The most common questions our copier professionals hear almost every single time starts with “How much will this copier machine cost?” or “What’s my monthly payment going to be?” or some variation revolving price. And while it might be annoying as a business owner to hear the infamous words “It depends,” it really is based on additional factors.
We get it. That answer is one of the least satisfying responses to be told, especially when you are looking to get an office copier for your business right there and then. Who wouldn’t get annoyed when you can’t get a straight answer on a product or service you are looking to buy.
And while there are places where you can get pricing online such as manufacturers’ websites, eBay, and sometimes even Craigslist these types of places are not going to offer quality or longevity. So here are 19 reasons why these factors impact the actual cost of your next copier machine.
1. What Does Your Output Look Like?
The best place to start is your volume. How much are you printing, copying, scanning, and/or faxing (faxing capabilities is an optional feature since some businesses don’t need it)? Your monthly volume of print jobs and speed requirement are a great starting point to quickly find out what type of copier model best represents your business. Keep in mind though that the faster the copier is, the more it will cost.
2. Lease, Buy, or Managed Print Service
The way you choose and “purchase” your next copier machine will ultimately dictate what the price will be. Are you planning on buying it outright? Is there any type of lease buyout that you need to deal with when switching copier vendors? Does it make more sense for your business to lease your copier machine for a set period of time? Or do you plan on outsourcing it to a print management service?
Additionally, the length of your lease period will also affect your monthly payment. Typically, the longer the lease the smaller the payments. Most leases start out at 36 months and can go to 63 months when you go through a reputable copier dealer.
3. Cost Associated To Service
Just like the automobile industry, there are some manufacturers that build copiers to perform more reliably than others, especially in certain sectors such as image quality or durability. Cost is also impacted by the level of competence and operations efficiency of your copier service provider. One way or another these costs get imbedded into the final costs. More often than not, great service and maintenance gets overlooked as part of the overall operations cost for your copier or printer.
4. Black and White or Color And The Consumable Cost
In general, color copier machines will cost more than black and white only devices. Take a moment to research just how much consumables costs, such as toner yield and other metrics. As a business owner, you are probably looking to get the most prints our of a single toner cartridge.
5. Paper Size
Is printing blueprints or other wide form documents important in your daily operations? For those you will need to look at wide-format copier machines. For those that print on legal paper or on 11×17, a modern copier machine will be more than enough to handle this. Now if you don’t see yourself using anything larger than letter size, an A4 device could be more effective than getting a full-size A3 copier machine. You also have to think long term and figure if having the capability to print in large format will come in handy down the line.
6. Ease of Use
The simpler the machine is to use, the better it is for everyone to stay productive. If this is important to your operations, then you need to make sure that your copier is easy to understand and use. Unfortunately, not all copiers are created equal when it comes to ease of use.
7. Security Features
Does encrypted documents matter to your business? Is an extra layer of security such as card readers or secure print matter to your daily workflow? If your industry is heavily regulated, then here is where you would look for a copier that can provide this additional level of privacy.
8. Paper Capacity
Do you do large print jobs or multiple copiers at a given time? When you do these large print jobs, is it important that there are no interruptions from your copier? You will most likely need additional paper trays to meet these specific of needs. Here is where the model and the speed of the copier will matter the most.
9. The Finishing Touches
Do you need a copier that can provide stapling or hole punch? How about folding or making booklets? Copiers can do this if you really need them to.
10. High Resolution
Does the resolution of your documents matter? Is it important that have a 600 x 600 dpi on your scanned documents? Some focus on color output and just general prints, but if your business needs high-quality production then you might want to focus more on this.
11. Work Surface
In some cases, there are copiers that can provide a workspace surface where you can conveniently place and sort your documents.
12. Wireless Connectivity
Do you have a mobile workforce? Chances are that you also need to support them by offering printing from their smartphones, tablets, and laptops. This is where a copier that has wireless connectivity matters most.
13. Integrations
Will your copier need to be integrated into your IT infrastructure? To put it another way, will you need your copier to connect to things such the cloud, workflow applications, or having it do scan-to-email? These are things to keep in mind when looking for your next copier.
14. Paper Type And Size
If you’re looking to do regular printing, then regular paper will do just fine. But what if are looking to produce marketing material, such as pamphlets and flyers, then you might need a copier that can handle glossy paper or heavy-duty paper? Again, not all copiers provide the same level of quality.
15. Remote Troubleshooting
With technology continuously advancing, more and more software-related issues with the copier can now be monitored, updated, and fixed remotely. Our fingers are crossed when we get to see a copier can self-repair itself and replace a worn roller). Just know that this type of feature comes with a premium price.
16. Location Is Key
The statement of location, location, locations is not just for real estate agents or marketing agencies. The location of your copier within your business matters. Instead of having just one high-capacity copier machine, you might get more productivity done if you had two devices that are much closer to the employees that use them. Depending on the copier machines you get, the cost might be the same, but the productivity boost might be much better.
17. Discounts, Specials, And Rebates
Just like car dealers or any other business that deals with aging product, copier dealers will offer some sort of deals or copier specials to move old stock out in an anticipation of new products coming in fairly soon. This is where customers can take advantage of rebates.
18. Maintenance Agreement
It’s worth stating that just like no two copier brands are the same (Xerox or Kyocera), it can also be said that no two copier service providers are the same. Here is where we like to emphasize the importance of having a copier dealer that will take good care of your copier for the duration of its life.
19. Commercial Copier Might Not Even Be Needed
Here is the final reason why most copier dealers won’t just give you a straight answer without talking with you first – you might not even need a copier. Sometimes a high-output laser printer might meet your needs if you aren’t doing the volume. If your goal for the next few years is to digitize your paper documents, then a scanner might be all you need, again depending on just how much digitizing needs to be done.
As you can see, the cost of your copier all falls on how you plan on using it in your office.
If you know for certain that your office will benefit from a copier machine but are not sure what you need, then talk to one of our copier specialists today to see how we can help with this process.