Black Rabbit Builds an MSSP Stack Without the Vendor Tax

Black Rabbit Cyber

Black Rabbit Cyber

Other

Albert Guerra

Albert Guerra

Owner

1-50

Employees

300

Managed Seats

Black Rabbit Builds an MSSP Stack Without the Vendor Tax

Summary

Albert launched Black Rabbit Cyber in mid-December and immediately needed a platform that could handle remote access, monitoring, and security across 300+ endpoints - without locking him into a multi-year contract or demanding minimum endpoint commitments. OpenFrame delivered. Remote control and PowerShell integration let him manage client devices from anywhere (critical when he's not always at his home base), while Mingo gives him a bird's eye view of his environment. He ran a vulnerability assessment through the AI and got back actionable security intel - SMB1 status, legacy TLS configurations, the works - without having to audit each machine manually.

Challenge

Here's the reality of starting a new MSSP: every vendor wants a piece of every client. Kaseya requires a 25-endpoint minimum with a three-year commitment. Barracuda's per-endpoint pricing means your costs climb with every new client you sign. Albert had looked at them all - and the math just didn't work for a brand new operation with limited cash flow. He even tried rolling his own security platform by integrating Wazuh with AI on Linode, but it was hit or miss. The concept was right, the execution was too complex to depend on.
The traditional vendor model creates a chicken-and-egg problem: you need clients to afford the tools, but you need the tools to service the clients. For a three-person MSSP managing everything from law firms to industrial manufacturers, an affordable and complete platform isn't a nice-to-have - it's the difference between getting off the ground or not.

Solution

OpenFrame gave Albert what the commercial vendors couldn't - a clean deployment with zero financial barriers. The PowerShell agent installed without a single issue. He was expecting problems based on his Wazuh experience, but the process was smooth across the board. The web-based dashboard means he can manage his clients from any device - laptop, iPad, tablet - which matters when you're not always in front of your main workstation.
But the real standout is Mingo. Albert had been trying to build exactly this - an AI layer on top of his security tooling that could assess vulnerabilities and provide actionable intelligence. When he tested Mingo by asking for a vulnerability rundown on his Windows machines, it came back with detailed findings: confirmed SMB1 was disabled, flagged legacy TLS status, and surfaced security posture information that would normally take manual auditing to uncover. That's the kind of visibility a brand new MSSP needs to demonstrate value to clients from day one.

Results

• Deployment: Agent installed across client devices with zero issues - up and running immediately

• Vendor cost avoidance: Eliminated multi-year contracts and minimum endpoint commitments that would have cost thousands upfront

• Security visibility: AI-powered vulnerability assessments replacing manual security audits across 300 endpoints

• Accessibility: Full remote management from any device - managing clients remotely even while away from home base

• Stack consolidation: On track to replace multiple standalone tools (RMM, security monitoring, remote access) with a single platform

Related Content

Case Studies

Product Releases

Webinars

Blog Posts

Onboarding Guides

Frequently Asked Questions

MSP AI Agents

Deployment data on five-person service desks shows $78,000 to $130,000 in annual direct labor savings, roughly 30% fewer escalations, and 15% to 20% better SLA compliance. Savings come from reclaimed capacity, not headcount cuts.
Yes, for low-risk categories. MSPs report 10% to 25% of tickets closed without a tech opening them, covering password resets, MFA enrollment, and known installs. Anything needing judgment or touching production data still escalates to a human.

AI MSP

Start with a readiness assessment, not a tool purchase. Confirm your ticket history is clean and your RMM, PSA, and monitoring systems connect. Then pick one high-volume, low-risk workflow, usually ticket triage, and pilot it on internal tickets before any client sees it.
Set a baseline before rollout, then track tickets closed per technician, mean time to resolution, percentage of tickets resolved with no human touch, technician hours reclaimed, and cost per ticket. AI-driven automation commonly cuts operational cost per ticket by 25 to 40%.

AI Safety

It can be, with governance. Keep a human in the loop on high-risk actions, log every automated step for audit, and choose platforms that keep your data yours with no vendor lock-in. Pilot on internal data first so you catch issues before client systems are involved.

Open Source PSA

Yes. ITFlow is open-source software under a GPL license, so the application costs nothing to download or run. You only pay for the server you host it on, plus the time your team spends on setup, updates, and backups.

Password Manager

Yes. Passbolt's Community edition is free under the AGPLv3 license with unlimited users, but you self-host it yourself. Paid Pro and Cloud tiers, starting around $5.40 per user monthly with a 10-seat minimum, add LDAP, SSO, and audit logs.
Neither wins outright. Passbolt uses OpenPGP per-user keys and a self-hosting-first design that technical teams trust. Bitwarden offers a smoother cross-platform experience and a dedicated provider program. Choose Passbolt for cryptographic control, Bitwarden for easier rollout to non-technical client users.

AI for MSPs

AI decouples revenue from headcount. When automation handles routine work, labor costs grow slower than revenue, so margins expand as you scale. The 2026 Kaseya report found 53% of MSPs already automate ticketing, patching, and monitoring to protect margin.

Getting Started

We help MSPs identify cost-effective alternatives to expensive commercial solutions, provide transparent vendor information, and connect you with proven open-source alternatives. Our platform enables MSPs to make informed decisions about their technology investments.

Try it. Break it.

Deploy it. Love it.

And finally, stop paying $14K/month for tools that fight each other.