What We Actually Look For in a Free IT Assessment

A free IT assessment is a common offer in this industry, and a common source of skepticism, since it’s easy to assume “free” means a thin excuse to get in the door for a sales pitch. Here’s what one actually involves, and why each part is on the list.

The network and endpoint scan

We start by scanning your network and every connected endpoint, looking for unpatched software, outdated operating systems, unmanaged devices that shouldn’t have network access, and any obviously misconfigured security settings. This part is entirely automated and takes a few hours to run in the background without disrupting anyone’s workday.

The backup and disaster recovery review

We check whether backups are actually running on schedule, not just configured to run, since a surprising number of companies discover their backup job silently failed weeks or months ago. We also check whether a restore has ever actually been tested, since a backup that has never been tested is a backup you’re only assuming works.

The licensing and compliance check

We review what software licenses you’re actually paying for versus what’s actually installed and in use, which frequently turns up either unused licenses draining budget or unlicensed software creating compliance exposure. If your industry has specific requirements, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, or similar, we check your current posture against those specific standards, not a generic checklist.

The conversation that matters more than the scan

The automated scan finds technical gaps. A thirty-minute conversation with whoever manages your IT day to day, even informally, surfaces the things a scan can’t: what breaks repeatedly and gets manually fixed instead of actually solved, what everyone quietly works around because fixing it properly seems like too much effort, and where the real frustration lives that a static report would never capture.

The written report, and what happens after

You get a written report with specific findings, each one prioritized by actual risk and impact, not a generic severity score. Some findings will be things you can fix yourself in an afternoon. Others will be bigger and worth a real conversation about how to address them, whether that’s with us or with whoever handles your IT today.

Why we do this for free, honestly

The direct answer: some percentage of assessments turn into clients, and that’s how the free offer pays for itself across the business as a whole. But every assessment stands on its own regardless of whether it turns into anything further, because a company walking away with a clear, honest picture of where their IT and security actually stand is a useful outcome by itself, and it’s the kind of thing that gets remembered and referred to a colleague even when it doesn’t lead to a contract.

If you’ve never had a real technical assessment done, not a sales call disguised as one, it’s worth having the conversation, even if you have no intention of switching providers.