7 Ways Businesses Can Save on Printing Costs

Not just large-scale businesses, small and medium scale enterprises also spend a fairly good amount of money each year on printers, replacement ink, and toner cartridges, paper, and other printer consumables. According to the Gartner, a typical organization spends between 1-3% of their revenue on printing. So, it is but part of a business owner's due diligence to look for ways to save on printing costs.

Here at InkjetsClub, we will shed light on how you as a business owner can save money on your next set of printer ink.

Set Ink/Toner Saving Defaults

When configuring your office printers and user access, make sure that:

• Documents are printed in black-and-white by default (save color ink/toner)
• Documents are printed in Draft/Economy mode by default (save ink/toner)
• Documents are printed on a lower resolution (save ink/toner)
• Duplex printing is ON by default (save paper)

When you must print documents at a higher resolution or in color, you can always change back the settings.

If your business does not require color prints at all, you may consider investing in a monochrome laser printer to lower your printing costs. Alternatively, you can have one color inkjet printer and one monochrome laser printer in your office.

Switch to Compatible Printer Cartridges to Reduce Cartridge Replacement Cost

Printer manufacturing companies advise their customers to stick to ‘expensive’ OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) ink and toner cartridges. After all, a bulk of their revenues is generated from replacement cartridge sales and not the printer unit itself.

Often, printer manufactures offset R&D and marketing costs as well as discounts on printing devices by selling replacement printer ink and toner cartridges at a higher cost.

OEM cartridges are of high quality and engineered to work with select printer models but this is the case also for compatible cartridges, non-OEM printer cartridges manufactured in ISO-certified facilities, strictly in accordance with OEM specifications.

You can accrue significant savings when you switch to compatible ink and toner cartridges. For example, when you shop with InkjetsClub for compatible printer cartridges for Epson, Brother, Canon or HP printers, you can save up to 70% on ink and toner costs by buying from a reputable printer ink supplier like InkjetsClub.com.

If you print at least a few hundred pages each month, merely switching to compatible printer cartridges can help you save 100’s of dollars every year. No wonder, it is one of the best ways to save money on inkjet and toner cartridges! For more information, you can read one of our earlier posts, where we have settled the ‘Brand Vs Remanufactured Vs Compatible’ (cartridges) debate.

Use ‘N-up printing’ to save Ink/Toner and Paper

N-up printing refers to a page layout strategy in which several pre-rendered pages are arranged on a single page. Multiple pages are resized, rotated if necessary, and arranged in a grid pattern in order to reduce the number of pages that a print job would otherwise require. This way, you can save both ink/toner and paper.

The N-up multi-page option can be found in the layout section within Printing Preferences.

You can also use web-based applications such as PDFResizer that offer an N-up tool for rearranging PDF document layout to print multiple pages per sheet.

Readability can at times eliminate N-up printing as an option but it works well if you need to print presentation slides, spreadsheets, tables, etc. on a regular basis.

Print Only When You Must

Ask yourself if it’s really necessary to have a hard copy of a document, email, invoice, or spreadsheet. Encourage all your employees to do the same.

If possible, introduce a system wherein softcopies of important, business-related documents are preserved on the cloud or a local network server.

To eliminate the printing of unnecessary documents in medium or large-scale businesses, employers can install software that requires employees to enter a number or ID to release print jobs.

Decreasing the number of unnecessary prints can go a long way in reducing printing costs.

Get a New Printer to Reduce Cost-Per-Print

Even if a 10-year old inkjet or laser printer is functioning well, you may want to have it replaced with the latest model. The latest inkjet/laser printers for office-use offer a better print economy; most business printers available in the market nowadays use high-yield cartridges.

A new printer can cut your cost-per-print by 20-40%. Therefore, even if you factor in the money spent on buying a new printer for office use, you’d still save more in the long run.

If you run a small business, consider reading our guide on ‘how to choose the best printer for your small business.’

Old printers can only serve you well if you print rarely (e.g. a dozen pages each month).

Fewer Printers Lead to Better ROI

Often medium and large-scale businesses end up spending huge sums on printer supplies simply because they have too many printers in their offices (e.g. one printer for 1-2 employees).

‘Personal printers’ in offices can encourage a habit of ‘print everything’ or ‘print in any manner you like.’ If an employee has to walk a few steps to print something and s/he knows the printer is configured and maintained by an IT administrator, s/he is likely to be more cautious of avoiding unnecessary prints.

Having one multi-function printer that uses high-capacity cartridges and offers a much lower cost-per-print (which no doubt will be more expensive) for a group of 10-15 employees can ensure a far better ROI.

This way, employees have access to high-quality printing and employers are in a position to implement organization-wide policies for reducing printing costs more easily.

Print Smartly to Save Both Ink/Toner and Paper

• Use ink/toner –saving fonts; Arial fonts, for example, consume 30% more ink than ink-saving fonts such as Garamond, Century Gothic, Ryman Eco, Courier, and Brush Script.
• Print only the text you need, especially when you are printing web pages; you can manually remove unnecessary images, banners, etc. or use online tools such as ‘Print Friendly & PDF’ Chrome extension to save paper and ink when you print.
• Scan documents more often and copy less; if employees can scan a document and email it to a colleague, why use the copier?

Follow Standard Guidelines to Reduce Costs Incurred on Purchasing Supplies

• Know how to care for Ink cartridges and toners, especially when they are not in use.
• Clean printers on a regular basis so that you don’t have to spend more on buying print heads, drums, etc.
• Use compatible or remanufactured printer cartridges as discussed above.
• Avoid low-yield printer cartridges; use high-yield ink/toner cartridges that can print thousands of pages.

Conclusion

It is possible to cut annual printing costs by nearly half if you follow the strategies and methods discussed in this post. If you need to print flyers, booklets, posters, etc. in bulk, consider outsourcing such print jobs to a dedicated publishing company instead of printing them in-house. With industrial printers, these companies may be able to provide you with bulk prints at a much lower cost.

Lastly, remember to recycle used printer cartridges. You will not just be helping the planet; you will earn a discount on your next purchase at InkjetsClub as well!