The fastest way to reduce print costs is to stop paying for pages nobody needed, then to stop paying more than you should for the pages that remain. In practice that means changing the default settings on every device, agreeing a short printer usage policy, putting the right number of the right machines in the right places, and measuring cost per page so you can see whether any of it is working. Most offices can make the first two changes in a week and without spending anything.
This guide walks through each step in the order we would take it with a client in Ireland, from the settings that cost nothing to the fleet decisions that take more planning.
TL;DR
- Set double-sided and black and white as the default on every device and PC, and encourage print preview, because most waste comes from defaults rather than from deliberate choices.
- Write a one-page printer usage policy covering colour, quotas, where people print and who owns the devices.
- Use fewer, better-placed shared machines with power-saving switched on, instead of many personal desktop printers.
- Measure first: record your monthly pages, cost per page and service callouts, then compare after 90 days.
- Dispose of old equipment and cartridges responsibly, using permitted waste contractors.
Table of Contents
- Start by finding out what you actually spend
- Change the defaults first
- Write a printer usage policy people will follow
- Use fewer, better-placed devices
- Let the machines save energy
- Choose paper and consumables with cost in mind
- Compare the main ways to cut print costs
- Track usage and check your savings
- Dispose of old kit and cartridges properly
- How we can help
- FAQ
- Sources
Start by finding out what you actually spend
Before changing anything, put a number on the problem. Most small and medium businesses we speak to can tell us what they paid for the last toner delivery but not what a printed page costs them overall. That figure is the one that matters, because it includes more than consumables.
A useful cost per page calculation adds together the following over a month or a quarter: paper, toner or ink, service and repair charges, any rental or lease payments on the machines, the electricity the devices use, and the staff time spent clearing jams and reordering supplies. Divide the total by the number of pages printed. Many printers and multifunction devices keep a page counter you can read from the front panel or the admin web page, and that gives you the denominator without any software.
Two more numbers are worth recording at the start. The first is the split between colour and black and white pages, because colour is usually the most expensive part of the bill. The second is how many devices you have and which departments use them. Those two figures often reveal that one or two heavy users, or one underused machine in a quiet corner, account for a disproportionate share of the cost.
Write these numbers down with the date. They are your baseline, and without them you cannot honestly say whether a change has saved money.
Change the defaults first
The cheapest saving is the one that happens without anybody having to remember. If double-sided printing is the default, people print double-sided. If it is not, they mostly do not.
University College Cork’s green campus guidance gives a sensible list of habits and settings: set double-sided printing as the default, use print preview to catch errors, print in black and white or draft quality, and print two pages per sheet to halve paper use. The same page mentions narrower margins, a smaller font size and an economical font as further ways to fit more on a page. These are small individually, but they apply to every page for every user.
On a managed network we normally set these defaults centrally on the print driver or the device, so a user has to make a deliberate choice to override them. If you do not have central control, set them on each PC and on the printer’s own panel, and check them again after a Windows or driver update, since updates sometimes restore factory settings.
Print preview deserves its own mention. The UCC guidance notes that checking a document before it prints reduces the chance of wasted prints from errors and mistakes, which also saves electricity, paper and ink. A blank last page, an email chain with forty lines of footers, or a spreadsheet that spills across eleven pages are all avoidable with a five-second look.
Write a printer usage policy people will follow
Settings handle the automatic part. A policy handles the rest: what is worth printing, who may print in colour, and what happens when volumes drift upwards. It does not need to be long. One page that people can read in two minutes will be followed more often than a ten-page document nobody opens.
We suggest a policy covers the following points, written in plain language.
What the policy should say
Purpose and scope come first: the policy applies to every device on the company network, including multifunction copiers, and to every employee, contractor and visitor who uses them.
Default behaviour is next. State that double-sided and black and white are the standard, and that colour is for client-facing documents, finance or legal material that genuinely needs it, and anything else a manager approves. Colour is where cost control matters most, so be specific about who can use it. Many businesses restrict colour to certain departments or require a code or login for it.
