23+ years of photocopier sales experience
Cheap Photocopiers: Why the Cheapest Machine Can Become the Most Expensive
If you are searching for a cheap photocopier, don't judge the deal by the purchase price or monthly lease alone. Running costs, specification, maintenance, contract clauses, finance and reliability can easily outweigh the cost of the machine itself.
The first mistake: assuming a cheap photocopier is a cheap deal
After more than two decades selling printers and photocopiers, one thing has become very clear to me: purchase price is only one line in the real cost of a machine.
I understand why businesses start with price. If two quotations land on your desk and one machine is cheaper, that quotation naturally gets your attention. The problem is that a photocopier is not a product you buy and then stop paying for. It will consume toner, require maintenance, process thousands of pages, use parts and, in many cases, sit inside a three-, four- or five-year agreement.
A machine that saves you money on day one can therefore cost considerably more by year five. Conversely, a machine that costs a little more at the start can sometimes repay that difference many times over through a lower cost per print, better reliability or a specification that fits the job properly.
The question is not: “What is the cheapest photocopier?”
It is: “Which photocopier gives me the lowest sensible total cost for the job I actually need to do?”
This is total cost of ownership, often shortened to TCO. In practical terms, I want to know what the customer is likely to spend on the equipment, finance, service, toner and printing during the period they intend to keep the machine.
1. Ink, toner and maintenance can cost more than the photocopier
The running cost is one of the biggest reasons a supposedly cheap photocopier can become expensive. With enough volume, the amount you spend producing pages can exceed the original cost of the machine.
Smaller printers and photocopiers can have an attractive ticket price, but the consumables can be comparatively expensive. Larger business machines often cost more to acquire, yet may be designed around lower running costs because they are expected to process more pages.
That does not mean bigger is automatically better. If you only print a handful of pages, buying a departmental machine simply to obtain a lower cost per page may be pointless. The important thing is finding the crossover: at your actual volume, does the running-cost saving justify the additional machine cost?
A cheaper machine that was too small before it was even installed
Recently I looked at a competitor's proposal for one of my customers. They were considering a small, inexpensive machine and expected to produce roughly 5,000 colour A4 pages.
The first issue was not price. It was workload. The level we were assessing for that smaller device was around 2,500 total pages, including mono. The proposed machine simply did not give me enough confidence or headroom for what the customer intended to put through it.
I proposed a larger machine. It cost more to acquire, but the running cost was approximately half that of the smaller alternative. It also had substantially greater capacity.
So the customer was not choosing between a cheap machine and an expensive one. They were choosing between a cheaper purchase price with a higher ongoing cost and a more suitable machine that could cost less over the full period of use.
Why I built my own comparison calculator
This type of comparison involves a surprising amount of maths. Machine price, contract length, mono volume, colour volume, cost per copy, service charges and different equipment combinations all affect the answer.
Years ago I built my own calculator so I could compare multiple machines and scenarios quickly. I still use the same principle today: I would rather let the numbers tell me which option makes sense than decide which machine I want to sell first and try to justify it afterwards.
Having access to different manufacturers, different specifications and both new and used equipment makes that comparison even more useful. Sometimes the winner is a smaller new machine. Sometimes it is a larger machine. Sometimes a refurbished machine makes the most financial sense.
The answer should be driven by the customer's requirement and the total cost—not the salesperson's stock list.
2. Getting the right specification can save thousands
Specification is where a lot of money is either saved or wasted.
Some organisations buy a machine that is far more capable than they need. Others are sold equipment that is too small because it makes the quotation look cheaper. Both can be expensive mistakes.
Over-specification
Paying for speed, finishing, paper capacity, A3 printing or other facilities that your staff rarely or never use.
Under-specification
Installing a machine that struggles with volume, media, scanning or peak demand and creates reliability or productivity problems later.
A good specification starts with how the organisation actually works. I want to know how much is printed, but I also want to know how it is printed.
- Do you produce long print runs or lots of small jobs?
- How much colour do you use?
- Do you need A3?
- Do you print on thick, coated, recycled or unusual media?
- How much scanning do staff carry out?
- Do documents need stapling or booklet finishing?
- Do several people need the machine at the same time?
- Is there a particular time of day when demand peaks?
- What happens operationally if the machine is unavailable?
- Is the organisation likely to grow, consolidate devices or change workflow during the agreement?
The expensive stapler nobody knew they had
I once visited a company and watched a member of staff hand-stapling sets of documents.
The amusing part was that the photocopier standing next to them already had an expensive staple finisher fitted. The person who originally bought the equipment had left the company, and the remaining staff apparently had not been shown how to use it.
