Remote access for MSPs: 7 criteria before you choose

Choosing a remote access tool for an MSP is not a feature comparison. Seven criteria separate a tool that pays for itself from a burden you end up billing around. Here they are, in the order they hit your profit and loss.

1. The licensing model

Per-device pricing becomes a trap as fleets grow. The Ubidesk Pro plan costs 24 euros per technician per month, billed annually, with no limit on unattended devices. The Solo plan, at 12 euros per month, covers 50 devices, and the free Personal plan covers 3. An MSP wants to pay for technicians, not to count machines. Ask what happens when the fleet doubles: the answer changes the bill.

2. Automated deployment

A tool that needs a manual install on every machine will never scale. The Ubidesk agent deploys in bulk via GPO, Intune or Jamf, and device management confirms that every machine reports into the console. A manual install on every machine never survives growth.

3. Security that is not negotiable

An MSP inherits its clients’ risk. Demand the full baseline.

• End-to-end encryption: TLS 1.3, AES-256-GCM and ECDH, with per-session keys.
• Mandatory multi-factor authentication: TOTP, passkeys or FIDO2.
• Explicit user confirmation before any file transfer, no exceptions.

These three lines should appear in the vendor’s technical documentation, not just on the homepage.

4. Trust as a selling point

The Ubidesk Trust Layer turns security into a sales argument: KYB verification of businesses, a verified technician badge before acceptance, a warning before any unsolicited session, automatic blur of banking sites and password fields, alerts on suspicious behaviour and one-click reporting. Your clients see the difference, and you can charge for it. Security sells, and visible security sells more.

5. Agent reliability

An agent that goes silent at the worst moment is expensive. Ubidesk’s reconnects automatically after a reboot, including in Safe Mode. Wake-on-LAN wakes powered-off machines, the display runs at 4K 60fps, and all traffic flows over port 443 alone, with no exotic firewall rules to maintain. Test both points during the trial: a forced reboot, then a boot into Safe Mode. Tools separate themselves there. Wake-on-LAN covers the machines that are off; the agent covers the ones that crash.

6. Compliance

Your clients will ask for answers. Ubidesk applies GDPR and Québec Law 25, with data residency in the European Union, Canada or the United States, your choice. ISO 27001, SOC 2 and HIPAA certifications are in progress. The service targets 99.9% availability, and 99.99% on the Enterprise plan. Have the answers ready in writing before the first audit.

7. Pricing stability

A vendor that changes prices or terms every year complicates your own contracts. Ubidesk cancels monthly with no commitment, and early customers had their price locked for 24 months. You know what you will pay, so you know what to bill. Your client contracts run a year or more: cost visibility is part of your offer.

The traps to avoid during evaluation

• Testing on a single machine: deployment and firewalls only reveal themselves at fleet scale.
• Skipping Safe Mode: the hardest outages happen there.
• Forgetting the cancellation question: a contract that is hard to leave skews the whole comparison.
• Comparing prices without comparing included device limits.

The grid in one sentence

Per-technician licensing, automated deployment, verifiable security, visible trust, a reliable agent, documented compliance, stable prices. If a tool fails one of these, the cost lands in your margin. Measure Ubidesk unattended access against your criteria, and read our page for MSPs. The seven points above fit on one screen; print them before the next vendor demo.