I will begin by explaining what a print service is. A company comes into your office and they do an audit on your current printing usage. They will use some high tech tools that will connect to your network and find all your networked printers. This tool will be able to find out how many prints you have done on each printer.

Once they have worked out how many prints you are doing per printer, they need to find out how much you are spending on toner for each printer. This is the place where the real cost of printing sneeks into your printing budget. From my experience and from doing this research, the cheaper the printer that you buy – the more expensive the toner for this printer will cost. You may even find that some of the companies that sell you a printer will only let you use their printer toner in the printer. This is something that really grates, as they can charge what they like for this.

Another point to look at here is how much you are spending on geting your printers serviced. On completion of the print audit, having identified how much you are spending on printing and how many prints you are doing per month, in colour and black and white, the company will make a proposal to you that you will pay them an average cost of say less than 1c per black and white print and less than 6c per colour print.

• From my experience toner will generally cost you more than this alone.
• The key advantages of having a good external company provide you with a print service and the points you should be looking for are as follows:
• If a printer breaks down the company will fix it the next day or replace the printer.
• The total cost of your printing will drop by between 20% and 40%
• The company has a good print management software that lets them know when to send you toner before you know you need it and it just arrives.
• You know in advance how much your printing costs will be for the next few years so you do not get any shocks.
• The print management software provided by the company should give you the information to really streamline your printing service and help with total savings.
• By pooling printers in an office and using printers approprate for your office size you will find that the printing experience of your users improves.

There are some questions and matters to look out for when selecting a print service and they are as follows:

• What are the costs if I print above or below my monthly or yearly quota of prints. A good company will give you a rate nearly identical to what you have in your contract.
• If for some reason you need to remove some offices or printers from the contract what will the cost of this be. Again a good company will be flexible here.

If you are based in Ireland or around Dublin and you are interested in the idea of having print service, please contact someone here at iPing as we have some good companies we would like to put you in contact with.

Until next time,

Mark