Why Are Print Costs Increasing?
Office printing has evolved over the last few years, but it remains a necessity in almost every workplace. Before the pandemic, the printer was the third most expensive item in the office, behind employees and office rent. In today’s business world, printers may seem less central, but their operating costs can still be significant if left unmanaged. In fact, without proper management, these costs can escalate rapidly.
What Causes Print Costs to Rise?
The first step to understanding what can be done is to explore what causes the price to drive up. From there, we will share some starting steps to avoid runaway print costs and how to get in front of them before they escalate.
How Can Managed Print Services Help?
Maintaining Devices Through Managed Print Services
Printers of all sizes need the same thing to operate: toner. The issue with stocking toner in an unmanaged environment is that multiple employees may order cartridges without communicating, leading to excess spending and storage needs. Multi-function printers are comparable to smartphones these days in that they can intelligently order toner when required by tracking print volumes. Applying a small charge to each impression that comes out of the device means your printer will never be without a backup cartridge, with no additional costs.
How Do Different Devices Affect Print Costs?
Depending on the size of the machine in your office, these charges can vary based on how many prints are expected to go through in a month. For instance, an A3 freestanding machine would get lower rates as it’s expected to print more, whereas a desktop A4 would charge more per page but would fit well in a small 2 to 4-person office. Be aware that putting a high number of prints on a smaller machine can lead to “Print Cost Runaway.”
What About Color Printing?
Color Restrictions on Devices
The click rates differ for each device depending on size, but they also vary from color to monochrome. Black and white prints only utilize a single cartridge, while color prints use multiple cartridges (yellow, cyan, and magenta) in tandem. This makes the color charge higher, though still beneficial in terms of toner and service.
Something to keep in mind is what constitutes a color charge when printing a page. The reality is that if any color is used, the entire page is counted as color and charged accordingly. Setting user restrictions, such as defaulting the machine to black and white or only giving some users the ability to print in color, will keep accidental prints to a minimum.
How Can User Monitoring Reduce Costs?
User Monitoring
Monitoring the activities of staff can provide insight into where costs are running away. More than once, I’ve been told by a customer that they don’t do a lot of printing, only for them to be surprised when I share the actual volumes. While we always want to support the staff of an organization, many are unaware that volumes or levels are tracked at all, let alone that we can break it out to print volumes from an individual.
From full trust to zero trust, properly restricting the device to only be operational by staff during the day and management after hours is one way to ensure employees are not making prints for their baby shower over the weekend. On the other side of the coin, allowing users to print what they want but charging them back accordingly for larger jobs is also an option to keep costs from ballooning too far.
How Can You Implement These Strategies?
Steps to Control Print Costs
- Evaluate Your Current Print Environment: Assess your current printer usage, toner ordering processes, and print volumes.
- Implement Managed Print Services: Consider using managed print services to automate toner orders and monitor usage.
- Set User Restrictions: Default printers to black and white and restrict color printing to necessary users.
- Monitor and Manage Usage: Track print volumes by user and implement policies to control personal printing.
Conclusion
By understanding the factors that drive up print costs and implementing managed print services, user restrictions, and monitoring, businesses can effectively control and reduce their printing expenses. Don’t let your print costs run wild—take control today.
Ready to Manage Your Print Costs?
Contact us at HubTGI to learn more about how our managed print services can help you reduce costs and improve efficiency. Don’t wait—start saving today!
About hubTGI
hubTGI is a Canadian-owned Managed Services provider that offers Print Services, Workflow Solutions, Managed IT, Cybersecurity Solutions, Cloud Services and VoIP to help their customers control costs, secure their data and make their people more productive.
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