The Hidden Costs of Managing Veeam and Wasabi Directly: What MSPs Often Overlook

Written By: Probax

For many MSPs, managing Veeam and Wasabi directly can seem like a flexible and cost-effective approach to delivering data protection services. But beneath the surface, this setup often introduces significant operational complexity, inefficiency, and cost—especially as client environments scale.

Here’s what MSPs typically overlook when managing Veeam and Wasabi without a purpose-built management and automation layer.

Time: The Most Expensive Resource You're Losing

Provisioning protection manually takes time. Across the industry, the setup process for each workload—whether it's a server, workstation, or cloud VM—typically takes between 35 and 60 minutes, depending on variables like the engineer's familiarity with Veeam and Wasabi WACM (Wasabi Account Control Manager), and the complexity of the client’s environment (e.g., networking, access controls, and retention policies).

This typically includes:

• Installing and configuring Veeam
• Provisioning storage buckets via Wasabi WACM
• Manually setting up backup jobs and monitoring
• Performing test restores and validation

In contrast, Probax MSP Backup can reduce this setup time to under 2 minutes using the Probax Scout automation agent. Workload protection can be configured in just a few clicks—no bucket setup, no scripting, and no manual scheduling required.

When scaled across clients, the time savings are significant. Protecting 100 workloads across 20 sites could save an MSP over 78 hours of engineering time.

The Administrative Burden of Fragmented Tooling

Without a centralized platform, MSPs are left juggling:

• Veeam console access across clients
• Wasabi WACM access for bucket management across environments
• Decentralized credential management
• Siloed monitoring and reporting tools

This fragmented approach increases the risk of human error, missed backups, and inconsistent policy enforcement. In contrast, Probax MSP Backup provides a single, multi-tenant dashboard for managing all clients, storage, backup jobs, alerts, and policies in one place.

Lower Veeam Licensing Costs Can Add Complexity Behind the Scenes

Working directly with Veeam can offer flexibility and cost savings, particularly for MSPs with existing agreements or volume-based discounts. However, managing Veeam outside of a purpose-built platform introduces operational overhead that can quickly erode those savings.

Common hidden costs include:

• Engineer training and internal documentation requirements
• Monthly usage reporting obligations to Veeam
• Delays in troubleshooting when issues arise between vendors

These operational burdens slow your team down, increase margin erosion, and make it harder to scale your backup offering consistently across clients.

Probax MSP Backup eliminates these manual processes with a fully managed layer that simplifies deployment, automates usage reporting, and centralizes control—freeing your team to focus on higher-value activities.

Alternatively, for MSPs committed to maintaining their own Veeam Rental Agreement for VCSP licensing, Probax MSP Backup BYOV (Bring-Your-Own-Veeam) offers the flexibility to retain those agreements while still benefiting from platform automation and centralized management.

Wasabi at Scale: Where the Complexity Creeps In

Wasabi’s flat-rate, no-egress-fee storage model is highly attractive to MSPs. However, provisioning and managing Wasabi manually—especially across multiple tenants—can become increasingly time-consuming and complex as you scale.

Common operational challenges include:

• Creating and managing storage buckets via Wasabi WACM (Wasabi Account Control Manager)
• Setting access controls, API keys, and permissions across multiple client environments
• Linking buckets to Veeam backup jobs on a per-site basis
• Monitoring storage growth and enforcing usage policies
• Troubleshooting issues without centralized visibility or integrated alerting

While Wasabi’s raw storage costs are low, the operational effort required to manage it manually can impact both team efficiency and profit margins.

Probax MSP Backup automates Wasabi provisioning and integration, removing the need to log in to WACM, manage keys, or configure storage on a site-by-site basis.

Alternatively, for MSPs who prefer to retain their own Wasabi account and leverage existing pricing agreements, Probax MSP Backup BYOW (Bring-Your-Own-Wasabi) enables seamless platform integration while maintaining control of your Wasabi relationship—offering the best of both worlds.

Efficiency and Assurance, Out of the Box

Today’s backup requirements extend well beyond just storing data. Clients increasingly demand:

• Immutable storage
• Ransomware resilience
• Verified restores
• Automated reporting for compliance
• Centralized backup health monitoring

With Veeam and Wasabi managed separately, delivering these requirements consistently means more overhead and manual effort. Probax delivers these capabilities by default—no scripts, workarounds, or third-party add-ons required.

Comparing the Two Approaches

Final Thoughts

Directly managing Veeam and Wasabi might seem cost-effective at first, but the operational complexity, time burden, and scalability challenges often outweigh the initial savings—especially as client environments grow.

Probax MSP Backup eliminates manual setup, reduces support overhead, automates usage reporting, and centralizes management—freeing your team to deliver reliable, scalable data protection without the friction.

Get in touch with us today to see how we can help your MSP reduce operational overhead, streamline backup delivery, and scale with confidence.