Compare two managed print quotes by running each one against your own 12 months of meter reads, adding every fixed component, pricing any minimum at the volume it commits you to, projecting the escalator across the term, and totalling both. The rates on their own will not tell you which is cheaper.
That sounds like a technicality. It is the difference between the quote you sign and the quote you should have signed, and I see it decided the wrong way often enough that it is worth 20 minutes of your afternoon.
Which comparison are you making?
Three comparisons get made in this situation. Two of them are the ones vendors expect you to make.
Comparing the rates. The per-page figures are printed in the same format on every quote, which makes them the easiest thing to line up. They are also the number each vendor chose to lead with, and a rate can be quoted low and recovered elsewhere. What sits around the rate is covered in managed print cost per page.
Comparing the monthly payments. Better, and still incomplete. A monthly figure is a snapshot of month one. It says nothing about which components rise over the term and which are contractually fixed.
Comparing against the volume on the quote. The volume printed on a proposal is usually the vendor's estimate, and an estimate that makes the quote look good is the one that tends to get printed. Your meter knows what you print. Use that.
What are the six steps?
A spreadsheet and about 20 minutes.
Pull 12 months of meter reads and split black and white from color. Every number downstream depends on this one, and it is the step people skip. Your current vendor can produce the reads, and any vendor reading meters remotely already has them. Ask for the full year. Printing has a seasonality most offices do not notice until they see 12 months of it side by side.
Apply each quote's rates to your real volume. Your pages, not the pages on the proposal.
Add every fixed component. The equipment payment, any management or administration fee, and any monthly service minimum, which is a floor on the service side of the bill that you pay whether you print or not. The minimum is the easiest of the three to miss, because it sits apart from the rates on most quotes.
Price any minimum at the committed volume. This is the step nobody publishes and the one that decides most of these comparisons. If a quote commits you to more pages than you print, the commitment is what gets billed, so that is the figure that belongs in your spreadsheet. Unused pages generally do not carry forward, which I have written about at length in what a committed volume costs you.
Project the escalator across the term. Apply it to the service side, which is where an annual increase normally lands. A conventional lease states a fixed periodic payment for the equipment and that payment holds. A bundled agreement, where the equipment, service, supplies, and a minimum volume sit inside one monthly minimum, can carry an increase clause that reaches the whole of it. That distinction is covered in what the rate covers and what it does not.
Total each quote across the full term. Then compare the totals. That is the number you are actually agreeing to.
What does this look like on real quotes?
Two cases below, and they run in opposite directions. Both are representative composites, built from contract structures I see regularly. Neither is a verified customer case and neither describes a single customer. Both are priced against the business's own volume, not the volume printed on the proposal.
An HVAC contractor that switched on the rate
A 55-employee HVAC contractor with two locations in the valley runs two color multifunction copiers, printing about 8,000 black and white and 1,000 color pages a month. Under the existing agreement the company pays a combined equipment payment of $525 a month, $0.012 a page black and white, and $0.075 a page color, which comes to about $696 a month.
A competing provider offers what looks like clearly better pricing: $0.008 black and white, $0.049 color, and a lower equipment payment of $475. The contractor switches on the rates. What nobody fully accounts for is that the new agreement requires a minimum of 15,000 black and white and 3,000 color pages a month, with no rollover on what goes unused, plus a $45 monthly management fee and an 8 percent annual service escalator.
| Current agreement | Competing offer | |
|---|---|---|
| Black and white rate | $0.012 | $0.008 |
| Color rate | $0.075 | $0.049 |
| Equipment payment | $525 | $475 |
| Minimum volume | none | 15,000 black and white, 3,000 color |
| Monthly management fee | none | $45 |
| Annual service escalator | none | 8 percent |
| Black and white billed | 8,000 at $0.012, so $96 | 15,000 at $0.008, so $120 |
| Color billed | 1,000 at $0.075, so $75 | 3,000 at $0.049, so $147 |
| Monthly total, year one | $696 | $787 |
| Monthly total after the first increase | $696 | $812 |
Every advertised rate on the competing offer is lower, and the company pays about $91 a month more from the first invoice, roughly $1,092 across the first year. The gap then widens every year the escalator runs. That is the reason to run the comparison across the whole term and not on a single month's figure.
