. Buyers shopping national providers ask how we compare. Most of the difference between us sits in that agreement and in how many offices stand behind it.
The short answer
CompassMSP is the better choice when your people are spread across regions and you want staffed offices near them plus a contract you can read before the first call. NetSys answers a different want: one senior team in Brooklyn, month to month, with no term and no early-exit fee. Their published agreement raises fees each year by the greater of CPI or five percent and charges for early termination. Ours does neither, and it has to be re-earned every thirty days.
What CompassMSP is
Their headquarters is in West Hartford, Connecticut, and the locations page lists staffed offices across a dozen metros, from Tarrytown and New York City down to Baltimore and Princeton and out to Phoenix, Chicago and Seattle. The homepage publishes figures for 350+ experts globally and 40+ years, and the about page states the company is a portfolio company of the private equity firm Agellus Capital with 12+ regional offices. Their cybersecurity advisory page names a long framework list, including HIPAA, HITRUST, NYDFS 500, FINRA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, CMMC, GDPR, ISO 27001 and NIST CSF, alongside vCISO advisory.
Published headquarters: West Hartford, CT. compassmsp.com
The contract you can read first
Publishing the Master Services Agreement is a genuinely good practice, and it deserves credit. It also tells you what to plan for: fees rise on each annual anniversary by the greater of the US Consumer Price Index or five percent, either side can end the arrangement on ninety days' written notice without cause, and a client who leaves early owes the remainder of the term plus unrecovered onboarding or setup costs. Model that over three years before you compare anything else. A NetSys agreement runs month to month with no escalator clause and no exit fee.
Two shapes of AI practice
CompassMSP publishes a dedicated AI Enablement practice built on a four-stage Secure AI Maturity Model, covering Microsoft 365 and Copilot readiness, finding unapproved AI use inside the business, automatic redaction of sensitive information in prompts and responses, and workflow automation. That is a serious offering, and the redaction piece answers a problem most buyers have not thought about yet. NetSys runs its AI work as a build practice under Jamie Baum, our Head Implementation Manager: readiness assessments, Copilot rollouts, custom agents and automation put into daily use by the same engineers who then support it.
A dozen metros, or one Brooklyn office
Their locations page runs under a National Scale with Local Expertise heading and lists street addresses across seven named regions plus further markets without addresses. If your business has people in Hartford and Phoenix and Jacksonville, that map matters, and it matters more than anything else on this page. NetSys works the other way: one office in Brooklyn, independent since 1998, and on-site engineers across the New York metro, Long Island, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Florida. Everything else runs remotely, as it does at any provider.
What each of us publishes
Their column is quoted from pages on compassmsp.com and links to each one. Ours states what we commit to elsewhere on this site. Nothing below is our opinion of their work.
| The NetSys Group | CompassMSP | |
|---|---|---|
| Agreement | Month to month. Leave any time, no early-exit penalty. | The same Master Services Agreement states that fees increase on each annual anniversary of the effective date by the greater of the annual U.S. Consumer Price Index increase or five percent, that either party may terminate without cause on 90 days' written notice, and that early termination by the client carries fees for the remainder of the term plus unrecovered onboarding or setup costs. (compassmsp.com) |
| What the monthly fee covers | One agreement: AI services, cybersecurity, managed IT with help desk, PAM, PIM and disaster recovery planning. | Their fully managed IT page describes around-the-clock service desk coverage, threat detection through a global Security Operations Center, and management of patching, updates and backups, delivered for a fixed monthly fee, with a 30-to-60-day onboarding period. (compassmsp.com) |
| Privileged access and credentials | PAM and PIM in the base agreement, each with a published service page describing the work. | Their AWS partner page describes restricting privileged permissions, implementing role-based access, and governing identity boundaries within AWS environments. (compassmsp.com) |
| AI and automation | In-house practice led by Jamie Baum: readiness assessments, Copilot rollouts, custom agents and workflow automation. | They publish a dedicated AI Enablement practice built around a four-stage "Secure AI Maturity Model," covering Microsoft 365 and Copilot readiness, identification of unapproved AI use, automatic redaction of sensitive information in AI prompts and responses, and workflow automation. (compassmsp.com) |
| Disaster recovery | A written plan plus restores that are performed and timed. More than 30 ransomware incidents handled in three years, every one recovered. | Their backup and disaster recovery page publishes a write-once immutable backup approach, tested recovery blueprints, and framing around Recovery Time Objective. (compassmsp.com) |
| Who answers | A NetSys engineer, plus a named account manager who gives you a real cell number. | Their support page states the service desk is staffed around the clock including weekends and holidays with no after-hours voicemail or outsourced handoff, and lists email, a customer portal, and regional office phone numbers as contact routes. (compassmsp.com) |
| Response commitments | Written into the agreement rather than implied on the website. | Their support page describes ticket handling in general terms rather than as a tiered severity table, stating that most tickets are acknowledged within minutes and that critical, business-stopping issues are prioritized by impact. (compassmsp.com) |
| Proof before you commit | A free Tier 1 external penetration test. The findings are yours whether or not you hire us. | Their contact page publishes a three-step engagement process: a discovery call, an assessment of IT and cybersecurity posture including infrastructure, security controls and risk exposure using frameworks such as NIST, and a strategic roadmap. (compassmsp.com) |
| Where they are | One office, in Brooklyn. On-site coverage across the New York metro, Long Island, the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Florida, and remote delivery anywhere in the US. | Their locations page lists street addresses for offices across seven named regions, including West Hartford CT, Tarrytown NY, New York NY, Westminster/Baltimore MD, Princeton NJ, Iselin NJ, Collegeville/Philadelphia PA, Itasca/Chicago IL, Dallas TX, Phoenix AZ, Jacksonville FL and Kent/Seattle WA, plus additional market listings without street addresses, under a "National Scale with Local Expertise" heading. (compassmsp.com) |
CompassMSP appears here because it came up in the search results for managed IT services when we checked in September 2026. Everything in their column is drawn from pages published on https://compassmsp.com/ and links to the source. Where we could not find something published we say so, which means we did not find it, not that it does not exist. We make no claim about the quality of their service. All trademarks belong to their owners and no affiliation or endorsement is implied.
