Let’s be honest—you probably don’t spend much time thinking about your printing costs. It’s just one of those background expenses that quietly chips away at your budget, right? But here’s something that might surprise you: the average employee in New Zealand prints around 94 pages per week. If you’ve got a team of five, that’s nearly 2,000 pages every single month. And those pages aren’t cheap.
Whether you’re running a café in Wellington, a consultancy in Auckland, or a trade business in Christchurch, printing costs can sneak up on you. Between paper, ink cartridges, maintenance, and energy bills, your printer might be costing you way more than you realize. The good news? You can slash these costs without sacrificing quality or efficiency. Let me show you how.
Understanding Your Real Printing Costs
Before you start making changes, you need to know what you’re actually spending. Most Kiwi businesses have no idea what their true printing costs are—and that’s exactly the problem.
Your printing expenses aren’t just about the price of paper and ink. There’s also:
- Energy consumption (printers use power even when they’re idle)
- Equipment maintenance and repairs
- Staff time dealing with printer issues or replacing cartridges
- The cost of wasted prints that never get picked up from the tray
Some studies suggest that nearly half of all printed documents are never actually used. Think about it—how many times have you printed something, only to find it still sitting in the printer tray days later? That’s money straight down the drain.
Home printing in New Zealand can cost anywhere from 50 cents to several dollars per page, depending on your setup. Commercial online printing services, on the other hand, start from as low as 9 cents per page. That’s a massive difference, especially when you’re printing in volume.
Smart Strategies to Cut Your Printing Costs
1. Challenge Every Print Job
The simplest way to reduce printing costs is to print less. Sounds obvious, but it works.
Start by creating a “think before you print” culture in your business. Not everything needs to be on paper. Can you share that document via email or a cloud storage link instead? Can meeting participants view the agenda on their laptops rather than getting printed copies?
Put up friendly reminders near your printers asking staff to consider whether they really need that hard copy. You’d be surprised how effective a simple nudge can be.
2. Default to Double-Sided Printing
This is one of the easiest wins you’ll ever get. Duplex printing (printing on both sides of the page) can cut your paper consumption by 50%. Just let that sink in—half your paper costs gone with a simple settings change.
Most modern printers have automatic duplex printing capabilities. Configure your printer to default to double-sided printing, and your team won’t even have to think about it. Citigroup did an internal study and found that if each employee saved just one sheet of paper per week through double-sided printing, they’d save $700,000 a year. Obviously, you’re not Citigroup, but even for a small Kiwi business, the savings add up quickly.
3. Stick to Black and White Unless Color is Essential
Here’s a reality check: color printing costs 2-3 times more than black and white. Color ink is expensive, uses more power, and takes longer to print.
Create clear guidelines about when color printing is actually necessary. For most internal documents, meeting notes, drafts, and everyday paperwork, black and white is perfectly fine. Reserve color printing for client presentations, marketing materials, or situations where it genuinely adds value.
One simple question can transform your printing habits: “Does this actually need to be in color?”
4. Use Print Preview and Print Only What You Need
How many times have you printed a 20-page document when you only needed pages 5 and 7? Or discovered after printing that the formatting was completely wrong, forcing you to print again?
Always use print preview before hitting that print button. Check your margins, make sure tables fit on single pages, and verify that you’re only printing the pages you actually need. This tiny habit can prevent countless wasted prints.
5. Optimize Your Printer Settings
Small tweaks to your printer settings can lead to significant savings:
Use Draft Mode: For internal documents or less critical prints, draft mode uses less ink while keeping everything perfectly readable. Save the high-quality settings for important client-facing materials.
Adjust Margins: Microsoft Word defaults to 1.25-inch margins, which look nice but waste space. For internal documents, you can reduce margins to fit more content on each page.
Choose Ink-Efficient Fonts: This sounds quirky, but it works. Fonts like Century Gothic and Times New Roman use up to 30% less ink than Arial. If you’re printing thousands of pages, that difference becomes real money.
6. Consider Online Printing Services for Bulk Jobs
If you need to print a large specification document, legal papers, or educational materials, don’t default to your office printer. New Zealand has excellent online printing services that can deliver overnight at a fraction of the cost.
