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Multifunction Printer vs Standard Copier: The Key Differences

When a company grows, whether through hiring, acquiring another business, or opening new offices, the print environment rarely keeps pace in an organized way. Printers get added wherever there’s space. Devices from the acquired company stay plugged in. Nobody has an accurate count of what exists, who uses what, or what the total cost actually is.

The result is a bloated fleet that costs far more than it should. According to Datapac’s guide on right-sizing printer fleets, most organizations overspend on printing simply because they’ve never taken a structured look at what they have versus what they need. This guide walks you through that process, step by step, in plain language.

Key Takeaways

  • Most companies spend 1-3% of annual revenue on printing, with much of it wasted on underused devices (IDC, 2024).
  • A print audit is the essential first step — decisions made without data almost always create new problems.
  • One multifunction printer per 8-10 employees is the standard benchmark for most office environments.
  • Cloud print management is necessary for any organization with hybrid or remote workers.
  • Managed Print Services can cut total print spend by 20-30% and remove the operational burden from your IT team.

Why Expansion Creates a Print Problem

In 2024, IDC found that organizations typically spend 1% to 3% of annual revenue on document output, yet most can’t say with certainty how many printers they own. That’s the core problem. Expansion makes it worse because print infrastructure grows reactively. A new team needs a printer, so one gets ordered. An acquired company arrives with 40 devices of varying ages and brands. A new office opens with three printers when two would have been enough.

KraftBusiness’s guide to managing your printer fleet describes this pattern precisely: without a clear ownership structure, each team acquires devices independently and costs multiply invisibly. Beyond the expense, an oversized fleet creates higher maintenance bills, security vulnerabilities (unmanaged printers are a known entry point for breaches), compliance risk in regulated industries, and unnecessary energy consumption around the clock.

Right-sizing isn’t about cutting devices for the sake of it. It’s about making sure every printer in your organization earns its place.

Step 1: Run a Print Audit First

The single most important thing you can do before moving, removing, or purchasing a single printer is to understand what you currently have. This is called a print audit, and it’s the foundation of every successful right-sizing effort.

Pharos Systems’ guide to conducting print audits defines a print audit as a systematic inventory of every output device in your organization, paired with usage data that tells you how much each device is actually being used.

A complete print audit captures:

What to Document for Every Device

  • Make, model, and age – Older devices cost more to maintain and are often incompatible with modern print management software.
  • Location – Which floor, department, or office is the device in? Is it centrally placed or tucked in a corner where few people walk past?
  • Print volume – How many pages does this device produce per month? Most modern printers log this automatically.
  • Color vs. black-and-white ratio – Color printing costs 5-10 times more per page than black-and-white. If a device is printing mostly black-and-white, a cheaper mono device might serve that location better.
  • Functionality used – Is this device being used as a printer only, or do employees also scan and copy on it? A full multifunction device is wasted if it’s only ever printing.
  • Who has access – Is this a shared departmental device or a personal desktop printer? Personal printers are almost always a cost inefficiency.

Applied Innovation’s tips for getting the most from your existing print fleet recommend pulling at least 90 days of usage data before drawing any conclusions. A device that looks idle might have a seasonal spike, and removing it could create problems three months later.

Step 2: Match Devices to Actual Headcount and Location

With audit data in hand, compare what you have against what your workforce needs. Kelley Create’s fleet sizing guide puts the standard benchmark at one multifunction printer for every 8 to 10 employees in a typical office. Personal desktop printers should be the exception, not the norm.

For each device location, answer four questions:

  1. How many people does this device serve? A printer serving two people is almost certainly underused; one serving 25 may be overwhelmed.
  2. How far is the nearest alternative device? Marco’s consolidation guide recommends a maximum walk distance of 50 feet. Two devices within 20 feet of each other serving the same team is a consolidation opportunity.
  3. Are there any specialized needs here? A legal team may need high-volume finishing capabilities. A reception desk may only need a small color printer. Match the device to the actual requirement, not to what was available at the time of installation.
  4. Is this location growing or shrinking in the next 12 months? Removing a device now and reinstalling one six months later costs more than keeping a slightly underused device in place temporarily.

Don’t forget hybrid and remote workers. PaperCut’s hybrid environment guide notes that hybrid offices often have only 20-30 people in a 50-desk space on any given day. Right-sizing for a hybrid office means planning for average daily attendance, not total headcount. 3Manager’s remote work analysis recommends cloud-based print management for any organization where more than 20% of staff work remotely — without it, print jobs submitted from home sit uncollected on office printers and create both waste and security exposure.

