Print Charges

[cnc]

Hi,

I am looking to compile some data to benchmark what educational institutions in our sector do in terms of charging their students for printing?

Our print charges haven’t been reviewed for several years and with inflation impacting all areas of the economy, increases in paper costs, electricity, staffing etc, we were wondering if it was time to review, considering we are also due to refresh hardware this summer.

 

Please can I ask:

 

1. What sector are you? Sixth Form/FE/HE etc.

2. Do you charge students for printing?

3. If yes, how do your students add print credit to their accounts? (Do you use a service that involves transaction fees for online/card payments).

4. Do you provide a discount for using the Print Room or for duplex printing on MFDs?

5. What is the cost per copy that you charge?

 

 

Our current costs per copy are shown below as example (same for MFDs and Print Room with no distinction between A3 or A4).

 

Current Cost per Copy (MFDs and Print Room)

 

A4 b/w

£0.03

A3 b/w

£0.03

A4 colour

£0.10

A3 colour

£0.10

[psydii]

Internal charging for full cost recovery: assets (assuming a 5 year life), maintenance, toner, paper, staples etc. We assume there are some "cost centres" that are not actually funded (student printing being one) we set the charges below so those cost centers do not leave us in the red.

 

A4 BW 0.02

A3 BW 0.04

A4 Colour 0.04

A3 Colour 0.08

 

These are our MFD print charges with 15 devices across a staff of 200. We do not provide direct financial incentive to use the devices in the central reprographics facility, however if they submit jobs to the repro tech, they can (depending on the job) run them on the Riso's which give colour at significant discount. All our machines in the central facility are run at close to capacity. Most of the other machines do not do volumes that make economic sense, however they provide instant access and a backup is a machine or two fails in the central facility.

 

Printers are charged at roughly twice/three times the MFDs (we use the same calculations across the printer to set charges as we do for the MFD except we fudge the volumes in the calculations because they actually do so little compared to the MFD we'd end up charged £1 per page of BW if we put the real values in!).

 

Following a rejig of leases these prices actually generate a significant surplus, and the finance office apply discounting to departments. The idea currently is this discount will be reduced year on year until they are paying full price, at which point devices will start to age out, and our lease cost will need to increase again by perhaps a third. Hopefully without causing pain to the departments.

[PotNoodleTech]

Well - for a start you should be charging more for A3 as it's twice the paper and up to twice the ink per page?

[cnc]

Thanks for your replies. These are the print charges I have inherited, so need a good look at.

 

I agree 100% that charging more for A3 needs to be the first thing that we consider. Not sure why they are the same, I am assuming for simplicity perhaps but logically doesn’t make sense in terms of paper and ink utilisation as you have highlighted.

 

If I can gather some more costs across the sector and compile some the data, I will look at crunching some of the numbers to provide averages and effective benchmarks that seem to be consistent across the sector which may provide a useful starting point.

 

Thanks again!

[PotNoodleTech]

I think the simple answer is it doesn't really matter what everyone else it charging - you need to charge based on what you are paying for various things.

 

What is your click cost on the lease?

What is the cost per sheet of paper a4 and a3?

Are you factoring in clawing back the lease costs through clicks - if so device your yearly pages volume by the yearly lease cost to get a cost per click.

Toner should be included in your lease contract, if not divide the number of pages per year by the toner cost to get another click cost.

Are you charging for staff time - reprographics staff, or IT support staff?

 

Add all the above up and you got your click cost. I bet its loads higher than what you got now!

[Ex-MGSTech]

Secondary here with 1500 on roll, we don't "Charge" our pupils as education is free (isn't it?) we do however set a £5 per month limit with a £1 "Overdraft"

 

Cost per print on our MFD's are:

 

A3 Colour £0.080 pp

A3 Mono £0.040

A3 Duplex Colour £0.075 (per side)

A3 Duplex Mono £0.025 (per side)

A4 Colour £0.040

A4 Mono £0.020

A4 Duplex Colour £0.035 (per side)

A4 Duplex Mono £0.015 (per side)

[Aprice]

A4 Colour 10p per side

A4 B&W 2P per side

 

A3 - Same rate as above.

 

Sixth Formers balances are restored to £2 on the first of the month.

 

Not the best charging model in the world, no incentives for duplex. and any colour printing they do virtually takes all their credit. But it fits the very simple brief given to us by leadership.

 

Staff are billed at the same rates however aside from a bit of reporting I don't believe anything really gets done about their costs, previous schools I've worked with have billed back to departments.

[Julian]

Secondary school 1200 pupils

Costs per side

A3 colour £0.12

A3 colour duplex £0.10

A4 colour £0.06

A4 colour duplex £0.05

A3 grayscale £0.05

A3 grayscale duplex £0.04

A4 grayscale £0.025

A4 grayscale duplex £0.02

 

We are using Papercut as a unified copy/print tracking

Pupils get a weekly allowance for printing (pupil printing is minor compared to staff). They are not charged, but the limit encourages them to think before printing.

Staff can charge the appropriate cost centre, It is the responsibility of the cost centre owner to manage their budget.

Papercut has been configured to automatically report (email) to each budget holder, on how their budget is being spent.

Some budget holders do not care (until they have no money!), others put strict limits on printing.

[DWilson1997]

Secondary with Sixth Form ~ 650 students.

MFD/Production Machines

Black & White (per side) £0.0019

Colour (per side) £0.014

 

Desktop Printer

Black & White (per side) £0.0065

 

A4 & A3 (and all other sizes) have the same cost per click.

 

Students are limited to something like £8 a month and staff have unlimited but assigned to cost centres for reporting. As most devices cost the same as there is no different prices to use the high specification devices in the reprographics room.

Edited June 11, 2024 by DWilson1997

[cnc]

Thanks for all of your replies. These are really helpful.