The printer industry has a good thing going.
Businesses sign contracts. Machines get installed. Monthly payments roll in. And as long as the equipment is printing out documents, most people have little reason to question the setup.
Which is awfully convenient when you consider how much there is to question.
Sitting in the corner and looking about as harmless as office equipment gets, the average printer hardly seems like something to worry about. But behind that unassuming exterior can be a complicated web of contractual obligations, unnecessary expenses, sensitive information and security responsibilities. And the longer those details go unchecked, the more expensive they become.
We're talking about printers that retain information long after documents have been collected, contracts that keep businesses paying for equipment years past its prime, and organizations unknowingly spending six figures more than necessary because nobody has looked at printing across the entire operation.
Once you start digging into the details, it's remarkable how much money, responsibility, and risk can be tied to a single piece of equipment.
The security cost.
Your printer has probably handled more confidential information than most employees.
Tax documents. Payroll records. Financial statements. Employment applications. Customer agreements. Copies of identification documents. All kinds of paperwork containing sensitive personal and business information.
That's an alarming amount of data passing through a machine that receives less security attention than the computers sitting beside it.
Many multifunction printers operate much like computers, with processors, memory, internal storage, and network connections. Depending on the model and its security settings, they can retain copies of documents, print job histories, and other information long after the print request is complete.
Consider how that plays out in a busy office, apartment community, hotel or other shared environment.
A document containing confidential information gets sent to a printer, where anyone walking by could easily collect the printout.
A completed print job leaves information stored on a device that multiple people can access.
A printer connected to the company network goes months without a security update, potentially leaving known vulnerabilities unaddressed.
Even replacing the equipment doesn't necessarily eliminate the risk. Some leasing agreements require customers to securely wipe the machine's internal drive before returning it, a process that demands considerably more technical expertise than most people expect. Skip that step, and you could be handing over years of sensitive information along with the equipment.
In 2023, Canon issued a security advisory involving nearly 200 of its inkjet printers. As reported by TechRadar, certain devices could retain sensitive Wi-Fi configuration information, including network names, passwords, and IP addresses, even after users reset their settings.
That advisory raises an important question about the information printers retain throughout their working lives. If a device can hold onto network credentials after a reset, businesses have good reason to understand what information their own printers store, who can access it, and how it's protected.
Printer security requires ongoing attention. That includes controlling access to sensitive documents, protecting stored data, managing network connections, applying security updates and establishing appropriate procedures when equipment is serviced or replaced.
Yet, many organizations have little visibility into those details, particularly when printers are managed by third-party vendors or purchased independently across multiple locations. That's a substantial amount of trust to place in equipment whose security practices may never have been thoroughly examined.
And the responsibility doesn't end with the equipment. Organizations also need to understand how their printing providers collect, handle and protect the information people submit. That level of transparency isn't always a given.
After examining printing privacy and security, The Washington Post recognized PrintWithMe as one of the few printing services transparent about its data collection practices.
For equipment that processes so much confidential information, it's surprising, and concerning, how little some organizations know about their printers.
The legal cost.
The consequences of mishandling sensitive information extend beyond an embarrassing security incident.
Across the United States, consumer privacy laws are placing greater responsibilities on businesses that collect, process, and store personal information. In WithMe’s data privacy risk snapshot, nationally recognized cyber liability expert Lisa Angelo, Esq., identifies three major areas of exposure: data breaches, violations of privacy laws, and misleading representations about data security practices.
Each can bring financial, legal and reputational consequences. And businesses don't necessarily need to experience a sophisticated cyberattack to find themselves dealing with sensitive information that has been unnecessarily exposed.
When courtesy or amenity printing requires documents to pass through staff inboxes or company-owned electronic devices, sensitive information ends up in places it never needed to be. And once that information has been shared, questions arise about who can access it, how long it remains available, and whether it's ever properly deleted.
Angelo recommends a straightforward way to reduce this type of exposure: avoid handling personal information in the first place.
For businesses offering shared printing, self-serve solutions with appropriate security controls allow people to print confidential documents independently, without requiring employees to receive, open, or handle sensitive information.
Of course, the legal obligations surrounding personal information vary by jurisdiction and circumstance. But the underlying principle applies across industries. Limiting unnecessary access to sensitive information helps reduce the opportunities for that information to be exposed, copied or retained.
And if something as routine as printing a document introduces avoidable privacy risks, the bigger question is why businesses continue accepting that exposure as a normal part of operations.
The contractual cost.
A printer contract might look straightforward when you first sign it. A monthly payment, a set contract term and equipment that meets your needs.
Then, the invoices arrive.
Equipment leases, service fees, print minimums, color overages, administrative charges and other expenses can turn a monthly rate into a considerably larger commitment. And some of the most expensive terms won't show up on an invoice until you're trying to make a change.
Much of the trouble lies in the fine print, where routine provisions can carry expensive consequences.
For starters, many standard agreements lock customers into 36 to 60 months, with early termination penalties that can make switching providers prohibitively expensive.
