HaloPSA
👤 Paul Hamilton (An IT-support duo who built the ticket tool for their own clients, then bootstrapped 15 years while rivals sold to PE.)🌐 siteLinkedIn
For 15 years it was a boring UK helpdesk tool. Then Kaseya hiked Datto's prices and MSPs came looking for an exit.
Will it work? · our read
Patience compounds. Fifteen quiet years of product depth met a moment: Kaseya's price hikes handed Halo the MSPs. Real profit, real product — but the breakout leaned on a rival's own goal.
01How the money moves
MSP moves ticketing, billing + CRM into one PSA
→
Adds a seat for every technician it hires
→
Pays per agent, monthly, all-in
02The numbers
£48.8M ($62M)
FY25 turnover
CH filing
39%
operating margin
CH filing
$0
outside funding raised
getlatka
Latka guessed $13.9M revenue; the filed accounts show about $62M — roughly 4x off. Companies House SC216980
£48.8M ($62M) turnover FY25, 39% operating margin, $0 raised.
03Weight class — CENTStap an axis
Control High
Owns the platform, the IP, and 73% of the shares — never handed to PE.
04The key move
Never take the money.
Hamilton reinvested for 15 years instead of raising, keeping his cost base a fraction of rivals'. When Kaseya rolled up Datto and hiked prices, Halo was the deeper, all-in PSA for far less — so MSPs fled to it.
fact
The counter-intuitive move
Or: Halo simply built a good product for 15 years and caught a wave. Many bootstrappers stay small — the Kaseya backlash is what turned patience into a breakout.
our read
05Where the moat is
Why the switchers stay:
Founder-owned, 73% — no PE to answer to15 years of PSA configuration depthCost base a fraction of PE-owned rivalsAll-in-one PSA, no per-module upsell
06How it diesmedium confidence
The surge is a replacement sale riding Kaseya's own goal. If incumbents fix pricing — or a funded rival like SuperOps matches the depth cheaply — the cheap-and-deeper wedge narrows in a crowded PSA market. our read
Show evidence · counter
Evidence: Kaseya's Dec 2025 billing reset already cooled the "we should look around" wave; VC-funded SuperOps and Atera chase the same MSP seats.
Counter: But 39% margins and no debt let Halo out-patience any price war — its PE-owned rivals must protect margin; Halo need not.
07Against rivals
Incumbents are PE-owned (ConnectWise: Thoma Bravo; Autotask: Kaseya). Halo is the founder-owned outlier. our read
08Who uses it
MSPs (managed service providers)MSSPs / security shopsEnterprise IT / ITSM teamsBreak-fix IT firmsMcLaren Racing (ITSM)
★Would it work for you?
When a PE roll-up hikes prices on a niche's core tool, are you ready to be the cheaper, deeper escape hatch?
Halo was ready when Kaseya stumbled. Whose PE roll-up is angering buyers you could catch? We don't score you — you answer.
🚀Use it as a launchpada prompt for your own AI
Copy → paste into your AI → then develop it freely in the conversation.
You are a sharp, honest startup strategist. Use the proven case below as a launchpad for MY idea — help me find my own angle, not copy it.
<my_profile>
Domain I know: [your domain]
My unfair advantage (access/audience): [your edge]
Interests: [your interests]
Resources & goal: [your resources] · [your goal]
</my_profile>
<case name="HaloPSA" model="saas">
What it does: A bootstrapped, all-in-one PSA (ticketing, billing, CRM, contracts) that MSPs run their business on, priced per agent.
Why it won (moat): Founder-owned depth: 15 years of configurability at a cost base rivals can't match, so it undercuts PE-owned incumbents.
Weakest axis (CENTS): Growth is a replacement sale that rode Kaseya's price hikes — a tailwind it doesn't control, in a crowded market.
How it could die: Incumbents fix pricing or a funded rival matches the depth cheaply, and the cheap-and-deeper wedge closes.
</case>
<task>
Be a skeptical operator, not a cheerleader. No generic startup platitudes. If my angle is weak, say so plainly.
First, a reality check: markets like this mostly fail. State the honest base rate (how crowded/hard is this?) and the ONE specific thing that would have to be true for ME to be the exception — grounded in my profile above.
Then a compact table:
- Fit — does this pattern suit my edge, or fight my gap?
- Angle — my sharpest differentiation vs HaloPSA (concrete, not "better UX")
- Distribution — exactly where my first 100 users come from (this is the hardest part — be specific, not "content marketing")
- Risk — its "how it dies" (above) in MY situation
Finish with one line: "The single thing to do next."
Use only the facts above; if data is thin, say so — never invent numbers.
Then stay with me and go deeper on whatever I ask — tech stack, rough cost & time, the smallest MVP to test, pricing, or timing.
</task>
✓ Copied — paste into your AI
👤Placeholders like [your domain] auto-fill from your profile — example values for now.Set up profile →
Sourcesupdated · daily
Companies House SC216980 — FY25 medium-company accounts: £48.8M ($62M) turnover, 39% margin, 135 staff factIT Channel Oxygen — Paul Hamilton profile: NetHelpDesk origins, never took VC interviewHaloPSA — Introducing HaloPSA (25-year NetHelpDesk lineage, 2019 browser rewrite)GetLatka — revenue estimate $13.9M (est, about 4x below the filing) estr/msp — MSPs weighing HaloPSA against ConnectWise/Autotask after Kaseya price changes forum
Revenue is first-party: Halo Service Solutions Ltd (SC216980) filed medium-company statutory accounts showing £48.8M ($62M) turnover for the year ended 31 Mar 2025, 39% operating margin, 135 staff, up 64% YoY — so we ignore Latka's $13.9M estimate (about 4x too low). Founder-controlled (Paul Hamilton 73% per PSC), $0 outside funding; the "Hg majority stake" claim on some blogs is unverified and contradicted by the filing, so it is excluded. Hamilton's interview claims of "$100M revenue" and a "$2bn unsolicited offer" are founder-stated and later than the filing, so we did NOT use them as the headline number. The keyMove causality (Kaseya hikes drove the MSP exodus to Halo) is documented in r/msp, but the exact share Halo captured is our read [inference]. We never score you.