The business had paid for a feature that was sitting there doing nothing while employees manually performed the same task.
It is a simple example, but an important one: a feature only has value if your staff need it and know how to use it.
Sometimes spending more is the cost-saving decision
I have also increased a customer's proposed specification because the productivity saving justified it. If staff regularly create booklets, hand-staple large document packs, queue to scan, or spend a significant amount of time waiting for long print runs, the right additional feature may pay for itself in staff time.
Schools are a good example. Printing demand can be concentrated around particular periods of the day. A machine that looks perfectly adequate when you average the volume over an entire month may still be frustratingly slow when several members of staff all need it during a lunch period or free lesson.
Saving £10 a month is not a saving if you spend the next five years wishing you had bought the right machine.
3. Don't automatically replace like-for-like
If I had to choose one of the biggest decision-making mistakes I see, it would be blindly renewing what is already there.
A company has a 45-page-per-minute machine, so at renewal it buys another 45-page-per-minute machine. It has a staple finisher, so the replacement gets a staple finisher. There are seven printers, so the new proposal contains seven printers.
But why?
Your print environment may have changed enormously during the last five years. Staff may work from home. Documents may have moved online. Processes may now be scanned rather than copied. Departments may have grown, shrunk or moved. A feature that was essential five years ago may now be irrelevant.
A delivery company that no longer needed the big machine
I supplied a delivery company at a time when it produced large amounts of documentation connected with export and shipping. Its original requirements justified a substantial 45-page-per-minute A3 machine with finishing.
Years later the workflow had changed and the print volume had fallen significantly.
Rather than simply replacing the existing machine with another equivalent model, we reassessed what the customer was actually doing. A much smaller A4 machine was more than adequate for its current requirements.
That is the sort of saving that can be missed when a renewal begins with: “What have you already got?” instead of “What do you need now?”
Seven quotes. The same machine. Nobody had asked the right question.
I once visited an organisation in Birmingham that had obtained seven quotations. Their existing supplier quoted to replace a 60-page-per-minute photocopier.
The next supplier saw that quotation and offered essentially the same specification a little cheaper. The next did the same. By the time I arrived, seven quotations were fanned out across the desk and they were almost all trying to win by making the same machine cheaper.
I looked at the print volume and immediately knew that a 60-page-per-minute device was unnecessary for the amount being produced. That led me to ask more questions.
I discovered the marketing department had another colour printer. It was producing a lot of colour, suffering reliability problems and costing a significant amount in consumables.
Rather than discounting the same big machine again, I proposed two appropriately sized multifunction devices: one for the main area and another for marketing.
The result was better coverage, easier access to scanning, a new and more suitable device for marketing, substantially lower colour running costs and a much larger overall saving than the small monthly reductions the other quotations were fighting over.
I did not win the order. My proposal was shown to another supplier, who copied the concept and offered it slightly cheaper.
Frustrating? Absolutely. But it taught an important lesson that is still relevant today: the value of a good salesperson is not how cheaply they can quote the same box. It is whether they can see a better solution that everybody else missed.
4. A used photocopier can be a bargain—or completely wrong for the job
I sell new equipment and I sell used equipment. I have no interest in telling customers that one is always better.
A good quality used or refurbished photocopier can save a business thousands of pounds and sometimes allow it to buy a much more capable machine than its new-equipment budget would normally permit.
But that is only good advice when the customer understands what they are buying and the reliability risk is appropriate for the way the machine will be used.
Used can make excellent sense when…
downtime is manageable, there is another device available, printing is not time critical, the machine has a sensible history and meter count, and the saving buys meaningfully better capability.
New may be worth the premium when…
the device is operationally critical, documents are time sensitive, staff have no practical fallback, or downtime would affect customers, orders, legal deadlines or production.
Think about it like buying a car
If breaking down would cause you a serious problem, you may place a very high value on having something new, predictable and covered. If the car is mainly for occasional local journeys and you have easy alternatives, accepting a little more risk may save you a substantial amount of money.
Photocopiers are similar. If you are a legal firm producing documents for a deadline, a warehouse that must print picking documents, or an operation where the main machine being down stops a business-critical process, reliability has a real financial value. If you have several devices and can easily move a job elsewhere, the equation changes.
The oversized used machine that was exactly right
One customer needed to print labels for dog treats on a very thick, coarse, textured recycled stock. The choice of material was important to the company and its brand, but it was difficult for ordinary office equipment to handle.
Smaller machines could technically print it, but painfully slowly and with greater strain on parts. We tested different approaches, including other print technologies.
