How Much Does Office Network Setup Cost? A Complete Cost Breakdown

The Question Everyone Asks First

When a company starts thinking about its office network, the first question is almost always: "How much will it cost?"

It sounds simple, but the answer depends on many factors — company size, office layout, equipment quality, and most importantly, who handles operations after the network is built.

This article breaks down what office network costs actually look like, where the hidden expenses are, and how different models compare over time.

What Makes Up the Cost of an Office Network

Office network costs fall into two categories: one-time costs and ongoing costs. Most companies only think about the first category, which is why budgets get blown.

One-time costs

• Site survey and planning: Professional assessment of your space and design of the network architecture
• Cabling and installation: Running network cables through walls, ceilings, and between floors. This is often the largest single expense, especially in offices without existing cable infrastructure
• Equipment: Switches, wireless access points, routers, firewall appliances, patch panels, and racks
• Configuration and testing: Setting up the equipment, configuring the network, and validating performance

Ongoing costs

This is where most companies underestimate:

• Internet service (ISP): Monthly broadband fees, possibly multiple lines for redundancy
• Monitoring and maintenance: Someone needs to watch the network and fix issues — whether that's an employee's time or a service contract
• Equipment replacement: Hardware fails or becomes outdated. Enterprise equipment typically lasts 5–7 years, but failures can happen anytime
• Emergency repairs: When something breaks unexpectedly, emergency vendor callouts are expensive
• Adjustments and changes: Adding desks, moving teams, expanding to new floors — each change requires network work

Cost Ranges by Company Size

Exact pricing depends on too many variables to give a single number, but here's a general framework for what to expect:

10–30 people (single floor, ~50–100 ping)

• Cabling: Varies widely depending on whether conduits exist. A simple setup might be minimal; running new conduits through concrete can add significantly
• Equipment: 1–2 enterprise APs, 1 managed switch, a firewall — a modest investment for commercial-grade gear
• The often-forgotten part: Who handles it when something stops working six months later?

30–80 people (single or multi-floor)

• Cabling: More runs, possibly vertical cabling between floors
• Equipment: 3–6+ APs, multiple switches, more complex firewall configuration
• Monitoring: At this scale, you can't rely on someone noticing problems — you need active monitoring
• The cost that creeps up: Every time the team grows or desks move, someone needs to adjust the network

80+ people

• Infrastructure: Significant cabling, redundant switches, multiple AP zones
• Equipment: Enterprise-grade across the board, possibly redundant configurations
• Operations: Dedicated monitoring, capacity planning, regular health checks
• The real expense: At this scale, not having professional network management costs more than having it — in downtime, lost productivity, and reactive emergency fixes

The Costs You Don't See Coming

Equipment depreciation

That equipment you bought for a significant investment? It depreciates every year. In 5 years, it's worth nothing on the books but still needs to work. When it fails, you face another major purchase.

The "developer as IT" tax

When a senior engineer spends an afternoon troubleshooting Wi-Fi instead of building product, that's expensive — not on the network budget, but on the engineering budget. This cost is real but almost never accounted for.

Incremental additions that don't integrate

Every time you add a router here or an AP there without overall planning, you're spending money on equipment that may actually make the network worse. We regularly see offices with surplus devices that are causing interference, not solving it.

The emergency call

When the network goes down on a Monday morning and 50 people can't work, the emergency vendor callout fee is the smallest part of the cost. The real cost is 50 people waiting.

Buy vs. Subscribe: How the Numbers Compare

One-time purchase model

• Year 0: High upfront cost (equipment + installation)
• Year 1–3: Low ongoing cost (if nothing breaks)
• Year 3–5: Equipment aging, increasing repair costs, potential full replacement
• Hidden line item: Internal staff time spent managing and troubleshooting

The total cost of ownership over 3–5 years is almost always higher than the initial purchase price suggests.

NaaS subscription model

• Year 0: Setup fee (typically cabling and installation), then monthly subscription begins
• Year 1–5: Predictable monthly cost covering equipment, monitoring, maintenance, and adjustments
• No surprise costs: Equipment failures, replacements, and scaling are included

The monthly subscription may look more expensive at first glance, but when you factor in equipment depreciation, repair costs, internal staff time, and the cost of downtime — NaaS typically comes out ahead over a 3-year window.

How to Think About Your Network Budget

Instead of asking "how much does the equipment cost?", ask:

• What's the total cost over 3 years, including maintenance, repairs, and internal time?
• What does an hour of network downtime cost us in lost productivity?
• Do we have someone who can manage this long-term, or will it become another thing no one owns?
• How much will it cost to adjust when we grow or move?

These questions shift the conversation from equipment pricing to total cost of reliable networking — which is what actually matters.

KlickConnect: Predictable Cost, Clear Accountability

KlickConnect's NaaS model is designed to make network costs predictable:

• Cabling installation is a one-time fee
• Everything else — equipment, monitoring, maintenance, adjustments — is a fixed monthly subscription
• No surprise hardware costs, no depreciation to manage
• When your team grows or your office changes, adjustments are included

You know exactly what your network costs every month. No surprises, no hidden line items.