Quotas are optional but effective in larger teams. A monthly page allowance per department, rather than per person, is easier to administer and less likely to cause friction. Treat it as a prompt for a conversation when a team goes well over, not as a punishment.
Placement and ownership should be explicit: which devices are shared, who looks after supplies, and who to contact when something breaks. Naming a single contact prevents the common pattern where three people each order toner because nobody was sure it had been ordered.
Finally, include the confidentiality rules: collect printouts promptly, and shred rather than bin anything containing personal or client data. Printed personal data is still personal data under GDPR, so this line protects you as well as saving paper. Our guides on office printer security cover the device side of this in more detail.
Review the policy once a year, using the figures you have been collecting. If you find that quotas are never reached, loosen them. If one team keeps exceeding them, ask why before assuming the team is the problem; they may simply have a workflow that depends on paper.
Use fewer, better-placed devices
An office with a personal printer on every second desk pays for it in several ways: more cartridges in more sizes, more breakdowns, more energy used and a higher cost per page than a shared machine would deliver. A single shared multifunction device used by a department is typically cheaper to run than several small inkjets, and it can print, copy and scan in one place.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is a useful Irish example. Its 2025 Climate Action Roadmap describes an eDocs management system, a reduction in personal printers and the introduction of eco-friendly photocopier printers. A government department is not a small business, but the principle scales down: fewer personal devices, more shared ones, and less paper moving around in the first place.
Where you place shared machines matters too. A device in a corridor that everyone passes will be used for convenience. A device in a quieter location, one that people have to choose to walk to, tends to see fewer casual prints. We would rather you decide this deliberately than let it happen by accident.
If your current machines are old, it is worth asking what they cost to run, not just what they cost to buy. A device that jams often, uses expensive high-cost consumables or lacks duplex printing may cost more over a year than a replacement. Our printer fleet management guide for Irish businesses sets out how to assess a fleet and decide what to keep, replace or retire.
Let the machines save energy
Power use is a small line on the bill, but it is also one of the easiest to fix. The UCC guidance explains that most shared office printers have power-saving functions: Sleep mode puts the printer into a lower-power state after a set period of non-use, and Auto-Off turns it off completely after a set period, usually two hours. Check that both are switched on and that the timings suit your working day. For individual desktop printers that are used rarely, switching them off at the end of the day is a simple habit.
Choose paper and consumables with cost in mind
Paper is a recurring purchase that is easy to review. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment reports that its decision to make recycled paper the default for printing was 10% less expensive than non-recycled paper, and that over 80% of the paper supplied for its printing and photocopying in 2024 was recycled. Your price difference will depend on your supplier and volume, so ask for a quote on both and compare. Test a ream in your own machines before ordering by the pallet, because some older devices handle lighter or recycled stock less reliably.
For toner and ink, the decisions that matter most are which cartridge capacity you buy and how you buy it. High-yield cartridges usually cost less per page than standard ones, and a single approved supplier makes it easier to track spend. Be wary of savings that cause problems elsewhere: poor-quality consumables can damage a device or void a service agreement, so check your maintenance terms before switching.
Compare the main ways to cut print costs
Not every measure suits every office. This table sets out what each one needs and where it tends to pay off.
| Measure | Effort | Cost to start | Where it helps most |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duplex and mono as defaults | Low | None | Every office, immediately |
| Print preview and draft mode habits | Low | None | Offices with many ad hoc prints |
| One-page printer usage policy | Medium | None | Teams of ten or more |
| Colour restrictions or quotas | Medium | Possibly software | Offices with high colour spend |
| Consolidating personal printers | Medium | Possible device purchase | Offices with many desk printers |
| Power-saving settings | Low | None | All shared devices |
| Usage tracking and reporting | Medium | Depends on tools | Growing or multi-site businesses |
| Managed maintenance of the fleet | Low once set up | Service agreement | Offices with frequent faults |
Track usage and check your savings
A saving you have not measured is a guess. Set a simple routine: on the first working day of each month, read the page counter on each device, record the figure and note the cost of supplies and service for the month. After three months you will have a trend, and you can compare it with your baseline.
