If you type in “managed print service cost” into your search engine, what do you see?
Well, if you want the short answer, not a lot in terms of definitive numbers around what a managed print service (MPS) costs.
Indeed, the cost of MPS depends on a wide variety of factors, and depending on which managed print provider you choose, the price range can fluctuate dramatically.
As a local print vendor that offers managed print as a service, we understand the complexity that goes into calculating an accurate price range for MPS. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to do it, though.
Just because the volatility is high with managed print prices doesn’t mean you should be left completely clueless when it comes to seeing actual numbers on what it costs to implement MPS in your workplace.
To tackle the question of MPS cost, we will discuss some of the factors that go into the pricing of the service before offering a practical example of what MPS could cost you in basic terms.
Before getting into it, it should be noted that we’ll be using our managed print service, e-Valet, to explain the components that go into MPS pricing, and the numbers you’ll see in this story are estimates from our MPS service to give you a sense of what MPS could cost you.
Since we partner with Xerox and sell their products, we will also be using the VersaLink B400/B405 and VersaLink C400/C405 as basic model examples to display pricing in the article.
There’s no getting around the fact that the cost of managed print is situation-specific and can change depending on your print environment or provider you choose.
However, this article should give you a true sense of how managed print costs are typically calculated, with a real example to help corroborate it.
What Are Managed Print Services?
Before diving into what managed print costs, let’s briefly go over what a managed print service is.
The exact definition of managed print services can change depending on the provider, but in general, a managed print service allows you to pay a monthly payment to have one source manage your entire printer fleet. This includes supplies, service, a direct point of contact and one invoice for all your printing-related expenses.
A traditional managed print contract will normally include:
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Automatically ship your supplies, such as toner, whenever supply is low.
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Provide on-site service from technicians whenever issues arise with your machines.
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Offer analysis and recommendations to better optimize your printer fleet.
Parameters will change depending on who is providing the service, but some providers have an eligibility criterion, such as a minimum number of eligible machines, to implement a comprehensive managed print service.
Read our blog defining managed print services to learn more.
If you would like to learn more about how managed print services work in specific industries, read these blogs:
3 Factors That Go into the Cost of Managed Print Services
Now, to the ultimate question: How much does it cost to incorporate a managed print service into your workplace?
Before providing an example of what it could cost you, let’s break down the main factors that go into calculating the price for managed print:
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Black-and-White Prints Included
One of the main components of an MPS agreement is the number of monthly prints you want to include in your contract.
Typically, the number of monthly prints will be calculated and included in your contract and an additional click rate will be used to calculate any overages.
The click rate, or price per print, depends on multiple factors, including which printer model you have, and the supplies the machine takes.
The click rate for black-and-white prints could be less than a penny, or as much as five cents, but a good baseline black-and-white click rate would be $0.025.
To demonstrate what this could look like, let’s say you make 10,000 black-and-white prints and your MPS contract has a click rate of around $0.025.
Your monthly cost for black-and-white prints would be around $250 a month.
Of course, the more prints you include in your contract, the more it will cost you. If you take the same click rate from above and include 30,000 prints instead of 10,000, you would be charged around $750.
Printing over the number of prints you included in your contract can result in overage fees, making it essential to choose the right number of monthly prints in your MPS agreement.
Some MPS providers could work with you if you allocated too little, or too many, prints in a month, although that is entirely dependent on the provider’s policies and is not guaranteed.
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Color Prints Included
In addition to black-and-white prints, there is also a separate charge for color prints you want to have included in your MPS contract.
Color prints are more volatile than black-and-white prints because the price range for color prints is wider and more impactful since it’s more expensive to print in color.
The click rates for color, like black-and-white prints, depend largely on what machine you have and the supplies it takes to run efficiently.
Because of the higher price per click, the number of color prints you will include in an MPS contract will usually be substantially lower than the number of black-and-white prints included.
A good baseline click rate for color prints would be $0.19, so let’s say you include 1,000 monthly color prints in your MPS agreement.
If you multiply 1,000 by the $0.19 click rate, you get $190, which is the amount you would pay per month for color prints in this scenario.
It’s even more imperative to allocate the correct number of monthly color prints since they are more expensive to make and would cost you more if you printed over the monthly amount in your contract.
Having a healthy dialogue with your MPS provider about your situation is crucial to determining how many black-and-white and color prints you will need to include as a part of your contract.
Most managed print customers opt to include a calculated number of monthly prints in their contract because the MPS provider will usually give a price break on the click rate per print since you are guaranteeing the provider that you will produce a certain number of prints in a month.
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New Printers Added
Before implementing a managed print service, many providers will look at your current printer fleet and evaluate your equipment to see which machines might need to be replaced to best optimize your fleet.
If you’re a large company that maintains a bunch of machines, it’s likely that a few of them are no longer adequate for your situation. This is where the MPS provider will usually recommend investing in new equipment.
That equipment may include single-function printers, which exclusively print, and multifunction printers, which print, copy, scan and fax.
In most cases, the MPS provider will break down the total cost of the number of printers you added to your monthly MPS bill.
