Figuring out how to reduce business printing costs usually starts with a bill nobody can explain. Toner orders feel frequent, a service call lands at a busy moment, and the year’s total comes in higher than anyone guessed. The way in is to track what you print, what it costs per page, and which devices cause repeat trouble.

Offices across Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and the rest of Southern Colorado run into the same pattern. Printers get added one at a time, supplies get bought whenever someone runs out, and repairs happen only after a breakdown. None of that makes an office wasteful. It does make costs hard to see.

Below are five warning signs, each paired with a fix you can size to your own print volume. Treat each sign as a reason to look closer, not as proof that you are overspending.

Sign 1: You Cannot Explain Your Monthly Print Bill

If you cannot connect your print spending to the pages your office produces, you have a visibility problem first. The fix starts with one number: your cost per page.

Most offices pay for printing across several budget lines. Toner comes from one vendor, paper from another, and repairs show up as surprise invoices. A lease payment or service contract may sit in a different account. Spread out like that, your print costs never add up to one clear figure.

This sign is about the total: what printing costs the office as a whole. Which people, departments, and jobs drive that total is a separate question, and it comes up again in Sign 4.

How to Reduce Business Printing Costs by Measuring Cost per Page

Cost per page tells you what each printed sheet costs once you count everything. You can build a rough version with a spreadsheet and three months of records.

• Add your supply costs. Include toner, ink, drums, and fuser kits bought for each device. If a service contract already covers toner for a device, leave it out here.
• Add service and repair costs. Count parts, labor, and maintenance fees that are not already part of a contract payment.
• Add equipment costs. For a device you own, spread the purchase price over the months you expect to use it. For a leased device, use the monthly lease payment.
• Add paper. Use what you paid per ream.
• Divide by pages printed. Pull page counts from each printer’s settings menu or configuration report.

Read each agreement before you fill in the sheet. Many lease and service contracts bundle supplies, parts, or labor into one payment, and counting those items twice inflates your cost per page. Use the equipment method that matches your comparison: purchase cost over time when you weigh buying, lease payments when you weigh leasing.

Split black-and-white pages from color pages if your devices track them separately. Color pages cost more, and mixing the two hides where your money goes.

Compare Equipment, Supplies, and Service Costs Against Print Volume

Once you have a cost per page for each device, rank them. A small desktop printer that prints 200 pages a month can cost far more per page than a shared multifunction copier printing 5,000.

Look at your print environment as a whole. A low-volume device with costly cartridges may be a candidate for retirement. A busy copier with high repair bills may be the wrong size for the work. Comparing each machine’s duty cycle with its real monthly volume shows you where the mismatches are.

Once you know which device costs the most per page, the next question is why. For many offices, the answer shows up in the supply closet.

Sign 2: Toner Needs Replacing More Often Than Expected

Toner that runs out early usually points to the jobs being printed or the settings behind them. Before you blame the cartridge, check what it was rated to do.

Check Cartridge Yield and the Types of Jobs Being Printed

Cartridge yield is the number of pages a cartridge should print under test conditions. Manufacturers once used a loose “5% coverage” page, which made comparisons unreliable. The ISO/IEC 19752 yield standard replaced that with a defined test page for monochrome laser printers.

Your office pages will not match that test page. Spreadsheets with shaded cells, forms with heavy logos, and full-page photos use far more toner than plain letters. If your staff prints marketing flyers or job-site photos on an office laser printer, early replacements make sense.

• Compare pages printed per cartridge against the rated yield.
• Note which departments print graphics-heavy work.
• Ask whether high-yield cartridges are available for your busiest devices.

High-yield cartridges cost more up front. Whether they lower your cost per page depends on the numbers. Divide each cartridge’s price by its rated yield, then compare the results for the same device.

Set Sensible Defaults for Color, Draft Quality, and Print Density

Default printer settings decide how most pages print, because few people change them. Set the defaults once and your whole office benefits.

• Color: Set grayscale as the default and let staff choose color when a job needs it.
• Draft mode: Use draft or toner-save mode for internal documents and drafts.
• Print density: Lower density one step on devices that print mostly text.
• Margins: According to the EPA’s tips on reducing paper and ink, cutting 1-inch margins to 0.5 inch raises the usable print area of a letter page from 63% to 80%.

Small defaults like these add up across a year.

Settings only help on the devices you know about. That raises a harder question: how many printers does your office have?

Sign 3: Personal Printers Have Multiplied Across the Office

When every desk has its own printer, you pay for many small supply chains and many small repair risks. Personal printers often have the highest cost per page in the building.

Inventory Devices and Match Them to Actual Workloads

Walk the office and list every device. Record the model, its location, who uses it, its monthly page count, and its connection type. Include printers in back rooms, reception, and home offices if staff print for work there.

This inventory is the start of print fleet management. You will likely find a few devices doing most of the work and several barely used. Some may sit on the network without anyone tracking them, so check your network’s device list too.