For example, commercial printing services in New Zealand charge from 9 cents per page—compare that to what you’re paying at home or in the office. For bigger print jobs, you might even consider short-run printing from local printers, which becomes increasingly cost-effective as your volume grows.
7. Go Digital Where Possible
The best print is the one you never make. Embrace digital tools to reduce your reliance on paper altogether:
- Use cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox) to share documents instead of printing copies for everyone
- Implement e-signature tools like DocuSign for contracts and agreements
- Send invoices electronically rather than printing and posting them
- Use digital note-taking apps for meetings
- Store records digitally in a document management system
Going paperless isn’t just about saving money—it’s also more secure, easier to search, and better for the environment. Plus, you’ll never have to deal with file cabinets taking up valuable office space.
8. Consolidate Your Printers
If you’ve got multiple desktop printers scattered around your office, you’re probably wasting money. Individual desktop printers are notoriously inefficient and expensive to run.
Consider replacing them with one or two multifunction devices (that can print, scan, copy, and sometimes fax) strategically placed in your office. These centralized printers are more energy-efficient, cheaper to maintain, and often have lower per-page costs.
As a bonus, making people walk to a shared printer naturally reduces unnecessary printing—if someone has to get up and walk across the office, they’re more likely to think twice about whether they really need that printout.
9. Buy the Right Printer for Your Needs
If you’re in the market for a new printer, think beyond the sticker price. A cheap printer might seem like a bargain, but if it costs a fortune to run, you’ll regret it.
Look at the cost per page, not just the upfront cost. Laser printers typically have higher initial costs but much lower per-page costs for black and white printing. They’re ideal if you print frequently.
Inkjet printers are cheaper upfront and better for color printing, but ink can be expensive. If you do go with an inkjet, consider models with high-capacity or refillable tanks—some models can print thousands of pages per cartridge.
For reference, you can compare cost-per-page rates for different printers on specialized comparison websites designed for the New Zealand market.
10. Implement Tracking and Accountability
Here’s something interesting: when people know their printing is being tracked, they naturally print less.
Print management software can monitor who’s printing what and how much. Most people are genuinely surprised when they see how much they’re actually printing—and with that awareness, they self-regulate.
This isn’t about surveillance or micromanagement. It’s about visibility. When you can see patterns (like one department printing way more than others, or lots of abandoned print jobs), you can address specific problems rather than guessing.
11. Establish Clear Printing Policies
Having guidelines in place makes it easier for everyone to make good decisions. Your printing policy might include:
- Default settings (black and white, duplex printing, draft mode for internal docs)
- Guidelines on when color printing is appropriate
- Rules about personal printing
- Expectations around digital-first workflows
- Instructions for handling printing errors (don’t just reprint immediately!)
Make your policies visible and easy to understand. Post them near printers or include them in your onboarding materials for new staff.
12. Consider Managed Print Services
If all of this sounds overwhelming, you might want to explore managed print services (MPS). These services handle your entire printing setup—from equipment and supplies to maintenance and optimization.
Companies like Brother offer Managed Print Services in New Zealand, where they review your printing operation, identify inefficiencies, and provide recommendations to reduce costs. With MPS, you typically pay a fixed monthly fee that covers everything, which makes budgeting easier and eliminates surprise repair costs.
For many small businesses, this hands-off approach is worth it because it frees up your time to focus on actually running your business.
The New Zealand Context
It’s worth noting that New Zealand’s printing industry faces unique challenges. Digital transformation and changing preferences have reduced demand for traditional printing services, which means the industry is under pressure. This actually works in your favor as a small business—commercial printing services are competitive and affordable, especially for bulk jobs.
Additionally, New Zealand’s relatively isolated location means that importing supplies can be costly. Choosing equipment with readily available, locally-sourced consumables can save you from expensive shipping delays and costs.
Small Changes, Big Impact
You don’t need to implement all of these strategies at once. Start with the easiest wins—defaulting to duplex printing, switching to black and white for most documents, and encouraging your team to think before they print.
Even small changes compound over time. If your business currently prints 2,000 pages a month and you reduce that by just 25% through better practices, you could save hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. That’s money you can invest back into growing your business.
Printing costs might seem like a minor line item in your budget, but they add up faster than you think. With a bit of attention and some smart strategies, you can keep more money in your pocket while building more sustainable business practices.
The best part? Most of these changes take just minutes to implement. So why not start today?