Four more things worth knowing about CompassMSP
Size and history
- Their homepage publishes the figures "350+ Experts Globally," "40+ Years," "97% Client satisfaction," "15 Min Average response time" and "24/7 SOC Monitoring." (compassmsp.com)
- Their about page states the company is a portfolio company of private equity firm Agellus Capital and refers to 12+ regional offices. (compassmsp.com)
NetSys: Independent since 1998. One office, in Brooklyn, and no private equity owner behind the name.
Industries they name
- Their homepage names healthcare, financial services, legal services, manufacturing, construction and engineering, education, professional services, nonprofits, insurance, retail and franchise, logistics and transportation, and local and state government as industries served. (compassmsp.com)
NetSys: Twenty six industries with a page each, from healthcare and legal to hedge funds, auto dealers and government contractors.
Compliance work published
- Their cybersecurity advisory page names HIPAA, HITRUST, NYDFS 500, FINRA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, CMMC, GDPR, ISO 27001, NIST 800-171 and NIST CSF, and offers vCISO advisory, risk assessments and audit-ready documentation. (compassmsp.com)
NetSys: Nine frameworks with a service page each: HIPAA, CMMC 2.0, SOC 2, NIST CSF 2.0, NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500, NY SHIELD, FTC Safeguards, PCI DSS and GLBA.
Rates on the website
- Their contact page describes a fixed monthly pricing model without stating figures. (compassmsp.com)
NetSys: We do not publish rates. We quote per business rather than per seat, after a call, because a thirty person firm with two servers and a thirty person firm with a regulator are not the same job.
The honest fit: is NetSys the right CompassMSP alternative?
When CompassMSP is the better choice
CompassMSP earns this one if you have people in more than one region and you want staffed offices near them, a service desk their support page says is covered around the clock including weekends and holidays with no after-hours voicemail or outsourced handoff, and a documented AI Enablement track. Being able to read the master agreement before you talk to anyone is a real advantage when procurement is involved.
When NetSys is the better choice
NetSys makes more sense when the whole company sits in one metro and you would rather work with the senior engineers directly. Independent since 1998, one office in Brooklyn, and one agreement carrying managed IT, cybersecurity, AI work, PAM, PIM and disaster recovery planning on month to month terms. Your account manager hands you a cell number. Nothing renews itself, and nothing escalates on an anniversary.
NetSys and CompassMSP: FAQs
What does CompassMSP include in its fully managed IT plan?
Their fully managed IT page describes around-the-clock service desk coverage, threat detection through a global Security Operations Center, and management of patching, updates and backups for a fixed monthly fee, with onboarding running thirty to sixty days. The backup and disaster recovery page adds write-once immutable backups and tested recovery blueprints framed around Recovery Time Objective. Their support page describes ticket handling in general terms rather than a tiered severity table, saying most tickets are acknowledged within minutes, so ask for severity definitions in writing if you need them.
What is a good CompassMSP alternative for a New York business?
NetSys, if being local to your office matters more than being national. We work from Brooklyn, we have been independent since 1998, and our on-site engineers cover the five boroughs out through Long Island, Westchester and the Hudson Valley. The base agreement includes privileged access and privileged identity management, which most buyers only discover they needed after an admin account gets used against them. CompassMSP does list a New York office, so this is a question about the shape of the firm rather than geography alone.
How do CompassMSP contract terms compare with NetSys terms?
They publish theirs, which makes the comparison easy. The Master Services Agreement states an annual fee increase of the greater of CPI or five percent, termination without cause on ninety days' written notice by either party, and early termination fees covering the rest of the term plus unrecovered onboarding or setup costs. NetSys agreements are month to month: no minimum term, no notice period beyond the current month, no exit fee, and no scheduled increase written into the paper.
Does NetSys do AI work, or is that only a big-firm service?
We run it in house. Jamie Baum, our Head Implementation Manager, leads the AI practice: readiness assessments before anything is switched on, Microsoft 365 Copilot rollouts, custom agents, and workflow automation built around how a specific business already works, with Karla Gilvergara on the tooling side. CompassMSP publishes its own four-stage Secure AI Maturity Model, so both firms treat this as a named practice rather than a checkbox. The difference is who builds the thing and who supports it afterwards.
Get both answers in writing.
Fifteen minutes with a NetSys engineer, not a salesperson, and you will have our side of every question on this page in writing. Take it into any comparison you like.