Step 3: Assign Every Device to a Category

Once your data is mapped against location needs, every device in your fleet falls into one of four categories:

Keep as-is. The device is well-placed, appropriately sized, and within its useful service life (generally under 5-7 years for a commercial multifunction device). No action needed.

Relocate. The device is in the wrong location — either underused because it’s poorly positioned, or a different area has a coverage gap. Moving costs less than buying new and removes the inefficiency without any capital spend.

Consolidate. Two or more devices serve overlapping groups of employees. Remove the older or lower-performing one. Sosny’s three-step fleet management guide identifies consolidation as the single highest-return action in any right-sizing exercise. Fewer devices mean lower supply costs, fewer service calls, and less IT overhead.

Replace. The device is too old, unreliable, or incompatible with your current infrastructure to be worth keeping. When replacing, HTC UK’s fleet scaling guide recommends standardizing on as few makes and models as possible. When every device in your fleet uses the same toner type, driver, and maintenance protocol, procurement simplifies and your IT team builds expertise rather than juggling dozens of different configurations.

Step 4: Handle Compliance and Security Before You Redeploy

Before any device is moved to a new location or reassigned to a different department, check its compliance and security posture. Pharos’s regulatory compliance guide notes that printed documents are among the most common sources of compliance failures, yet print infrastructure is often the last thing compliance teams audit.

Four controls matter most:

  • Secure print release — Employees authenticate at the device before anything prints. HP’s fleet optimization guide identifies this as the most effective single control against document-level data exposure.
  • Audit logging — Every job should be logged with the user, time, and device. Configure this before moving any device into a zone that handles sensitive data.
  • Drive wiping — Many printers store recent jobs on an internal hard drive. Any device being relocated or decommissioned must have that drive cleared under your data destruction policy.
  • Network segmentation — Confirm with your network team that newly placed devices don’t create unintended access paths to segments that store sensitive data.

Dectek’s managed print services process guide offers a practical compliance checklist adaptable to most regulated industries.

Step 5: Add Print Management Software and Consider MPS

Right-sizing your fleet is a project with a start and end date. Keeping it right-sized is an ongoing process, and that process requires visibility. Without print management software, you’re back to guessing within 12-18 months.

PaperCut’s guide to optimizing printer fleet management for medium-sized businesses defines print management software as a layer of visibility and control that sits between your users and your devices. At minimum, a print management system should show you:

  • Real-time device status (online, offline, low toner, paper jam)
  • Per-user and per-department print volumes
  • Cost per page for each device
  • Usage trends over time (so you can spot an underused device before it becomes a problem)

More advanced systems add secure print release, print policy enforcement (such as defaulting to duplex black-and-white to reduce color and paper waste), and integration with your identity management system so that departing employees’ print access is automatically revoked.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many printers should a company have after expansion?

One multifunction printer for every 8 to 10 employees is the standard benchmark for general office environments, per Kelley Create’s sizing guide. High-volume departments such as legal or finance may warrant one per 5 to 6 employees. Remote and hybrid workers don’t factor into office device counts.

How long does a right-sizing project take?

For a fleet of 50 to 100 devices across two or three sites, the audit and decision phase typically takes 4 to 8 weeks. Physical implementation, done in phases to minimize disruption, usually takes another 2 to 4 weeks. Larger multi-site projects can run 3 to 6 months from audit to completion.

Can we do this ourselves, or do we need outside help?

Most organizations can handle the audit and consolidation decisions internally. Vendors add the most value in physical logistics for large device moves and in configuring print management software. Sosny’s self-directed methodology works well for fleets under 100 devices without external support.

What do we do with decommissioned printers?

Return leased devices to the leasing company. For owned devices, options include donation to nonprofits, resale through certified electronics resellers, or manufacturer take-back recycling programs. In all cases, the internal hard drive must be wiped or physically destroyed before the device leaves your control.

Conclusion

Right-sizing a print fleet after expansion follows a clear sequence: audit first, map usage against actual needs, categorize every device, handle compliance before redeployment, and install software that maintains visibility going forward. Companies that treat this as a structured project rather than an ad hoc cleanup consistently come out with lower costs, better security posture, and a fleet they can actually manage.

The audit is the only place to start. Every decision that follows depends on having accurate data about what you have and how it’s actually being used.