Partner leaders in IT, cybersecurity, telecom, agentic AI, ERP and cloud infrastructure are looking for specialist MSPs or SMB-focused generalists. Yet only a few thousand MSPs appear at any combination of industry conferences in a given year. Where are all the others?
For our 2026 “The DNA of MSP Growth” keynote at MSP Summit, our PartnerOptimizer team used our proprietary data mining to refresh the profiles of approximately 46,000 MSPs worldwide. Almost half are based in the US — a large enough base to see the shape of the sector.
This carousel is one cut of that research: the verticals US MSPs specialize in, state by state. Counted by volume, government is the number-one MSP vertical in 45 of 51 states (including Washington, DC). On that view, nearly every state looks the same. Look instead at where each state stands out against the national mix, and the map changes completely.
Same sector. Very different local stories.
- Massachusetts and Tennessee carry 2.6× the national share of healthcare specialists.
- Florida, Oregon, Louisiana and South Carolina over-index on legal.
- The upper Midwest leans into education.
- Texas and New York stand out on real estate.
- Nine states, including California, have no standout vertical.
Why this matters if you run an MSP
Specialization is still rare. Legal, healthcare, nonprofit, real estate and construction together account for just 13% of US MSPs, and one in eight shows no clear vertical on its website. Buyers, vendors and AI search all reward a clear focus. If your state has no standout, that specialty is still up for grabs. If it does, you now know more about who you are competing with.
Does your state’s standout match what you see on the ground — and the business you want to build?
Order your complimentary MSP IQ Benchmark Report →Why this matters if you lead partnerships
California has no standout vertical, yet it is home to more than 100 healthcare-focused MSPs and more than 150 legal-focused MSPs. With no cluster to point to, they blend into the crowd. If your Ideal Partner Profile stops at “MSP, US, 10 to 50 employees,” those specialists can be hard to find. Our PIPE partner discovery platform helps partner leaders find the companies that fit their actual market.
Tell us the vertical you sell into and the region you care about, and we’ll share what we see there.
Explore our keynote research on PartnerOptimizer.com →Source: PartnerOptimizer MSP TAPEM 2026, 21,717 US MSPs, crawled September 2026. Findings reflect website positioning signals, not an audit of delivery capabilities. Each visualization includes its definitions, thresholds and sample-size notes. Adapted from Dina Moskowitz’s supplied LinkedIn post.
Industry voices
What industry leaders are saying
“I love this - the deep data and analysis by PartnerOptimizer, Inc. is writing research for the industry and, more importantly, giving vendors their next best action at the tactical level.”
“This is useful data because it gets beyond who happens to show up at conferences and starts showing where real specialization actually sits. The part I’d keep pressure-testing is what the next best action is being optimized for. If the answer is which MSP to recruit, which vertical to pursue, or where to open the next opportunity, that is strong commercial intelligence. I’d also want to use the same data to understand where the customer problem is actually strongest, where capability gaps exist, and whether adding another partner or offer really improves the outcome. Better targeting helps you know where to look. Judgment still determines what should happen when you get there.”
“Dina at PartnerOptimizer, Inc. has done excellent work for us in the MSP space Bridge Partners Penny Byron”