Managed Print / Pay per month printing.

[richofwombwell]

I run a consumables based business and over the past year I have gained a couple of large clients (190+) printers per customer that I now run on a managed print service ( Supplied the printers & supply the toner cartridges automatically)

I'm looking at the possibility of running this with smaller clients and trying to get a few ideas down on paper.

Wanting to know peoples opinions on an idea that I have had to use with smaller businesses rather than larger companies (50+ sites)

I'm looking at running print contracts for £34.95 a month on a 12 month contract for printing up to 4000 mono prints per month with a free mono machine.

The machine will be owned by the customer not leased & the cartridges are auto fulfilled.

Similar to what my larger clients have but on a smaller scale.

Not 100% on pricing yet but that's something that can be done later down the line.

 

[richofwombwell]

Does anyone have any thoughts on this ?

 

[Liam Jones]

Which machines do you plan to offer?

 

[Gecko001]

£34.95 for 4000 prints. That is less than 1p per print. That seems very low.

BTW. Do you make a difference between text and images. When I print reports with photos on my printer I very quickly run out of ink, whereas, for plain text, a cartridge will last for maybe a couple of reams of A4.

 

[Liam Jones]

Getting the copy costs down below 1p per page of black and white wouldn’t be a problem on a manged service, but even if you did it it for 0.5p you would only be left with £180 over the course of the 12 month contract for the machine. A machine this cheap would cost far more to run. There’s nothing to prevent you offering this as a service, but if they’re to own the device and the commitment is only 12 months the price would have to be quite a bit higher.

 

[richofwombwell]

It depends on what machines you use. I run a print management firm where we are open to all markets rather than just one particular sector. Some of my clients pay less than 0.4/3p per copy but they use bigger machines.

The base model is a canon machine with a cartridge that has a capacity to print 6500 pages per cartridge. I use a specific brand of compatibles and have my own print management software that reports remotely from the printer to tell me the page counts.

There is profit in it on my end too of course but its more for the ease of use for the customer and the savings on there end i.e not having to worry about ordering as the cartridges turn up automatically etc and having one fixed bill per month to pay.

£34.95 for 4000 prints. That is less than 1p per print. That seems very low.

BTW. Do you make a difference between text and images. When I print reports with photos on my printer I very quickly run out of ink, whereas, for plain text, a cartridge will last for maybe a couple of reams of A4.

With the machines I supply the page count for the printers is high enough that this isn't really an issue.

 

[richofwombwell]

I'm looking at more like a 20 month contract at £34.95 per month.

 

[richofwombwell]

Which machines do you plan to offer?

Canon i-SENSYS LBP251dw is the printer I'm going for, got a few out to my customers at the moment and there great printers.

 

[Mr D]

Interesting.
Would you consider smaller contracts than 4000 prints a year? Probably on a thousand prints a year at the moment though hopefully above 4,000 prints in a few years.
Possibly a gradual price increase as prints increased?
If not... then would be interested in a few years.

 

[richofwombwell]

It would be interesting to look through a number of smaller machines. Probably looking at a smaller HP or brother machine for that amount. Is it just mono machines or colour ?

Looking at a more cost effective model of HP instant ink which is a huge rip off.

 

[Mr D]

I'd be looking at mono machines, been years since have needed colour at home.
Been running a Samsung ML-1860 machine for past 3 years.

 

[richofwombwell]

Samsung's are great, owned by HP now though reckon it will be another year until the brands merge.

In that case it would be a brother machine over a 14 month contract at £13 per month or something similar (back of fag packet maths watching death in paradise that is ).

That would be more like 4000 a year or so.

Off for a meeting next week to chat with a company with other 700 printers in the UK alone !

Best shake the suite off !

 

[Mr D]

Thanks for that. For the future perhaps.
And Death in Paradise is great - I record it and watch with the wife at the weekend.

 

[richofwombwell]

I don't normally watch it but the wife had it on and its pretty good actually !

If you want any more info or help in future with printers feel free to send me a message !

 

[youngtrepreneur]

I run a consumables based business and over the past year I have gained a couple of large clients (190+) printers per customer that I now run on a managed print service ( Supplied the printers & supply the toner cartridges automatically)

I'm looking at the possibility of running this with smaller clients and trying to get a few ideas down on paper.

Wanting to know peoples opinions on an idea that I have had to use with smaller businesses rather than larger companies (50+ sites)

I'm looking at running print contracts for £34.95 a month on a 12 month contract for printing up to 4000 mono prints per month with a free mono machine.

The machine will be owned by the customer not leased & the cartridges are auto fulfilled.

Similar to what my larger clients have but on a smaller scale.

Not 100% on pricing yet but that's something that can be done later down the line.

Hi,

Disclaimer: I am not familiar with this industry.

A couple of ideas:

Would it be possible for more than one company to own machines (joint ownership)?
Presumably this will reduce up front cost?

If a company owns a machine, could they allow other companies to use the machine (e.g. for companies requiring a machine but don't have as much use).
These customers could be charged more, then share the profits between yourself and the company that owns the machine.

Just a couple of thoughts