What is the best IT company for a small business?
Managed IT for Small Businesses: What The Shortlist Report Finds
Ntiva appeared in 44.1% of 270 AI responses to this question, ahead of everyone else.
Ntiva leads
Ntiva comes up more than any other firm on this question, by a clear margin.
Ntiva119 of 270
Delivers managed IT, cybersecurity, cloud, and compliance support to small and midmarket businesses.
Electric103 of 270
Provides cloud-first device management, IT operations, and security basics for remote-first startups and small businesses.
Dataprise79 of 270
Provides managed IT, cybersecurity, compliance, and cloud/infrastructure services to mid-sized businesses.
CMIT Solutions43 of 270
Managed IT, cybersecurity, backup, and consulting through a network of local offices for small/midsize businesses.
All Covered35 of 270
Offers nationwide managed IT, cybersecurity, compliance, and onsite support to SMBs and regulated industries.
+5 more namedin the table
Based on 270 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 8, 2026–October 1, 2026. Firms are counted once per response. How we measure.
The ranking
| Firm | Responses | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 stands alone | |||
| Ntivantiva.comDelivers managed IT, cybersecurity, cloud, and compliance support to small and midmarket businesses. | 119 of 270 | 44.1% | |
| Tier 2 stands alone | |||
| Electricelectric.aiProvides cloud-first device management, IT operations, and security basics for remote-first startups and small businesses. | 103 of 270 | 38.1% | |
| Tier 3 stands alone | |||
| Dataprisedataprise.comProvides managed IT, cybersecurity, compliance, and cloud/infrastructure services to mid-sized businesses. | 79 of 270 | 29.3% | |
| Tier 4 3 firms, 10.7–15.9% | |||
| CMIT Solutionscmitsolutions.comManaged IT, cybersecurity, backup, and consulting through a network of local offices for small/midsize businesses. | 43 of 270 | 15.9% | |
| All Coveredallcovered.comOffers nationwide managed IT, cybersecurity, compliance, and onsite support to SMBs and regulated industries. | 35 of 270 | 13.0% | |
| Cortavocortavo.comDelivers flat-fee IT support, hardware-as-a-service, and cybersecurity for small businesses under 100 employees. | 29 of 270 | 10.7% | |
| Tier 5 4 firms, 6.3–8.1% | |||
| SADOSsados.comProvides Google Workspace administration, 24/7 help-desk overflow, and vCIO support to enterprise IT customers. | 22 of 270 | 8.1% | |
| Integrisintegrisgroup.comManaged IT, cybersecurity, cloud modernization, and compliance support for established SMBs. | 19 of 270 | 7.0% | |
| Petronella Technology GroupOffers managed IT services with tiered pricing including endpoint detection, email security, and backup management for small-to-mid-sized businesses. | 18 of 270 | 6.7% | |
| Upriteuprite.comOffers fully managed and co-managed IT, HIPAA compliance, EHR support, and cybersecurity for healthcare practices in Texas. | 17 of 270 | 6.3% | |
Key findings
- Ntiva leads this sample alone, named in 119 of 270 ChatGPT responses (44.1%) to the question “What is the best IT company for a small business?”, collected August 8, 2026–October 1, 2026.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “What is the best IT company for a small business?” in ChatGPT as of October 1, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- Dataprise appears in 6 of the 16 managed IT service providers reports published by The Shortlist Report, the widest coverage of any firm named on this page.
- No firm paid to appear in this ranking; placement cannot be bought, and the counts come from ChatGPT responses rather than from submissions.
Why the tiers fall where they do
Tier 1 holds Ntiva, named in 119 of 270 ChatGPT responses (44.1%). No other firm in this sample comes close enough to be grouped with it.
Tier 2 holds Electric, named in 103 to 103 of 270 responses (38.1–38.1%). The sample does separate this firm from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts it in a tier of its own.
Tier 3 holds Dataprise, named in 79 to 79 of 270 responses (29.3–29.3%). The sample does separate this firm from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts it in a tier of its own.
Tier 4 holds CMIT Solutions, All Covered and Cortavo, named in 29 to 43 of 270 responses (10.7–15.9%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
Tier 5 holds SADOS, Integris, Petronella Technology Group and Uprite, named in 17 to 22 of 270 responses (6.3–8.1%). The sample does separate these firms from the tier above: the difference from the leading group is larger than the margin of error, which is what puts them in a tier of their own.
The test is McNemar’s at 95%, applied against the same 270 responses for every firm. The full reasoning, and what happened when we ranked one-to-N instead.
What the sample shows
Ntiva leads on its own, named in 119 of the 270 responses to this question (44.1%).
566 firms were named at least once across the sample. 10 of them cleared the threshold of 2 responses and appear above; the rest were named once and are inside the noise.
How to read this
Firms are grouped into tiers, not ranked one to fifteen. A tier holds every firm whose 95% confidence interval overlaps the leader's, which is a long way of saying the sample cannot tell them apart. Order within a tier is arbitrary — read the counts, not the position.
Share is the percentage of responses that named the firm — not a quality score. A firm scoring low here may be excellent and simply under-written about online, which is a finding about its visibility rather than its work.
The same question was asked repeatedly because AI assistants do not answer identically twice. A single response would tell you almost nothing.
What this measurement does not tell you
- It is not a quality ranking. Share reflects how much has been written about a firm online, which is what an AI assistant reads. A capable firm nobody writes about scores low here.
- It is a reading from a date range, not a permanent standing. This sample was collected August 8, 2026–October 1, 2026; models change and so do their answers.
- It covers ChatGPT only. Other assistants answer differently, and we do not extrapolate across engines we have not measured.
- Order within a tier is arbitrary. Read the counts, not the position. Why we use tiers.
Cite this report
The Shortlist Report. (2026). Managed IT for Small Businesses: What The Shortlist Report Finds. The Shortlist Report. https://www.shortlistreport.com/article/best-msp-for-small-business
Underlying counts: CSV · JSON. Every answer they were counted from: plain text · JSON. All reusable under CC BY 4.0 with attribution.