Decide Which Jobs Belong on Shared Office Printers

Routine, high-volume printing usually belongs on a shared multifunction printer. These devices print, copy, and scan, and their cost per page is often lower than a desktop unit’s. Check that against your own cost-per-page sheet before you move anything.

Some personal printers still earn their spot. Staff who print confidential HR files, checks, or prescriptions may need one close by. A front desk that prints receipts all day may need its own device too. Keep those and move the rest of the printing workflow to shared machines.

If a shared device fits your plan, this guide to small business copiers explains the options.

Fewer devices make costs easier to see. You still need to know who is printing what on them.

Sign 4: No One Tracks Which Print Jobs Drive Volume

Sign 1 was about the size of the bill. This one is about its sources: without tracking, you can guess which users, departments, or job types drive your volume, but you cannot prove it.

Use Print Tracking to Spot Patterns Before Setting Limits

Print management software logs each job by user, device, page count, and color use. After a month, patterns appear. You may find one report printed daily that nobody reads, or a team printing emails in color.

Look at the data before you set print quotas. Quotas set too early frustrate staff and can block work that matters. Use the reports to talk with each team first. Many print management solutions let you set quotas by department once you know normal usage.

These print management best practices walk through common policies. You can also explore print management software options that fit your office.

Cut Avoidable Pages With Duplex, Print Preview, and Secure Release

Once you see where paper consumption comes from, a few tools cut pages without slowing anyone down.

• Double-sided printing: Set duplex printing as the default on every device that supports it.
• Multi-page printing: Print two or four slides per sheet for handouts and drafts.
• Print preview: Ask staff to check for blank pages before printing web pages and long files.
• Follow-me printing: Jobs wait on a server until the user logs in at a printer to release them.

Secure release cuts pages left in the output tray and never picked up. It also keeps private documents off shared trays.

Some jobs do not need paper at all. Routine forms, reports, and reference files can live as shared digital documents instead of printouts. This look at switching from paper to digital covers the tradeoffs.

Tracking shows you the pages. It does not show you what breakdowns cost you in lost time.

Sign 5: Maintenance Begins Only After a Printer Stops Working

If the only time anyone services a printer is after it fails, you pay for repairs plus lost work time. Reactive maintenance hides a cost that never shows up on an invoice.

Record Service Calls, Downtime, and Repeat Problems

Start a simple log for each device. Note the date of each problem, what failed, how long the device sat down, and what the fix cost.

After a few months, look for repeats. A copier that jams every week may need a roller kit, a different paper stock, or a larger machine. A printer that needs the same part twice may be near the end of its life. Also note how long you waited for a technician, because that wait belongs in the cost too.

Count downtime in staff hours too. If ten people walk to another floor to print while a copier is down, that cost is real.

Consider Proactive Support When the Workload Warrants It

Managed print services can bundle supplies, maintenance, and device monitoring under one agreement. Depending on the contract, devices report toner levels and error codes so supplies ship before they run out and technicians can catch problems early. Read what each agreement actually covers before you compare prices.

This model fits offices with steady volume, several devices, or no time to chase repairs. A two-person office with one printer may not need it. You can also choose co-managed setups, where you handle some tasks in-house and hand others off.

Ask who will show up when something breaks and what response time the agreement puts in writing. That answer tells you more than a contract summary does. That leaves one question: where do you start?

Start With the Print Problems You Can Measure

To reduce printing costs, begin with the numbers you can gather this month: cost per page, device count, and service history. Knowing how to reduce business printing costs in your own office comes down to those three records, because they tell you which fix to try first.

If your bill makes no sense, build the cost-per-page sheet. If toner vanishes, change defaults. If you find too many desktop units, consolidate. Add tracking once devices are shared, and move to proactive support when downtime keeps costing you staff hours. Match each change to your volume, since a five-person office and a school district need different setups.

At Axis Business Technologies, we have served offices across Colorado Springs and Southern Colorado since 1978. If you want a second set of eyes on your cost-per-page numbers, request a print quote and we will walk through them with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Are Our Business Printing Costs So High?

High costs usually come from a mix of too many devices, color set as the default, and repairs handled only after failures. Supplies bought in small batches add to it. Measuring cost per page by device shows you which factor weighs most in your office.

How Do I Calculate the Cost per Page for an Office Printer?

Add supply, paper, service, and equipment costs for a set period, then divide by the pages printed. Pull page counts from the printer’s configuration report. Track color and black-and-white pages separately for a clearer picture.

What Is the First Change to Make If We Want to Spend Less on Printing?

Set grayscale and duplex printing as defaults on every device. These changes take minutes and need no new equipment. Then start tracking pages so your next step rests on real data.

Should We Get Rid of Personal Printers to Save Money?

Retire the low-volume desktop units and keep the ones with a clear purpose, such as confidential or high-frequency jobs. Moving routine work to shared multifunction printers often lowers cost per page. Review usage first so no one loses a device they need.

When Is Managed Print Services Worth Considering?

Managed print makes sense when you run several devices, see frequent downtime, or spend staff time chasing supplies and repairs. Very small offices with one printer may not need it. Co-managed options let you keep some tasks in-house.