4 Ways To Decrease Print Consumable Costs

Print consumables such as paper, ink, toner cartridges, and maintenance kits can be tricky to keep track of. Primarily if your business uses more than three printing devices and is unaware of how much you spend on said consumables.

We get it; print consumables are not always a top priority when there are other pressing initiatives to focus on. For over twenty years, LDI’s Managed Print division has helped clients better understand their print environment to make long-lasting changes that impact the amount they are spending on print consumables. 

This article will cover four simple ways to lower the cost of print consumables. By the end of this article, you will uncover easy tactics to apply to your print infrastructure to cut the cost of print consumables down for good.

What Are 4 Easy Ways To Cut Print Supply Costs?

Various dependencies come into play when calculating ways to lower print consumable costs. Dependencies such as how updated your printing devices are, the number of printing devices your company uses, and the print jobs your print devices must make.

Let’s take a deeper look into four ways to cut print consumable costs drastically.

1. Utilize Print Management Software 

While this may seem like a no-brainer to some, you would be surprised just how much can be achieved through the consistent use of a print management software application.

Software applications like FM Audit, uniFLOW, and PaperCut are three print management applications used to determine where print costs are going. 

How? With features like directing print jobs to the most cost-effective device, tracking the amount of copying, faxing, printing by device, and monitoring consumable levels, your business can stay on top of its print behavior. 

Seeing as your company’s print behavior goes hand in hand with the ride of print costs, applications can easily help you keep an eye on toner and ink levels so that you are only reordering consumables when they’re running low. 

Understanding your company’s printing device usage through an application can help you get a handle on your print consumable costs.

2. Restrict Color Usage

We all know how visually appealing it can be to print in color. There is something about vibrant colors printed on a document that makes the printed information pop. However, printing in color when grayscale is perfectly adequate is not necessary.

While color may be pretty to look at, it’s about twice as expensive as black and white. 

Color printing tends to be higher in cost because it needs four colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink to print.  Black and white printing only require one color. 

Restricting the availability of color printing can be done with print management software. Once a print job makes its way to a printer, the employee will either be warned or presented with an option regarding printing in color. 

This feature alone can enable your employees to think twice about their print job before printing in color.

3. Enable Double-Sided Printing 

Ensuring that double-sided printing is the default setting for every device can significantly reduce your company’s paper consumption. Double-sided printing can help mitigate waste when it comes to printing endless single-sided documents.

It is as simple as marking a checkbox within the printer’s management console to set automatic duplexing for each printing device. That makes this method one of the easiest and quickest ways to decrease printing costs.

In addition, double-side printing can decrease cost per page (CPP) significantly. Seeing as CPP is determined by the number of consumables being used per print job, condensing an employee’s print job to one page through double-sided printing can help. 

4. Implement A Print Strategy

Finally, creating and abiding by a detailed print strategy can help your company gain control of your print consumables long-term. 

Encouraging employees to do one of the tasks above is easy. However, implementing a print strategy that every employee can follow will continuously allow your company to cut costs related to print consumables well into the future.

While no print strategy is possible without a print assessment, it can be created by as many administrators as your company sees fit. The goal of a successful print strategy is that it acts as a thorough guide for all employees to follow so that your company’s print needs and goals can be met.

For example, if your goal is to reduce costs of print consumables, then make sure that your print strategy includes the following elements:

• • The number of allotted daily print jobs per employee
  • What print jobs are allowed to be printed in color (if any)
  • Double-Sided Printing
  • Rules on how to treat the printing device such as patiently using the Print button

Your company’s print strategy may include whichever rules align most with optimizing your print behavior to cut down on costs. Be diligent by looking at what needs to improve within your current print environment and include them within your strategy.

Ready To Get Ahead of Your Print Consumable Costs?  

Several elements affect the cost of your company’s print consumables. Yet, not every company struggles with overspending on print consumables or overordering.

Suppose your company only has one printing device and has their print consumable costs under control. In that case, you will not need to decrease the cost of your print consumables. Now, if your company is leasing multi-functional devices, has an abundance of desktop and personal printers, and is not sure of how to cut costs, the chances are that you need assistance.

After performing a thorough print assessment of your print infrastructure, LDI can recommend feasible solutions regarding consumables, print devices, and optimization tactics. We can also help your company sort out which print management application fits your needs. 

Contact an LDI representative today to learn more about cutting print consumable costs.