From Startup to Scale-up: Building a Compliance-first MSP Business Model

When handling customer data, compliance is always top of mind for MSPs. Certifications like HIPAA, FERPA, and GDPR must-haves for customers choosing where to store their most sensitive data and are table stakes for MSPs looking to do business in certain industries and geographies. Without the right compliance certifications, you risk financial repercussions from governing bodies and may even fall behind your competitors in regulated markets. 

Compliance guidelines, while strict, are only the recommended baseline for handling sensitive data.

MSPs who meet all the qualifications for a given compliance standard are still vulnerable to data breaches. Data loss or business hinderance due to cyberattack can be catastrophic for an MSP’s bottom line but so can implementing MSP compliance actions if you’re not careful. Hyperscaler cloud fee structures charge organizations for data access and even some crucial security features necessary for meeting some compliance standards.

MSP compliance in the cloud: building trust with industry-leading security

Building MSP compliance is foundational to any successful business, but true cyber-resilience comes from a variety of cloud security approaches taken in tandem. What each cloud compliance standard will ask of an MSP varies from group to group but there are a few key practices every MSP should consider to make their data resilient to theft and destruction.

• Immutability: Also known as Write Once Read Many (WORM), data marked as immutable is prevented from being altered or deleted. Preserving data using immutability is critical for audits and legal holds and as a defense against ransomware.

• 3-2-1 Backup Rule: This industry standard for data protection dictates MSPs keep three total copies of their data, on at least two different storage media, with one stored offsite or offline. Keeping a copy of essential data in the cloud is an easy way to meet several of these guidelines at once.

• Long-term data retention: Keeping inactive data on high-performance servers is an inefficient use of space. Preserve data for long-term retention by offloading sensitive and regulated data to the cloud for at least 7 years.

• Instant access for archived data: Timely data accessibility is required by some compliance standards, but certain “cold” data storage tiers can slow down client SLAs or analytics-driven operations. Make sure to match archive data with the appropriate storage type.

The financial barriers to MSP compliance

Unfortunately, many cloud providers don’t make it easy to build cloud compliance practices into a workflow. The burden of data access and operations fees adds undue cost to what should be routine practices. Due to charges for API operations, even essential compliance functions like performing integrity checks, adding object-level immutability, or validating audit readiness can put a serious dent in an MSP’s cloud storage budget. Fees for data access, egress, and retrieval make regular backup testing a costly endeavor, especially from “cold” storage tiers. 

For MSPs seeking cloud compliance, the prevalence of these fees can feel insurmountable. Data from the 2025 Wasabi Cloud Storage Index (CSI) reports that less than half (47%) of organizations are utilizing immutability today, in part due to the added operational cost associated with the feature. Data from the CSI also shows 83% of businesses are accessing or retrieving data from a cold tier at least monthly, further driving up costs.  

Calculating the cost of cloud compliance

Forecasting the costs of security can help make MSP compliance less daunting. With a few simple tools, MSPs can get a handle on the unpredictable costs typically associated with cloud storage.

Immutable storage calculator

Immutability is an essential part of a cybersecurity strategy but hyperscalers like Amazon S3 charge users for the use of this feature via API fees. Use the Wasabi immutable storage calculator to understand not only the added costs of object immutability but also how the costs compound year-over-year. Simply enter the amount of immutable data you plan to store and the calculator will give you the cost of data storage, the cost to make that data immutable, and the cost difference between Amazon and Wasabi. With no fees for egress or API requests, Wasabi does not charge for use of its immutability feature.

Backup and restoration calculator

Hyperscale cloud storage pricing is anything but straightforward. Storage capacity accounts for only a small fraction of your total cost of ownership (TCO), with everything from the rate of access to object size affecting the overall price. With backups and restorations becoming a major part of MSP compliance protocols, data retrieval is a major cost center and, according to the Wasabi Cloud Storage Index report, can contribute to cloud storage budget overruns.

The Wasabi TCO calculator breaks down the costs of storing and restoring data from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft’s most common storage tiers. Entering parameters like total storage capacity, annual rate of access, and object size returns a detailed cost analysis on the rates for storage capacity and fees associated with each tier. The tool gives an unparalleled breakdown into the real-world costs of a year’s worth of cloud storage.

How Wasabi helps you build a scalable, compliance-first managed service solution

The Wasabi cloud is purpose-built to support the compliance, performance, and profitability of MSPs without the cost complexity of traditional hyperscalers.

Compliant storage

• Built-in immutability: Wasabi supports object-level immutability at no additional cost, allowing you to enforce WORM policies critical for HIPAA, SEC17a-4, and other compliance frameworks.

• Role-based access: By combining role-based access control (RBAC) with multi-user authentication, MSPs can enforce segregation of duties, mitigate insider threats, and satisfy key compliance mandates around identity verification and accountability.

• Purpose-built for high-compliance verticals: Wasabi meets or exceeds a number of major industry and regulatory compliance standards, including HIPAA, CJIS, FERPA, and GDPR. Choosing Wasabi for storage puts your MSP at an advantage in meeting these guidelines yourself.

Simplicity at scale

• Financial model that removes compliance friction: Wasabi’s fee-free approach to storage eliminates the complication inherent in hyperscale solutions that leads to overspending. Wasabi’s single tier of cloud storage and lack of API or egress charges make storage not only affordable but predictable month-to-month.

• Compatibility with tools you love: S3 compatibility makes Wasabi instantly interoperable with the world’s largest ecosystem of data management applications. Use Veeam, Commvault, Acronis, Cohesity, MSP360 and others to create a compliance-ready backup and recovery plan.

• Cloud storage built for MSPs: Wasabi offers MSPs a suite of ready-to-use products and resources that help streamline and accelerate business. Wasabi Account Control Manager is purpose-built for MSPs to manage billing and storage for all your Wasabi accounts from a single pane of glass. We’ve also created the Partner Portal as a one-stop-shop for marketing and sales resources most relevant to MSPs.

Building your MSP business on a foundation of compliance opens up new opportunities for growth and expansion into new markets and territories. Most importantly, compliance is the bedrock of trust between an MSP and your customers. By providing a compliant home for customer data, your business becomes a bastion of security for your clients. Trust Wasabi to provide a cost-effective platform with the tools you need to achieve MSP compliance. Free from egress and API request fees put the power in your hands to achieve the highest levels of cloud compliance and security.