The High Costs of Toner Got You Down?
August 8th, 2022 by Kevin Box
Why Buying Retail Toner Is Insane, and Other Reasons to Have a Managed Print Services Agreement in Place
In past discussions with organizations, I've come across a great deal of IT Managers and Administrators who often fail to fully understand the cost of retail toner versus the savings associated with having a Managed Print Services agreement (MPS) in place. Retail toner is often 30 to 40% higher with no Service Level Agreement as compared to the cost of having an MPS provider offer toner and full service as part of a comprehensive approach to managing the printer fleet. This means higher cost for consumables and the IT Department must carry the burden of fixing the fleet when the machine goes down, or even worse, the device becomes disposable which means a new device must be purchased. In the end, having a Managed Print Services agreement in place allows the organization to reallocate funds to more worthwhile projects, such as growing market share, or improving infrastructure.
Below are bullets on the benefits of having an MPS program in place as compared to purchasing toner from online retail outlets such as Staples, Office Depot, etc.
- Huge Savings - Typically 40+% - Why is this the case? Because manufacturer partners can use economies of scale to reduce what it pays for both toner, parts, and consumables while passing this savings on to the end user.
- Single Source of Cost - This means, you get one low price for the entire fleet and don't have to rely on searching for the best price of toner in a sea of high-priced online vendors.
- Trackable and quantifiable - Which means the cost to operate your printers become easy to manage.
- Reduce Toner Waste - With Just-in-time fulfillment, you receive toner only when the toner gets low, which means no longer running out of toner, or replacing toner as soon as the “Low Toner” notice is given.
- Go Green - Most partner dealers help facilitate the manufacturers recycling program which means you can turn in those empty toner cartridges at no cost to the organization.
Posted in: Managed Print Services