For starters, many standard agreements lock customers into 36 to 60 months, with early termination penalties that can make switching providers prohibitively expensive.
Miss an automatic renewal deadline, and you could find yourself committed for another term.
Some agreements also separate the equipment lease from the maintenance contract, leaving businesses dealing with two different companies. Even if poor service gives you grounds to cancel maintenance, you may still be obligated to make payments on the printer itself.
Remember how we mentioned that printers can retain sensitive information long after a job is complete? Some agreements place the proper handling of that information squarely on the customer, even when the vendor handles maintenance and servicing.
That handling can include protecting sensitive data stored on the device, securely erasing information before returning the equipment and assuming liability for certain data security incidents.
Think about that for a second. You could be paying a company to manage your printer, only to discover that protecting the confidential information stored inside it is contractually your problem.
And the potential liabilities don't stop at data security. Certain agreements also require customers to insure equipment for its full value or assume financial responsibility if it's lost, stolen or damaged.
That's a considerable amount of responsibility to take on for equipment you don't even own.
The financial cost.
Want to know what could happen if printer expenses go unchecked across an entire organization?
WithMe conducted anoffice printer fleet analysis for an NMHC Top 50 property management company and uncovered 103 separate contracts across 49 vendors, together costing the organization $30,896.25 every month.
The inconsistencies were staggering.
Black-and-white printing rates varied by nearly 700% across the portfolio.
Two properties with nearly identical equipment and contract terms were paying dramatically different prices, with one billed $165 per month and the other $1,100.
Decade-old machines tied to long-term agreements were still in service.
Properties were still receiving bills for contracts that had expired years earlier.
These weren't isolated billing discrepancies. They were the cumulative result of decentralized purchasing, inconsistent pricing and contracts that had gone largely unexamined.
When individual locations choose their own vendors and negotiate their own agreements, it's easy for these differences to go unnoticed. Multiply them across an entire portfolio, and the financial consequences can be substantial.
In fact, the analysis found that moving to PrintWithMe's all-inclusive pricing model could have reduced the company's monthly printing expenses from $30,896.25 to $14,418.97.
That's $16,477.28 in potential monthly savings. Or nearly $200,000 a year.
But there's a catch. Even if they discover how much they're overpaying, businesses are often locked into agreements that prevent them from making a change without substantial penalties.
And that's perhaps the most expensive part of ignoring your printer contracts. By the time the true costs become clear, walking away may no longer be a financially practical option.
The labor cost.
→ Ordering paper and toner.
→ Troubleshooting connection issues.
→ Trying to decipher complex invoices.
→ Understanding cost variances.
→ Coordinating service calls.
→ Printing documents for anyone unauthorized to access the machine.
These tasks can consume hours of time that employees could be spending on work that actually requires their expertise.
In some cases, what should be a simple printing service becomes an entirely separate responsibility for employees.
At 2400 Chestnut, a 368-unit multifamily community in Philadelphia, Property Manager Jason B. and his team were essentially running a small print shop out of the leasing office.
Residents emailed documents to staff, who printed them on the office copier and left the pages at the counter for pickup. On busy days, the team handled as many as 20 resident print jobs, all while managing the community's day-to-day operations.
Jason wanted to give residents the freedom to print independently without adding another responsibility to his team's workload, so he turned to PrintWithMe. Residents can now securely print from their own devices at any hour, and print release technology keeps documents from sitting unattended.
Since installation, the community has printed 227.4K+ pages across 14.5K+ orders, with a 283% unit utilization rate.
And while the usage numbers are impressive, the operational benefit is equally important. Every request handled independently is one less interruption for a team with plenty of other responsibilities.
If your employees are spending their time managing printing instead of doing the jobs they were hired to do, that's a cost worth accounting for.
The experience cost.
An unreliable printer doesn't only inconvenience the people responsible for managing it. It also affects everyone who needs to use it.
And people do notice.
82% of multifamily residents consider shared printing an essential amenity, which is a pretty strong indication that convenient printing matters, even in an increasingly digital world.
When organizations continue relying on inconvenient or unreliable equipment, they're effectively passing the consequences of that decision along to the people they serve. And that's another cost of doing nothing that's easy to overlook.
How much longer can you afford to ignore your printer?
An overpriced contract here. A few hours of unnecessary staff work there. Security vulnerabilities that go unaddressed and printing experiences that leave employees, residents, or customers frustrated. Each issue carries a cost, and the longer they're overlooked, the more those costs can accumulate.
The problem is that many of these expenses and risks are easy to miss when printers are still functioning. Monthly invoices get paid, contracts renew and employees continue managing the same recurring headaches. Meanwhile, opportunities to reduce spending, improve security, and reclaim valuable time go unexplored.
The longer you ignore your printer, the longer you're paying for problems you might not even know exist.
PrintWithMe offers a simpler approach to printing, with fully managed solutions designed to reduce unnecessary expenses, protect sensitive information, and take routine printer management off your team's plate.
Stop paying the price of looking the other way. Talk to a PrintWithMe rep today.
Talk to a PrintWithMe rep
