How to Save on Printing Costs

Printing costs are an often overlooked business expense, but the costs of printing, ink, and paper add up quickly. While it’s not realistic to eliminate all printing costs, there are certainly ways to reduce them.

The following strategies can significantly reduce costs and improve your printing environment.

Partner With a Managed Print Service

One of the best ways to reduce printing costs is to partner with a reputable managed print provider. Your managed print provider helps you reduce printing costs by optimizing how you use printers and other related equipment.

For example, your managed print service provider can help a business identify and eliminate unnecessary printing and implement more efficient printing technologies and processes. Additionally, managed print services can help your business reduce the need for in-house print support, as they handle all aspects of printer maintenance and repair. Overall, managed print services can help your business save money by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your printing operations. They’ll handle the procurement of printing supplies, restocking of ink, color toner, and paper, and help you develop a printing strategy that saves you money in the long run.

It can be challenging to deal with your entire printing fleet on your own.

Discover more of the benefits of partnering with a managed print service by exploring our blog.

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Here are a few more ways that you can reduce printing costs on your own:

Buy a Printer That Uses Cheap Ink

The overall quality of the ink may not matter all that much depending on the purpose of the print. When printing in black and white with text (or for documents that will be used only by employees), an inexpensive printing option is fine.

You can also use a printing device that uses less ink. You can reduce your printing costs this way, but it’s not always practical. You might be better off buying an all-in-one printer with high-yield cartridges if you print slightly less in total or if you print something highly specialized that rarely changes (such as commercial signage).

However, if you print more than a few pages a day, getting a more expensive laser printer might be worth it for the cheaper toner and overall lower cost of ownership.

Use the Proper Paper Weight

Choosing the right paper weight can save you a lot on printing costs. If your paper weight is too light on a standard inkjet printer, it can cause jams and smudges in your document. Eventually, this can cause problems that are very costly.

Also, thicker paper usually costs more than standard paper. This thicker paper quickly costs more than thinner paper that works just as well. If you print hundreds of documents every day, having the right paper will save hundreds of dollars over a year.

Print Preview Before Printing

Print preview before printing. By making sure you only print what’s needed, you can reduce printing costs. Nothing is worse than printing twenty copies of something with incorrect margins or having it print landscape when it should be portrait. By using a preview, you can be sure that the margins are correct, there are no pages with only one line, and fix any other errors that may not be obvious until it is too late.

Finally, a print preview provides an overview of the document. Even when everything is correct with margins, text size, page numbers, etc, sometimes the document still doesn’t look as good when viewed as a whole. Checking how everything looks before printing can be extremely helpful, especially if the document is complex.

Print Using Different Strategies

When printing documents, there are ways to reduce printing costs and save money on paper, ink, and toner by changing the way that things are being printed. Below are a few different ways to reduce printing costs by making simple changes:

Use smaller text:
Smaller text does two things. First, it lowers the amount of ink that is being used. While it may be minimal, it can add up. Second, especially when printing a long document, it can reduce paper usage.
Lower margins:
Similar to using smaller text, changing the size of margins can lower the amount of paper that is used.
Test print:
Especially if using color, even if the print preview looks fine, you want to make sure the colors are coming out right and mixing right. Finding mistakes on a single printed copy will save a lot of wasted ink and paper.
Double sided printing:
Printing on both sides of paper will cut out half of your paper use.

Recycle Your Ink Cartridges

It might seem counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to save money on printing costs is by recycling your old ink cartridges. Not only will it help the environment, but you can often get cash back in return.

There are many companies that will buy used ink cartridges from you and recycle them so they can be reused by other people or businesses. If you decide not to sell them or recycle them, don’t throw them out. Instead, take them to a local recycling center where they’ll be disposed of properly without affecting the environment.

Don’t Print Unless It’s Necessary

If you’re printing a document, it’s often easier to just scan the document and email it instead. Scanning can be done just as fast as printing, and it doesn’t use paper or ink.

If you have a lot of documents that are easy to scan and send electronically (such as receipts), consider setting up a system where you do this regularly so that your files don’t get cluttered when they could easily be stored digitally.

Another benefit of scanning documents instead of printing them out is that they won’t be lost or damaged. When a document is scanned and emailed, it will remain there until the email is deleted, which is much less likely to happen than misplacing a paper copy.

In case something does happen, it’s still a good idea to have a single copy printed. But for multiple copies, a scan is just as good as printing, if not better.

Discover Your Printing Solution Today!

If you’re looking to cut down on printing costs, reach out to Superior Office Solutions today, and let’s discuss your cost-effective printing solution. Printing doesn’t have to be a significant expense for your business—our team of experts can help you optimize your printing setup and implement more efficient technologies and processes. Not only can we help you reduce printing costs, but we’ll help you establish a robust printing environment that keeps things running smoothly throughout the year.