What is the best IT company for a small business?
Managed IT for Small Businesses: What The Shortlist Report Finds
Ntiva appeared in 44.4% of 90 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.
Ntiva40 of 90
Delivers managed IT, cybersecurity, cloud, and compliance support to small and midmarket businesses.
Electric31 of 90
Provides cloud-first device management, IT operations, and security basics for remote-first startups and small businesses.
CMIT Solutions19 of 90
Managed IT, cybersecurity, backup, and consulting through a network of local offices for small/midsize businesses.
Dataprise14 of 90
Provides managed IT, cybersecurity, compliance, and cloud/infrastructure services to mid-sized businesses.
Synobis12 of 90
Flat-fee managed IT, cybersecurity, and cloud services for organizations with 5–500 seats nationwide.
+5 more namedin the table
Based on 90 ChatGPT responses to this question, collected August 8, 2026–August 19, 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. | 40 of 90 | 44.4% | |
| Tier 2 stands alone | |||
| Electricelectric.aiProvides cloud-first device management, IT operations, and security basics for remote-first startups and small businesses. | 31 of 90 | 34.4% | |
| Tier 3 5 firms, 11.1–21.1% | |||
| CMIT Solutionscmitsolutions.comManaged IT, cybersecurity, backup, and consulting through a network of local offices for small/midsize businesses. | 19 of 90 | 21.1% | |
| Dataprisedataprise.comProvides managed IT, cybersecurity, compliance, and cloud/infrastructure services to mid-sized businesses. | 14 of 90 | 15.6% | |
| Synobissynobis.comFlat-fee managed IT, cybersecurity, and cloud services for organizations with 5–500 seats nationwide. | 12 of 90 | 13.3% | |
| All Coveredallcovered.comOffers nationwide managed IT, cybersecurity, compliance, and onsite support to SMBs and regulated industries. | 11 of 90 | 12.2% | |
| Integrisintegrisgroup.comManaged IT, cybersecurity, cloud modernization, and compliance support for established SMBs. | 10 of 90 | 11.1% | |
| Tier 4 3 firms, 5.6–6.7% | |||
| Advanced NetworksLA-area MSP serving small businesses under 50 employees with fully outsourced IT, help desk, security, and cloud services at per-user pricing. | 6 of 90 | 6.7% | |
| JumpCloudjumpcloud.comPlatform for identity, device management, and access control used by MSPs serving cloud-first and remote teams. | 6 of 90 | 6.7% | |
| Noct Technology | 5 of 90 | 5.6% | |
Key findings
- Ntiva leads this sample alone, named in 40 of 90 ChatGPT responses (44.4%) to the question “What is the best IT company for a small business?”, collected August 8, 2026–August 19, 2026.
- 10 firms cleared the reporting threshold on “What is the best IT company for a small business?” in ChatGPT as of August 19, 2026; the full table with response counts is below.
- Dataprise appears in 5 of the 15 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 40 of 90 ChatGPT responses (44.4%). No other firm in this sample comes close enough to be grouped with it.
Tier 2 holds Electric, named in 31 to 31 of 90 responses (34.4–34.4%). 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 CMIT Solutions, Dataprise, Synobis, All Covered and Integris, named in 10 to 19 of 90 responses (11.1–21.1%). 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.
Tier 4 holds Advanced Networks, JumpCloud and Noct Technology, named in 5 to 6 of 90 responses (5.6–6.7%). 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 90 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 40 of the 90 responses to this question (44.4%).
240 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–August 19, 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.