Choosing the wrong printer can quietly drain your business budget for years. Between wasted supplies, constant maintenance calls, and that one printer that always seems to jam during important client presentations, the hidden costs add up fast. For small and medium-sized businesses, getting this decision right means more than just buying equipment, it’s about investing in reliability and protecting your bottom line.
In this blog, we’ll walk through the key questions you should ask before buying or upgrading your printer so you can make a decision that supports your business for years to come.
What Type of Printer Does My Business Need?
Most SMBs find their sweet spot with laser printers, and there’s a good reason why. If your team prints contracts, reports, invoices, or any text-heavy documents regularly, laser technology delivers consistent quality at a lower cost per page. The big question is whether you need color capabilities or if monochrome will do the job.
Here’s a practical way to think about it: if you’re printing marketing materials, client proposals with graphics, or presentations internally, color laser makes sense. If 80% of your printing is black and white documents, save your budget and stick with monochrome. You can always send specialty color jobs to a print shop for those occasional needs.
Multifunction printers (MFPs) have become the standard because they:
- Consolidate three devices into one, saving valuable office space
- Make digitizing signed contracts and client documents seamless with built-in scanning
- Reduce equipment maintenance by having fewer machines to service
- Lower overall costs compared to buying separate devices
One consideration many businesses overlook: print security. If you handle sensitive client information, financial data, or confidential documents, look for printers with user authentication and secure print release features. The last thing you want is payroll details sitting in the output tray for anyone to grab.
How Do I Calculate Total Cost of Ownership?
This is where businesses often get tripped up. That $400 printer might seem like a steal compared to the $1,200 model, but let’s talk about what happens over the next three years.
Cost per page (CPP) is your real indicator of long-term expense. A printer with a 2-cent CPP versus one with a 5-cent CPP means the difference between $1,000 and $2,500 in consumable costs if you print 50,000 pages annually. Suddenly, that cheaper printer doesn’t look so affordable.
Your total cost of ownership includes:
- Cost per page for toner and supplies over 3-5 years
- Energy consumption and environmental costs
- Maintenance kits, drums, and fuser replacements
- IT support time for troubleshooting and repairs
- Downtime costs when printers fail during critical periods
When your main printer goes down during month-end reporting, what does that lost productivity actually cost? For many SMBs, reliability is worth paying extra upfront.
Some businesses find that leasing or Managed Print Services makes the math easier. Instead of large capital outlays and unpredictable supply costs, you get predictable monthly expenses that include everything from the equipment to the toner to the service calls. It’s not right for everyone, but it’s worth running the numbers.
What Print Volume Should I Plan For?
Start by auditing your current situation. How many pages does your team print each month? Most businesses underestimate this until they check their supply orders or existing printer counters.
The trick is planning for growth without overbuying. A good rule of thumb: calculate your current monthly volume, add 20-30% for business expansion, and make sure the printer’s recommended monthly volume comfortably exceeds that number. Pushing a printer to its duty cycle limits month after month is asking for premature failure.
Don’t forget about seasonal fluctuations. Tax preparation firms, retailers during holiday seasons, or consultancies during year-end reporting periods; whatever your busy season looks like, your printer should handle peak loads without breaking a sweat.
If you’re setting up a multi-user environment, think about placement strategically. One high-capacity printer for the whole office might save money, but if it creates bottlenecks or forces people to walk across the building, productivity suffers. Sometimes two mid-range printers serve your team better than one heavy-duty unit.
Which Business-Critical Features Matter Most?
Network connectivity is non-negotiable for business printers. Ethernet connections offer the most reliable performance, though WiFi has improved dramatically and works well for smaller offices. What matters more is ensuring your whole team can access the printer without IT headaches.
Mobile and cloud printing capabilities have shifted from “nice to have” to essential, especially with hybrid work becoming permanent for many businesses. Your sales team should be able to print from their phones when they’re back in the office, and remote workers need options for sending documents to the office printer when necessary.
Scanning features deserve special attention. Look for:
- Optical character recognition (OCR) that turns scans into searchable, editable text
- Scan-to-email and scan-to-folder capabilities that match your workflow
- Cloud integration with services like Google Drive or SharePoint
- Automatic document feeders (ADF) that handle 50+ sheets for batch scanning
Paper handling might seem boring until you’re manually feeding letterhead for the twentieth time. Multiple paper trays let you keep regular paper in one tray and letterhead or specialty stock in another. If you print envelopes, labels, or card stock regularly, verify the printer handles these materials without constant adjustments.
