How Copier Reps Use Minimum Page Counts to Fleece Your Bank Account

Copier companies get us to believe ridiculous lies. Here is one of the more pervasive myths: “We can print as much as we want; we don’t have to worry about minimum page counts or overages.”

However, the truth is much less pleasant to hear. A more accurate assessment behind this statement would be: “We don’t have any idea what the leasing company based our monthly bill on, but the contract covers as much copying as we’ll ever do..”

What Are All The Things Wrong With the Idea of Unlimited Page Counts?

There are three reasons you shouldn’t suspend your disbelief when a copier rep says you can produce unlimited prints every month and not worry about overages. 

The idea of unlimited prints is nonsense.

If you were averaging 1,000 prints a month and suddenly ramped up print production to 20,000 pages, the copier company would raise your rates immediately and considerably. Someone needs to pay for all the extra toner you just used.

The larger the contract a copier rep sells, the larger his commission check.

The copier rep most likely signed you up for a much larger monthly print plan than you would need. As a result, he padded his paycheck to sell you what you didn’t need.

Copier reps design their contracts to push all risk to the customer.

Signing a contract that allows a customer to produce unlimited prints would open the company to massive liability. They wouldn’t stay in business for much longer if they provided such offers. Copier reps write contracts so you, the customer, absorb all the risks and unknowns.

If You’re Not Getting Unlimited Page Counts, What Did You Sign Up For?

In this scenario, the copier rep found out how many average prints you produced each month and sold you a plan that included far more prints than you would ever use. Your copier rep sold you on the idea that you don’t want to worry about paying overages. To make sure you never pay these overages, the copier rep convinces you to sign up for a more expensive plan.

The problem is that once the month is over, and you have pages you didn’t use, those pages are gone forever. Those unused pages are free profits for the copier company.

If you signed up for a plan that “allows” you 7,500 prints per month, and you only use 5,000 of them, you just gave your copier company free profits of 2,500 prints worth of paper, toner, and service they didn’t have to provide.

How Do You Keep Yourself From Overpaying On Your Monthly Print Count?

Here is a counterintuitive strategy to reduce your monthly bill on print counts: make sure you DO pay for overages. Take a look at your average monthly print count, and sign up for a plan covering roughly 80% of that average print count.

When you sign up for a lower plan, you prevent the copier company from taking money from you for prints you never used. You may pay a small fee for overages every month. However, you pay far less every month, and you use every print you paid for.

Follow this one simple tip, and you will save yourself thousands of dollars over the life of your lease.

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