Most explanations of Backup as a Service focus on the company buying the service. For MSPs, IT providers, and consultants, however, BaaS represents something different: an opportunity to deliver managed backup as a recurring service. If you run a break/fix shop, an MSP, or a solo consultancy and you are looking at backup as recurring revenue, “what is Backup as a Service” has a different answer than the one aimed at the dentist office down the street. Here is that answer.
BaaS, from your side of the table
Backup as a Service (BaaS) is a managed data protection model in which backup infrastructure, software, monitoring, storage, and recovery services are delivered to a customer on an ongoing basis. You are the provider; you deploy the backup software to your clients’ machines, monitor the jobs, handle restores, and bill for the service on an ongoing basis. The client does not run their own backup and does not shop for a cloud vendor. They pay you, and backup is one of the services you keep running for them.
The distinction is not simply the software itself, but how the service is delivered. In a managed BaaS model, the provider is responsible for configuring, monitoring, maintaining, and supporting the backup environment. Handing a client a link to a retail backup product makes you a referrer. Running the service yourself, on a platform built for it, makes backup a line of business you own.
What that looks like day to day
You deploy a branded Windows or macOS agent to each client machine. It carries your name, not a vendor’s, so your client sees your company at every step. Every endpoint you protect, across every client, shows up in one Backup Ops console where you catch missed jobs each morning, pull reports, and push config remotely without driving to a site.
You pick where the data lives. Connect your own storage, whether Wasabi, Backblaze B2, Amazon S3, Google Cloud, or Synology C2, and pay the cloud vendor directly. There is no storage markup sitting between you and the bucket, so the margin on storage is yours to set. For business clients, SQL and Exchange jobs, full disk images, and bare-metal restore come standard rather than as add-on SKUs, and a server endpoint bills the same as a workstation.
The economics are the point
For a shop, the appeal of BaaS is not the technology, it is the model. Instead of one-time break/fix tickets, you have a fixed monthly fee per endpoint that renews on its own. Pricing is month-to-month with no per-restore charges, so you can quote a client a flat per-seat number and know your cost underneath it. Because you bring your own storage at cost, what you charge above that stays with you. Every new client machine is another seat on a bill you already send.
When a client’s disaster recovery event occurs
The real test of a backup service is the day a client’s production data gets encrypted or deleted, because you are the one who gets that call. A workable BaaS setup answers it: an encrypted copy offsite that the ransomware could not reach, a local vault on an endpoint, USB, or the client’s NAS for fast file pulls, and a point-in-time version from before the infection to roll back to. The difference between a routine restore and a disaster is usually whether you tested a restore on that client before you needed one. Build that test into onboarding for every client you take on.
Compliance rides along here too. When a client has HIPAA, PCI, or data-residency requirements, you can configure the backup environment around the applicable requirements, including appropriate storage regions, encryption, access controls, retention policies, and reporting. Backup is one component of the client’s broader compliance strategy, not a guarantee of compliance by itself. You are meeting the requirement on their behalf, as part of the service.
Why shops run their own BaaS instead of reselling consumer backup
Consumer and prosumer backup tools protect one account well. What they do not give you is a service to sell: your brand on the software the client installs, one console for managing many clients at once, server-grade jobs like SQL and imaging, control of your own pricing, and margin on storage. When you resell a retail tool, the vendor owns the brand, the pricing, and often the client relationship. When you run BaaS on a platform built for partners, you own all three.
How to start without betting the business
You do not have to commit blind. Trial the platform, connect a storage bucket, and pilot one real client end to end. Deploy the branded agent, run the jobs, then prove the part that matters by pulling a file and rebuilding a machine from an image. Once you have proven a clean restore on your own pilot, package it, set your price per seat, and roll it out to the rest of your book.
If you would rather keep the vault on your own hardware than a cloud bucket, WholesaleBackup Server runs on a Windows box and gives you that option, though most partners run cloud offsite plus a local vault.
