Skip to main content

How To Reduce Print Costs

Printing remains vital for many organisations; however, it often comes with hidden financial and environmental costs. This page provides practical strategies to reduce printing costs, from cloud printing solutions to improved print management, while also reducing waste and enhancing productivity. Learn how to cut unnecessary printing costs, save resources, and boost your flexibility with secure, cloud-based printing options.

Contact us

Optimise your printing costs

Talk of the paperless office has been around years, but it’s a prediction yet to be realised. The fact is, print is a highly effective form of communication – research has shown that comprehension rates are better when reading printed text than digital text1, so it’s unlikely that we’ll stop printing any time soon.

However, printing does have financial and environmental costs for businesses that need to be carefully managed. It’s estimated that businesses spend between one and three per cent of their revenue on printing each year2. Combine that with the statistic that around 50%3 of all business waste is paper, and that “44% of all printouts are unnecessary”4, it’s clear that there is significant potential to reduce both printing costs and environmental impact.

Ways to reduce printing costs

One of the most effective ways to reduce printing costs is to improve print management, and one of the most effective ways to improve print management is to adopt a cloud printing solution. Because a cloud printing solution requires no investment in print server hardware, savings can be immediate.

Cloud printing offers numerous other opportunities to reduce printing costs thanks to the increased visibility and control it offers, such as:

• User login – ensure only authorised users can print
• Set quotas – assigning and monitoring user print quotas can provide useful data and make users think twice before clicking the print button
• Project assignment – copying and printing costs can be assigned to specific cost centres or projects

Other ways to reduce printing costs include:

• Double-sided printing – offers the potential to halve paper consumption
• Minimise use of colour printing – colour printing can be five times more expensive than mono printing, so save it for when you need to impress, such as for customer presentation handouts
• Use draft print option – for most everyday printing, draft print is perfectly adequate; it prints faster than standard print, too
• Use the right paper for the job – use lighter weight office papers (usually 75 or 80gsm) for everyday mono printing and save the heavier weight, more expensive papers for colour printing

Sustainable printing through better management

Because cloud print management gives businesses and users greater control and visibility of printing activity, it’s less likely that documents will be printed unnecessarily. For example, fewer documents will be discarded because they contain errors and fewer documents will be left uncollected on printers.

Less printing also means less use of resources – paper, ink, toner, cartridges, electricity – further reducing environmental footprint.

How reducing printing costs can enhance productivity

The benefits of reducing print costs through cloud printing can be felt in many ways. For IT departments it means time that would have been spent on admin or servicing and maintaining printers can be used more productively elsewhere. For users, it means they can securely print from any internet-connected device, from any location, providing the flexibility needed to support remote or hybrid working.

References

1 ScienceNewsExplores

2 CBS News

3 Business Waste

4 Intelsol

FAQ

Can digital alternatives help reduce printing?

Definitely. You can reduce printing and save money by saving documents as PDFs or using cloud storage.

Does the type of paper affect printing costs?

Yes, the use of standard office paper rather than premium options will reduce costs. Another cost-effective choice can be recycled paper.

What’s the benefit of a print management software?

This helps to track usage, set print quotas and find areas where costs can be reduced. Long term savings can be made by investing in such software.

How does font selection impact printing expenses?

Certain fonts use more ink than others. To reduce costs, choose ink-saving fonts such as Century Gothic or Ryman Eco.

Should I print in colour or black and white?

In most cases, it’s best to stick with black-and-white printing unless color is essential. Printing in color can ultimately be more expensive.

Get started

If you’re ready to reduce your business’s printing costs, get in touch

Contact us today.

Contact us