The price will depend on how many printers you include and the models you decide to go with.
To give a basic example, let’s say you decided to include 25 Xerox VersaLink B400 printers (a basic Xerox single-function model) as a part of your MPS contract.
If you opted for a 60-month lease agreement for the 25 printers, you would be looking at a monthly cost of about $460 for the new single-function printers added.
Let’s say you wanted to include 25 Xerox VersaLink B405 printers (basic multifunction model) as a part of your MPS agreement.
Because multifunction printers are normally more expensive than single-function printers, you will notice a price increase when you calculate the monthly cost for 25 multifunction printers.
So, in a 60-month lease agreement, adding 25 multifunction devices would cost you about $690 a month.
If you added both the single-function and multifunction printer numbers up, you would be paying $1,150 for 50 new total machines.
The table below breaks down what MPS can do for an unmanaged printer fleet:
Additional Managed Print Services Options
The number of prints you include, the new printers added, auto-toner shipments and access to service for your machines make up the bulk of the monthly cost in most MPS agreements.
However, additional services can be included with most MPS providers. Let’s look at three of the major ones in more detail:
Print Management Software
A downside to typical MPS contracts is that they don’t easily allow you to track employee printing habits or limit usage.
Although you allocate a certain number of monthly black-and-white and color prints in a customary MPS contract, you can’t set limits on usage to prevent overprinting, which can result in excess printing costs.
You also can’t track employee printing behavior or get reports to see where the overprinting occurred.
If setting hard limits on printing and being able to track which employees are printing the most is important to you, investing in external print management software like InfoFlo Print, Y-Soft SafeQ (who we partner with) or PaperCut would be recommended as an additional managed print option.
Adding external print management software will cost more and is mainly determined by the size of your fleet and how specific you want to get with limiting and tracking prints.
If you would like to learn more about print management software, read these blogs:
Security Management Software
The increased threat of cyberattacks and security breaches has simultaneously amplified the concern of some consumers and made security a chief consideration when investing in new equipment or services.
Some MPS providers now offer additional security management software that allows for 24/7 device monitoring of malfunctions and the surveillance of security irregularities, as well.
If security is a primary concern for your business, paying for the extra security protection offered by an MPS provider may be worth investing in.
Read our blog on the four ways to protect your printer from cyberattacks to learn some best practices on how to keep your office equipment cyber secure.
On-Site Labor
MPS providers can offer a broad range of services with an MPS contract, and on-site labor can encompass many things.
On-site labor services can range from a monthly visit from your MPS provider to check on your printer fleet to hiring a representative to be at your workplace full-time to manage your print environment.
Many managed print providers are versatile in what they offer, so if you have a special service request, there is a chance the MPS provider can include that in your MPS contract if you’re willing to pay extra for that service.
Managed Print Services: A Cost Example
Now that you know the main factors that go into a typical managed print service contract, let’s provide you with a basic, easy-to-understand example to give you a holistic view of what you could pay for a managed print service: 
Taking the four main factors discussed earlier, which were allotted black-and-white/color prints, and new single-function and multifunction printers added, we can figure out an estimated monthly cost by plugging in numbers for different situations.
The situation outlined in the chart above looks like this:
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30,000 black-and-white prints will cost $750 a month.
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1,000 color prints will cost $190 a month.
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25 new printers will cost $20,000 in total.
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25 new multifunction printers will cost $30,000 in total.
So, if you take the number of black-and-white and color prints, plus the lease of the new machines, you will get an average total monthly cost of:
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$2,665 for a 36-month lease.
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$2,295 for a 48-month lease.
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$2,090 for a 60-month lease.
If you’ve read through the article, you know that MPS cost is entirely dependent on your situation, and this example should not be taken as anything more than practical insight into how typical MPS contracts factor in cost.
Furthermore, this scenario didn’t include any of the additional services MPS providers can offer, like external print management software and enhanced security features.
This should at least, however, give you a tangible understanding of how the cost of managed print services is calculated.
Interested In Seeing Your Print Analytics?
There is no universal standard for determining the cost of managed print services.
Every print environment is unique, and MPS providers can offer vastly different services, which makes determining a baseline cost for managed print virtually impossible.
However, if you consider the factors discussed today and pay close attention to the example that was given, you can begin to get a gauge on the monthly cost of incorporating a managed print service into your workplace.
As a print vendor that has enacted managed print into all kinds of industries, we can tell you that the benefits are aplenty, as long as you meet the criteria for it and have a printer fleet that is currently unmanaged.
To be eligible for managed print, you normally need to have the following:
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A substantial fleet of eligible machines (15 or more at some vendors)
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Machines that qualify for MPS (Small desktop and older printers usually won’t qualify; most laser printers do).
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Print at a volume that makes managed print beneficial for your workplace.
If you meet these eligibility requirements, you will likely qualify for an analysis of your print environment, which is a deep dive into your print infrastructure where print volume, cost per print and quantity and quality of machines are evaluated to determine whether MPS is right for you.
If you’re interested in implementing managed print into your workplace, reach out to us and we will analyze your situation to determine whether MPS would be right for you.