Finishing options like stapling and hole-punching elevate document presentation while saving time. For businesses that regularly prepare reports or proposals, these features quickly justify their cost.
How Do I Manage Consumable Costs Effectively?
High-yield toner cartridges almost always make financial sense for businesses. Yes, the upfront cost is higher, but the cost per page drops significantly. If you’re printing regularly, high-yield cartridges pay for themselves quickly.
Many manufacturers now offer auto-replenishment programs that monitor your toner levels and ship new cartridges before you run out. This prevents those panicked supply runs and ensures you’re never caught without toner during critical deadlines. The convenience factor alone makes these programs worth considering.
Smart default settings can dramatically reduce waste:
- Set duplex (two-sided) printing as the default to cut paper costs in half
- Default to black and white for internal documents
- Require manual selection for color printing to preserve expensive color toner
- Enable print preview to catch errors before wasting paper
Print management software takes this further, letting you track which departments or projects consume the most resources, set user permissions and limits, and identify opportunities for waste reduction. For growing businesses, this visibility becomes increasingly valuable.
What Support and Service Options Should I Require?
When evaluating printers, the warranty and service terms deserve as much attention as the specs. On-site service agreements mean a technician comes to you rather than shipping the printer for repairs, which is critical when you can’t afford days of downtime.
Look for response time guarantees in your service agreement. Same-day or next-business-day service keeps disruptions minimal. Some providers include preventive maintenance visits that catch problems before they cause failures.
Questions to ask about vendor support:
- Do they have locally-authorized service providers?
- What are their business-hours coverage options?
- Do they offer remote diagnostics and troubleshooting?
- What’s included in the warranty versus extended service contracts?
- Are loaner units available during major repairs?
Building a relationship with a reliable vendor pays dividends. They learn your business needs, can advise on optimal settings, and often provide faster support when you’re an established customer.
Should We Lease, Finance, or Purchase Outright?
Cash purchases work well if you have available capital and want to own equipment outright. You avoid interest charges and can depreciate the asset according to your accounting preferences.
Leasing offers tax advantages since payments are typically fully deductible as operating expenses. You also get predictable monthly costs and the ability to upgrade to newer technology when lease terms end—usually every 3-5 years. For businesses managing cash flow carefully, leasing preserves capital for other investments.
Financing splits the difference; you own the equipment eventually, but spread payments over time. This works for businesses that want ownership without the full upfront cost.
Managed Print Services bundle everything—equipment, supplies, maintenance, and support—into one monthly fee. This comprehensive approach appeals to businesses that want one less thing to manage internally.
Making Your Decision
The right printer investment aligns with your business strategy, not just your immediate needs. Think about where your business will be in three years. Will you have more employees? More remote workers? Higher document volume?
Involve your team in the evaluation process. The people who use the equipment daily will spot issues you might miss and have insights about workflow improvements. Their buy-in also increases the likelihood they’ll use features effectively rather than working around them.
Remember, the cheapest option rarely proves most economical over time. Focus on the total cost of ownership, reliability, and support quality. A printer that costs more upfront but runs trouble-free for five years beats a bargain model that needs constant attention.
Your printing infrastructure might not be glamorous, but it’s a daily touchpoint for your business operations. Get it right, and it fades into the background, reliably supporting your team’s work. Get it wrong, and it becomes a constant source of frustration and unexpected expense.
Ready to evaluate your options? Start with your actual usage data, be honest about your needs versus wants, and choose a partner who understands your business challenges. Your future self will thank you for doing the homework now.
About United Business Systems
United Business Systems specializes in simplifying the complexity and management of office technology solutions for over 7,800 organizations nationwide. Services include Managed Print, Document Management and IT Services. Products include MFPs, Copiers, Printers and Wide Format Printers. UBS’s headquarters is in Fairfield, NJ with branch offices in Moorestown, NJ, Manasquan, NJ and New York.For the latest industry trends and technology insights visit UBS’ main Blog page.