The mistake was comparing individual rates instead of calculating the complete monthly and five-year cost against the company's own historical volume.
A manufacturer that ran the arithmetic first
A 70-employee specialty manufacturer running two color MFPs, at about 6,000 black and white and 600 color pages a month, receives two proposals covering comparable equipment, comparable accessories, and the same 60-month term.
| Lower-rate quote | Higher-rate quote | |
|---|---|---|
| Black and white rate | $0.009 | $0.013 |
| Color rate | $0.055 | $0.079 |
| Equipment payment | $520 | $455 |
| Monthly management fee | $75 | none |
| Black and white billed | 6,000 at $0.009, so $54 | 6,000 at $0.013, so $78 |
| Color billed | 600 at $0.055, so $33 | 600 at $0.079, so $47.40 |
| Monthly total | $682 | $580.40 |
They took the higher click rates. Two things made that the cheaper proposal: the equipment payment was $65 lower, and there was no $75 monthly management fee. At their actual volume it cost about $101.60 a month less, which is $1,219.20 across the first year.
The arithmetic is worth seeing laid out. The higher rates add $38.40 a month in clicks at this volume. The lower equipment payment and the absent management fee take $140 off. The rates were the visible difference and the smaller one.
A higher click rate is not better in itself. What this case shows is that a rate only means something once you apply it to your actual volume and set it beside every fixed charge. At modest print volumes, a fraction of a cent on the page matters far less than the fixed charges sitting around it: the equipment payment, a monthly fee, or a minimum commitment where the agreement carries one.
Two businesses, opposite answers, one method
Both answers came out of the same arithmetic, applied to each business's own volume. Neither was visible in a rate sheet, and a comparison built on the per-page figures alone would have got both of them wrong.
What the arithmetic will not tell you
The method gives you a number. There are things it does not measure, and they are worth money.
Service response time does not appear in a spreadsheet. Neither does whether the vendor stocks the parts your machine needs, whether a loaner arrives when a repair runs long, or whether a person answers the phone at 4pm on a Friday. A copier that is down is expensive in a way that no per-page rate captures, and a quote that totals slightly higher from a vendor who turns up the same day can be the better buy.
The other thing I will say plainly: when another quote genuinely totals less, it totals less. We lose work on this arithmetic sometimes. Running the numbers honestly means occasionally handing someone a spreadsheet that says go with the other vendor, and I would rather do that than win on a comparison nobody checked.
What to bring to the conversation
Four things, and you can gather all of them before you talk to anyone.
The last 12 months of meter reads, split black and white from color.
Both quotes, complete, including any schedules or addenda attached to them.
The exclusions page from each. The proposal summary is written to be attractive, and the exclusions page tells you what is actually covered.
The answer to whether your payment is a fixed lease payment or a bundled monthly minimum. Those behave differently over a term, and the question is fair to ask before you sign anything. While you are asking, confirm the notice window for ending the agreement, because missing that deadline is its own expensive problem.
The only number worth comparing
Two managed print quotes cannot be ranked by their rates. Run each one against your own meter history, add everything fixed, price the minimums at the commitment, project the escalator, and total the term.
Send us both quotes and your current invoice and we will do it for you. We will run the full-term total for each against your actual meter reads and show you the working, including the case where the answer is that you should sign the other one. The contact form is at https://www.ftcgsolutions.com/contact, the office line is (480) 787-0694, or email us at team@ftcgsolutions.com. The spreadsheet is yours to keep whichever way you decide.
Nothing here is legal or financial advice. Managed print terms vary considerably between agreements, and you should read your own.