Despite the shift to digital workflows, printing remains a significant operational expense for many organizations. In fact, businesses still spend an estimated one to three percent of annual revenue on print-related costs.
Whether you’re managing devices in-house or evaluating ways to reduce overhead, understanding your true cost per page is a critical first step in controlling print spend and improving efficiency.
If you’re trying to calculate cost per page for your business or understand what you’re really spending on printing, this guide breaks it down step by step.
This calculation is often the starting point for organizations considering Managed Print Services (MPS), where understanding current costs helps identify opportunities for optimization and cost reduction.
How can you determine how much your business is spending on printing?
One of the simplest ways to quantify your printing costs is by calculating your device’s cost-per-page. This figure is the average cost of every page your organization prints and will give you a clearer picture of the true cost of your printing. It’s also easy to calculate, so any office can determine it with minimal effort.
The most basic way of calculating your printer’s cost-per-page is by using manufacturer’s usage standards. Each manufacturer provides a page yield for their ink and toner cartridges in accordance with the International Organization of Standardization (ISO). This page yield is the approximate number of pages that can be printed using one of these cartridges. Using this figure, your cost-per-page for black and white printing would be calculated by dividing the cost of your cartridge by the estimated page yield. For example, if your cartridge costs $50 and the estimated page yield is 1,000 pages, this would come out to five cents per page. Complete your cost-per-page calculation by dividing the cost of your paper by the number of sheets, and add that total to the cost of your device’s ink or toner.
Calculating the cost of color printing is a bit more complicated, as most color printers use four cartridges: black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. In this case, you would perform the same division for each individual cartridge, add up the totals, and then add the cost per sheet of paper to calculate your color printing’s cost-per-page.
Calculating a more accurate cost-per-page requires a bit more work on your part. When adding new cartridges to your printer, write the date down in a log along with the cost of the cartridge(s) and the page count on the device. The next time you replace that cartridge, jot down the new page count to determine how many pages you printed with this cartridge and perform the calculation previously explained. Don’t forget to include your cost-per-page for paper.
Calculating your cost-per-page is an easy way for you to gain an understanding of your printing costs and determine whether the devices you’re currently using are cost-effective.
What Cost Per Page Doesn’t Show (And Why It Matters)
- maintenance/service costs
- downtime/productivity loss
- supply management
- device inefficiencies
While cost per page is a useful baseline, it doesn’t capture the full picture. Factors like device maintenance, service response time, supply management, and user inefficiencies can significantly impact your total cost of printing.
This is where Managed Print Services can make a measurable difference—providing visibility into your print environment, consolidating devices, and reducing unnecessary costs without sacrificing productivity.
Looking to better understand your printing costs—or reduce them?
