What photocopier hire actually costs

Nobody publishes a single price for photocopier hire, and any site that does is quoting one machine at one volume and hoping it happens to match yours. The number moves on a handful of things. Once you know what they are, you can compare two quotes properly instead of guessing which one is better value.

What moves the price

How much you print

The single biggest factor, and the one most people leave out when they ask. A machine running a few hundred pages a month and a machine running twenty thousand are different machines with different running costs, and that gap is far wider than any difference in the hardware itself.

Colour or black only

A colour page costs several times what a black page costs to produce. That is true on every machine and every brand. If most of what you print does not need colour, saying so out loud changes the quote you get.

Speed and paper size

Pages per minute, and whether you need A3, both move a machine up or down a range. A lot of offices are paying for A3 they use twice a year, and a lot of others are waiting on a machine that is too slow for the work going through it.

The finisher

Stapling, sorting, folding and booklet making come from a separate unit bolted onto the side of the machine. Worth having if you use them, and pure cost if you do not.

What is included in the rate

This is where two quotes stop being comparable. Some rates include toner, servicing, parts and call-outs. Some include the machine and nothing else. Two numbers that look identical can be completely different arrangements, and the cheaper looking one is often the more expensive one by the end of the year.

How long the term runs

Shorter terms cost more each month. Longer terms cost less each month and commit you for longer. Neither is automatically the better deal, and it depends far more on how settled the business is than on the machine.

New or secondhand changes it more than anything

The largest single saving available is taking a refurbished machine rather than a new one. It is the same model, a few years old, fully serviced, doing exactly the same job. Most people who contact us asking about a new machine end up on a refurbished one once they see the difference, and almost nobody regrets it.

Why we quote rather than publish a price

Because a published price is only honest for one machine, at one volume, on one term. Tell us roughly how much you print each month, whether you need colour and A3, and what you want included, and the number you get back means something. It takes a few minutes.

Ask for a photocopier hire price

Call, or fill in the form below with roughly what you print in a month. That one detail gets you a far more useful answer than
anything else you can tell us.​