Most UK businesses spend more on print than they realise — usually somewhere between 1% and 3% of total revenue once you factor in toner, paper, hardware, repairs and the time staff spend dealing with all of the above. The good news is that the majority of that cost is genuinely controllable. Here are seven changes that pay back quickly, in roughly the order of effort required.

1. Default to mono and double-sided

The single highest-impact change is also the most boring: change the default print settings on every machine to mono (black and white) and duplex (double-sided). Most documents don't need colour, and forcing staff to opt in to colour drops colour print volume by 30–50% in a typical office overnight. Duplex saves on paper directly — a 20% reduction is realistic.

This is a 10-minute change on the print queue settings, and there's no need for new software. Just do it.

2. Move from desktop printers to shared MFDs

Desktop printers are expensive per page, easy to forget about, and tend to have ageing toner cartridges that nobody monitors. Replacing a fleet of desktop printers with one or two shared multifunction devices (MFDs) on a per-page contract often cuts hardware running costs in half — even before factoring in the admin time saved. See our MFD vs printer guide for which fits where.

3. Implement print release ("follow me" printing)

Print release means jobs are held in a secure queue until the user authenticates at the device with a PIN or ID card. This kills "ghost prints" — documents people send and then never collect — which can account for 15–20% of all pages printed in offices without release. As a bonus, it improves data security: confidential documents don't sit in trays for anyone to see.

4. Use rules-based routing for large jobs

If someone tries to print a 200-page document on the £8,000-per-year per-page colour MFD, that's wasted money — a high-volume mono device would cost a fraction. Rules-based routing automatically diverts jobs above a certain size or type to the most cost-effective machine. It works in the background and users don't notice.

5. Switch to a managed print service

If you're managing toner orders, repairs and consumables yourself, you're almost certainly overpaying. A managed print service bundles toner, parts, labour and scheduled servicing into one cost-per-page figure. We benchmark the existing spend during the quote stage so the savings are visible upfront — typically 15–30% on total print spend, more once you factor in admin time.

6. Right-size your fleet

Walk around your office and count: how many printers and copiers do you actually have? In our experience, the number is often 30–50% higher than what's needed. Removing under-utilised devices is a one-off saving (no toner, no service, no replacement when they fail). Quarterly usage reports from a managed-print supplier make this easy to evidence.

7. Switch off "print preview" warnings — and start using them

Sounds counter-intuitive. The point is: train staff to use print preview before sending, especially for emails (which often print extra pages of footers and disclaimers nobody needs). A 30-second preview saves 1–2 pages on a typical office email. Multiply by 50 staff × 5 emails a day = 500 pages a day saved, just from one habit.

The compound effect

Done individually, none of these are revolutionary. Done together, a typical 30-person office sees 25–40% off its all-in print cost in the first quarter. The biggest wins come from changing defaults and switching to per-page billing — both of which are quick to do and pay back fast.

If you'd like a free benchmark of your current print spend versus what's achievable, we're happy to do that in a 20-minute call. Send us a recent toner invoice and a service contract and we'll show you the realistic savings.

W·A·Hutton have been supplying and managing print solutions across the North of England since 1925. To find out more, call us on 0161 822 0864 or get in touch here.