Look for four things. Is total volume going down? Is the colour share going down? Is the cost per page going down? And are service callouts or jams becoming less frequent? If volume has dropped but cost per page has not, you may be paying too much for consumables or maintenance. If the cost per page has dropped but volume has grown, the policy may need attention.
Larger fleets benefit from print management software that reports usage per user and per device and can hold jobs until the owner releases them at the printer, which cuts forgotten and duplicate prints. Whether you need it depends on size. For a ten-person office a spreadsheet and a monthly counter reading is enough. Past a few dozen staff, or across several sites, automated reporting saves more time than it costs.
Whatever you use, keep the review short and regular. Fifteen minutes a month beats a large audit once every few years.
Dispose of old kit and cartridges properly
When you consolidate printers you will have equipment and cartridges to get rid of. In Ireland, the EPA’s print industry guidance states that businesses must ensure their waste contractors hold the required collection permits and deliver waste to a permitted or licensed facility. Ask any contractor for their permit details and keep the paperwork. Printers with internal storage may also hold scanned documents, so wipe or destroy the drive before the device leaves your premises. For a practical overview of recycling printers and cartridges responsibly, including what to prepare before handing equipment over, that guide is a good starting point.
Our perspective
After thirty years supporting Irish businesses, we have seen that print cost is rarely a printer problem. It is a visibility problem. Most offices have no idea what a page costs them, so nobody owns the number, and the bill creeps up year after year.
We believe the most reliable savings come from treating printers as part of the managed IT estate rather than as stand-alone boxes. When devices are monitored alongside PCs, servers and the network, faults are seen early, supplies are reordered before they run out, settings stay consistent and security updates are not forgotten. That is the proactive approach we take with all of our managed services, and it is why our clients spend less time chasing printer issues and more on their own work.
As an HP Amplify Partner, we can also advise on whether your current devices still suit the way you work, and supply and install replacements where they do not. Our aim is to be an extension of your own team, and to give you a clear picture of what you are spending and why.
Carl
How we can help
If you would rather not manage this yourself, we look after printers, photocopiers and multifunction devices as part of our wider IT support. That includes repair and maintenance, supplying and installing new devices, and monitoring through our managed services plans. Our team can review your current fleet, help you draft a usage policy and set up consistent defaults across your network.
See our printer, photocopier and multifunction repair and service page for what we cover, browse the multifunction printers we supply, or contact us through our website to talk through your own setup.
FAQ
How much can a business realistically save on printing?
It depends on your starting point, which is why the baseline matters. Offices with no defaults, many personal printers and unchecked colour use have the most to gain. Offices that are already tidy will see smaller changes. Measure your cost per page before and after, and judge the result on your own figures rather than on headline percentages from vendors.
What should a printer usage policy include?
Keep it to one page. Cover the purpose and scope, default settings such as double-sided and black and white, who may print in colour, any department allowances, who looks after supplies and faults, and how to handle confidential printouts. Review it annually against your usage figures.
Is it cheaper to have one shared printer or several small ones?
In most offices a shared multifunction device is cheaper per page than several personal printers, because consumables are bought in larger, more economical sizes, there are fewer machines to service, and power-saving applies to one device. The right number depends on office layout and workload, so look at your usage per department before deciding.
Do I need print management software?
Not for a small office. A monthly counter reading and a simple spreadsheet will show you the trend. Software becomes worthwhile when you have many users or several sites and want reports per user, colour controls or secure release of print jobs.
Sources
- Reduce Your Use, University College Cork
- DETE Climate Action Roadmap 2025
- Resource Efficiency: Print Industry Best Practice Guide, EPA
- Printer Recycling Step by Step: a Practical Guide