How to Optimize Your Copier/Printer Fleet for Medium-Sized Businesses

If you’re running a medium-sized business, your printer fleet probably didn’t start out complicated. A few devices here, a few there, and things worked well enough. But over time, growth has a way of sneaking up on your print environment.

Suddenly, IT is fielding toner requests again. Someone complains that the printer “isn’t working” (but can’t explain how). Finance wants to know why printing costs seem higher this quarter. And somehow, there are now five different printer models doing roughly the same job.

According to industry research, businesses often underestimate their true printing costs by as much as 30–50%, largely due to poor visibility and decentralized management. That gap becomes especially noticeable in mid-sized organizations, where growth outpaces process.

In this guide, we’ll walk through practical, realistic ways to optimize your copier and printer fleet for a medium-sized business without overengineering things or adding unnecessary complexity.

Table of Contents

• What Counts as a “Medium-Sized” Printer Fleet?
• Step 1: Get Visibility Into Your Current Fleet
• Step 2: Standardize Where It Makes Sense
• Step 3: Right-Size Devices for How Teams Actually Print
• Step 4: Fix the Most Common Mid-Market Print Mistakes
• Step 5: Improve Security Without Overburdening IT
• Step 6: Review, Adjust, and Plan for Growth
• What to Do Next

What Counts as a “Medium-Sized” Printer Fleet?

For most organizations, a medium-sized print fleet starts around 10–15 devices and can extend up to 50 or so. But size is just one part of the story.

Medium-sized businesses often share a few common traits such as:

• Multiple departments with different printing needs
• A lean IT team wearing many hats
• Devices spread across floors, buildings, or satellite offices
• A mix of older printers and newer MFPs

At this stage, printing might not be “out of control,” but it’s not exactly optimized either. This is where small improvements can noticeably improve cost and productivity gains.

Step 1: Get Visibility Into Your Current Fleet

Before you can optimize anything, you need a clear picture of what you actually have.

Start by answering a few basic questions:

• How many printers and copiers are in use today?
• Where are they located?
• Who uses them, and for what type of jobs?
• Are they all connected to the network?
• Which devices are printing the most pages?

Many mid-sized businesses are surprised to find that some devices rarely get used. Others find themselves quietly overloaded. And sometimes they discover printers that no one even remembers installing.

A simple print management tool can help you automatically discover devices on your network, show real-time supply levels, and flag machines that are offline or throwing errors. Instead of guessing, you get a single, accurate snapshot of your fleet.

 

Step 2: Standardize Where It Makes Sense

One of the fastest ways to simplify a medium-sized print environment is to standardize where it’s practical.

Mixed fleets tend to create problems like:

• Different drivers and firmware
• Inconsistent security settings
• Multiple supply types to track and stock
• More training and troubleshooting for IT

Industry data backs this up. Organizations with more standardized fleets report fewer security incidents and lower support overhead than those managing a patchwork of brands and models.

This doesn’t mean all of your devices must be identical. But having fewer models or a single manufacturer makes support, security, and supply management far more manageable.

If you can't fully standardize now, print management software can help you keep policies consistent across brands until you’re ready to unify them.

Step 3: Right-Size Devices for How Teams Actually Print

In medium-sized businesses, printers often end up where they were convenient at the time instead of where they make the most sense long term.

Here are a few practical guidelines:

• High-volume teams (finance, operations, HR) benefit from shared MFPs built for sustained workloads.
• Smaller departments or executives may only need compact devices for everyday tasks.
• Central locations often work better than scattered desktop printers, especially when paired with secure print release.

If the wrong device handles the wrong workload, your costs will rise quickly. Smaller printers generally cost more per page, break down faster under heavy use (they’re not built for high-volume printing), and create supply headaches. Learn more about print volume here.

You don’t necessarily need to add more printers. Instead, place fewer, more suitable devices in smarter locations.

Step 4: Fix the Most Common Mid-Market Print Mistakes

Medium-sized businesses often repeat the same print mistakes because printing feels “good enough” until it isn’t.

Here are a few mistakes to watch for:

• Printing large jobs on small devices - Smaller printers cost more per page and aren’t designed for sustained volume.
• Defaulting everything to color - Color is valuable, but it shouldn’t be the default for everyday documents.
• Sending jobs to the wrong printer - Follow-me or pull printing ensures jobs are released only at the right device.
• Ignoring advanced features - Most modern MFPs have apps to help you scan to cloud platforms, automate workflows, and replace manual processes. But you need to configure them properly.

You don’t need to invest much in these fixes; just work on having an intentional setup.

Step 5: Improve Security Without Overburdening IT

Always remember that every network-connected printer is a potential entry point. For medium-sized businesses, security risks often come from inconsistency rather than scale.

A few practical improvements:

• Keep firmware up to date across all devices
• Retire older, unsupported printers
• Use secure print release for sensitive documents
• Limit the number of vendors accessing your network

Cloud-based fleet management tools can help IT apply updates, enforce policies, and monitor activity from a single dashboard.

You’re not looking for perfection but rather trying to reduce security risks in a realistic and manageable way.

Step 6: Review, Adjust, and Plan for Growth

Fleet optimization is an ongoing process. Medium-sized businesses change quickly, and your print environment should keep up.

Schedule periodic reviews to look at:

• Usage trends by department
• Supply consumption
• Downtime or service issues
• Whether devices are still properly sized

This ongoing review helps you stay proactive instead of reactive and makes future growth much easier to support.

Ready to Optimize Your Copier/Printer Fleet?

For medium-sized businesses, optimization starts with visibility. Once you understand what’s happening across your fleet, smarter decisions follow naturally.

A free print management tool can give you that initial clarity and show devices, usage, and supply levels in one place. From there, you can decide whether lightweight optimization, print management software, or a full Managed Print Service is the right next step.

No pressure. Just better information and a print environment that finally works the way it should.