There's a predictable moment in every MSP's growth trajectory when what worked brilliantly at 20 customers becomes impossibly complex at 200. For many MSPs selling voice and UCaaS services, that breaking point isn’t technical infrastructure or support capacity, but billing.
Datagate’s launch of its Partner Program at ITEXPO 2026 last week in Fort Lauderdale addresses what CEO Mark Loveys calls a hidden constraint in MSP growth: Telecom billing complexity scales far faster than telecom revenue. As MSPs have evolved into the dominant channel for small and mid-sized business telecom purchases, the back-office systems that worked for traditional managed services are buckling under the unique demands of usage-based telecom billing.
The result is MSPs either limiting their telecom offerings despite customer demand, or absorbing margin-crushing complexity trying to manage billing accuracy, taxation, and compliance across multiple carriers and service types.
The shift of MSPs into telecom sales wasn't planned, but it was, perhaps, inevitable. As businesses migrated to cloud-based voice and UCaaS platforms, these became just another application in the technology stack MSPs were already managing. Customers wanted a single trusted advisor managing their entire technology environment, not separate relationships for network, servers, security, and phone systems.
MSPs were perfectly positioned. They had customer relationships, understood business requirements, and could integrate voice into broader technology solutions. So, the sale was natural and while the service delivery may have not had many hurdles, billing often became a nightmare.
On the surface, billing for UCaaS seems simple: X users times Y dollars per month. But, anyone billing telecom at scale knows this simplicity is an illusion. The reality involves usage overages, toll-free minutes, international calling, DID charges, per-minute rates varying by destination, regulatory fees varying by jurisdiction, taxes differing across boundaries, equipment charges, promotional pricing that expires, bundled services with interdependent pricing, and carrier invoices that don't match what you sold. It doesn’t sound so simple now, does it?
The PSA Integration Trap
Conventional wisdom might suggest using your PSA, which most MSPs already use. The problem is that PSAs were built for project-based services and fixed-fee subscriptions, not usage-based telecom billing with regulatory compliance requirements.
While PSAs can technically handle telecom billing, doing so requires extensive customization, ongoing maintenance, and workarounds that can break with every update.
Datagate's positioning as a neutral financial system of record, sitting above carriers, PSAs, payment systems, tax engines, and accounting platforms, represents a different approach. Rather than replacing systems MSPs trust, it normalizes telecom billing complexity and presents clean data to existing systems.
“We don't ask MSPs to rip and replace their PSA, accounting platform, or financial history just to sell telecom,” says Loveys. “Datagate plugs into the systems MSPs already trust.”
The Partner Program Structure: Recognizing Reality
Datagate's Partner Program structure reflects an understanding of how the MSP ecosystem functions. It features three partner categories: Referral Partners (simple fees, no obligations), Implementation Partners for PSA integrators and consultants, and future Reseller Partners for service providers and UCaaS platforms.
Referral Partners acknowledge that many organizations touch MSPs without selling directly. Implementation Partners recognize PSA integrators already optimize MSP operations, enabling them to include Datagate creates natural deployment paths. The Reseller tier addresses that UCaaS platforms want MSPs to successfully sell their services, but billing complexity is a barrier.
It’s not unreasonable to expect that many partners will begin as Referral Partners, then expand into Implementation or Reseller roles over time. It’s a natural evolution, rather than forcing complex partnership structures from the outset.
MSP-led telecom sales have grown, but operational infrastructure has lagged. Datagate's Partner Program represents recognition that this constraint is significant enough, and the MSP market mature enough, to warrant specialized solutions that integrate with rather than replace existing systems.
For MSPs managing telecom billing through spreadsheets or PSA workarounds, the question isn't whether this approach will eventually break, but whether it already has and they just haven't realized it yet.
Edited by
Erik Linask
