What to Know Before Hiring a SharePoint Consulting Company

Why Organisations Hire SharePoint Consulting Services

Most companies that turn to external SharePoint consultants are not doing it out of preference. They do it because their internal team does not have the capacity, the specialised skill set, or the time to do what the project demands. The most common triggers include:

• Migrating from an on-premises SharePoint environment to SharePoint Online or Microsoft 365.
• Building a company intranet or employee portal from scratch.
• Redesigning an outdated intranet that no longer reflects the business or its structure.
• Developing a document management or compliance solution on SharePoint.
• Governance work — permissions architecture, content taxonomy, information architecture.

What these projects share is that they are either one-time engagements that do not justify a permanent hire, or they require a depth of expertise that takes years to develop and is hard to maintain in-house.

Types of SharePoint Consulting Services

A decade ago, "SharePoint consultant" meant one person who could do everything. Today, the role has diversified considerably. Understanding the categories helps you hire the right fit.

• Build

  1. SharePoint Developer or Full-Stack Developer

  Focused on technical build work: custom web parts, SPFx development, API integrations, and automation. If your project involves significant custom functionality, this is the profile you need. They are not typically responsible for requirements, training, or strategy.

• Advisory

  2. SharePoint Consultant or Technical Advisor

  A broader role that sits between business analyst and solutions architect. They help translate business requirements into a SharePoint structure, advise on governance, and may handle training. Often the first point of contact for organisations that are new to SharePoint.

• Full Team

  3. Microsoft SharePoint Consulting Firm

  A company that brings a full team: project manager, business analyst, developer, and trainer. Better suited to large or complex builds that require coordination across multiple workstreams. Typically more expensive but also more accountable to a defined scope.

• Platform-Enabled

  4. Platform-Enabled Implementation Partner

  A growing approach where organisations bring in a consultant who builds on a no-code design platform — such as ShortPoint — rather than starting from scratch. The platform accelerates the design and build process, so consultant hours go further: less time on structure and layout, more focus on governance, integrations, and migration. The result is typically a faster timeline and lower cost than a traditional consulting engagement.

For teams that want the product without the internal design effort, ShortPoint also offers a Custom Design Service — where the ShortPoint team designs and builds the intranet for you, combining the speed of a platform with the delivery of a professional service. It's a fourth option that sits between DIY templates and a full consulting engagement.

See ShortPoint Custom Design Service →

Worth knowing: If a significant portion of your project scope is intranet design and layout — choosing templates, setting up navigation, organising content — a product-first approach often replaces what a consultant would otherwise spend weeks billing for.

What Does a SharePoint Consultant Actually Do?

Before hiring, it is worth understanding what a typical engagement looks like. The scope varies by project, but most Microsoft SharePoint consulting engagements follow a similar shape:

• Discovery and requirements gathering — understanding the business need, user personas, and technical environment.
• Information architecture — defining how content is structured, how navigation works, and how permissions are set.
• Build and configuration — creating sites, pages, libraries, and workflows.
• Integration — connecting SharePoint to other Microsoft 365 tools or third-party systems.
• User acceptance testing — validating that the build meets requirements before launch.
• Training and documentation — equipping internal teams to manage and maintain the environment.
• Post-launch support — fixing issues and iterating based on feedback.

Not every consultant offers every service. Some focus purely on build; others are stronger on strategy and governance. Before you hire, be explicit about which of these phases you need covered — and who owns the ones the consultant does not.

Individual Expert vs. SharePoint Consulting Company — How to Choose

This is one of the most common questions organisations face when starting a SharePoint project. The honest answer is that it depends on three factors.

Before committing to either option, ask how much of your project scope is genuinely technical vs. design and layout. If the answer is "mostly design" — choosing templates, setting up navigation, building branded page layouts — a no-code platform like ShortPoint can replace a significant portion of what a consultant would otherwise bill for. That changes the calculus considerably.

How to Evaluate a SharePoint Consulting Firm

Once you have decided that a firm is the right fit, the next question is how to choose one. Microsoft-certified SharePoint consultants and firms hold a Microsoft Solutions Partner designation, which indicates a baseline of verified expertise. But certification alone is not sufficient.

How Much Do SharePoint Consulting Services Cost?

This is the question most buyers have and few consultants answer clearly upfront. Here are realistic ranges based on current market rates — along with a fourth option that most organisations do not consider until they have already spent more than they needed to.

Costs vary based on the consultant's location, seniority, and the complexity of the scope — always request a fixed-fee proposal where possible to avoid open-ended billing. The table includes two ShortPoint paths most buyers overlook: ShortPoint plus lightweight consulting (you handle design, a consultant covers governance or integrations) and the ShortPoint Custom Design Service (the ShortPoint team designs and builds for you). Both deliver faster and at lower cost than a traditional consulting engagement.

When You Do Not Need a SharePoint Consulting Company at All

There is a version of this decision that most buying guides do not mention: for a large category of SharePoint intranet projects, the biggest cost driver is design — and design does not have to be a consulting deliverable. ShortPoint is a no-code intranet design platform built for SharePoint and Microsoft 365. It gives non-technical teams the tools to build professional, branded intranet pages without writing a single line of code. Here is where it changes the equation:

You Are Building or Redesigning an Intranet

ShortPoint includes a library of over 100 professionally designed intranet templates. Instead of spending weeks in discovery and requirements gathering to arrive at a page layout, you start from a template that is already close to what you need and customise from there.

Explore ShortPoint intranet templates →

You Need Something Live Quickly

ShortPoint AI Designer generates intranet page layouts from a plain-text prompt. Describe your department, your brand colours, and your content structure — and get a working design in minutes, not weeks. That changes what a launch timeline looks like.

See ShortPoint AI Designer in action →

Your IT Team Is Non-Technical

ShortPoint requires no developer involvement for design, branding, navigation, or content structure. If your team can manage a SharePoint site, they can use ShortPoint. This removes the dependency on external resource for the parts of the project that typically consume the most budget.

If your project still needs a consultant — for governance, permissions architecture, or a complex third-party integration — ShortPoint does not get in the way of that. In fact, consultants who are familiar with ShortPoint move faster because the design layer is already handled before they arrive.

ShortPoint Custom Design Service: The Middle Path

Most guides on SharePoint consulting present two options: hire a consultant, or build it yourself. There is a third path that is faster than the first and more polished than the second. ShortPoint Custom Design Service is a done-for-you intranet design offering where the ShortPoint team designs and builds your SharePoint intranet for you — using the ShortPoint platform as the foundation. You get the quality of a professional design engagement without the timeline or cost of a traditional SharePoint consulting firm.

When It Makes Sense

• You want a professionally designed intranet but do not have the internal resources to build it yourself.
• You have already evaluated SharePoint consulting firms and found the timelines and costs too high for your project scope.
• You want ShortPoint's template library and AI Designer but need someone to do the implementation work.
• You need to launch quickly and cannot afford a 3–9 month consulting engagement.

How It Differs From a Traditional Consulting Engagement

A traditional SharePoint consulting firm charges for discovery, requirements, custom development, and testing — whether or not that work could have been handled by a product library and design tooling. With Custom Design Service, the build phase is dramatically shorter. You are paying for design expertise and delivery, not for rebuilding what already exists. For organisations that want a done-for-you result without the open-ended billing of an hourly consulting arrangement, it is a materially different value proposition.

What to Expect

After an initial discussion about your requirements, our team works directly in your environment to design and build your intranet, with the finished design delivered in just one week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Next Steps