The solution was a much larger machine than the customer's monthly print volume would normally justify. It was engineered to handle heavier media far better and could process the customer's stock at full speed.
New, that level of machine would have been unnecessarily expensive. Used, with a relatively low meter count compared with the workload the machine was designed to handle, it made excellent sense.
It was technically “over-specified” for volume but correctly specified for the media. That distinction matters.
What I object to is not used equipment. It is undisclosed used equipment.
The “new” photocopier that looked about ten years old
Years ago I canvassed a business in Wolverhampton. They told me another supplier had already left a machine for them to try and, if they liked it, they intended to keep it.
I looked around and could not see a new photocopier. They pointed me towards an old-looking machine. I told them I did not believe it was new. From its appearance, it looked to me to be many years old.
I opened the side and the inside was heavily covered in dust, as though it had spent a considerable amount of time in storage.
The customer had understood that they were getting new equipment. Once they challenged the supplier, their confidence in the deal disappeared. I subsequently supplied them with a new machine.
The lesson is not “never buy used”. It is: if you are buying used, know that you are buying used and understand its age, meter, condition, history and support.
Questions I would ask before buying or renting a used photocopier
A used machine can represent excellent value, but I would want considerably more information than simply “it has been refurbished” or “it is an ex-showroom machine”. The age and meter reading are only part of the story.
- Is it genuinely new, used, refurbished, ex-demonstration or ex-showroom? Get the description in writing.
- How old is the individual machine? Do not rely only on the age of the model range.
- What is the current meter reading? Ask for the mono and colour meters where relevant.
- Has the meter ever been reset, replaced or “clocked”? If the meter does not tell the full history, I want to know why.
- Where has the machine previously been used? An office environment is very different from a warehouse, workshop or other harsh location.
- Has it been stored somewhere damp, dusty, dirty, excessively hot or cold? Previous environment can matter just as much as print count.
- What has actually been refurbished? Which parts have been inspected, serviced or replaced?
- How long will the manufacturer and supplier continue to support this model? Ask about parts, firmware, drivers, security updates and consumables.
- What happens if the machine becomes unreliable? Can the supplier replace it easily with another suitable machine, and on what terms?
- What warranty and service cover is included? Find out what happens if a major component fails.
- Can I buy the machine at the end of the rental? If ownership at the end matters to you, establish the position before signing rather than assuming.
- What would the equivalent new machine cost? A used machine is only a bargain if the saving justifies the additional age and risk.
- How serious would downtime be? Reliability should be matched to the commercial consequences of the machine being unavailable.
Get the answers that matter in writing.
Do not make a five-year commercial decision based only on something a salesperson tells you verbally. People can misunderstand, overstate or misrepresent what is being supplied. If a point is important to your decision, make sure the written agreement reflects it.
I would be very cautious about a five-year lease on a used photocopier
One of my strongest pieces of advice is not to look only at how old a used machine is on the day it arrives. Ask how old it will be at the end of your commitment.
If you take, for example, an already-used machine on a five-year lease, you could still be contractually paying for it when the equipment is seven years old or more. By then its condition may have deteriorated, support may be more limited and the chance of downtime may be higher.
That does not make used equipment a bad idea. It means the term needs to make sense for the age, condition and expected support life of the machine. I am quite happy to recommend used equipment when the circumstances are right, but I would not automatically put an older device into a long five-year commitment simply because the monthly rental looks attractive.
5. A cheap photocopier contract can become expensive after you sign
The equipment is only part of the deal. The contract can matter just as much.
Over the years I have learned never to rely solely on what a customer believes they are paying. I like to see the paperwork, the finance agreement, the maintenance contract and the invoices.
That is not because customers are careless. Photocopier agreements can contain several different cost elements, and charges can change during a long agreement.
I have lost count of the number of meetings where somebody has told me: “We pay X.” Then we go through the invoices and discover that X is only one part of what they are actually paying.
Knowing contract law is not the same as knowing the photocopier industry
I have even seen a solicitor get caught out by a photocopier contract. That is not because they could not understand contractual wording. The problem was that they did not have the industry knowledge to recognise the commercial significance of particular terms and how those terms could play out over the life of the agreement.
That distinction matters. A clause can be perfectly readable and legally clear, yet still have consequences that are easy to underestimate if you do not regularly deal with photocopier finance, maintenance, settlements, minimum billing, annual increases and equipment replacement.
So I would never assume that because somebody is commercially experienced—or even legally trained—they will automatically know which copier-industry questions to ask. The wording matters, but so does understanding how the industry uses that wording in practice.
My first page is often the customer's current situation
Before I present a replacement proposal, I like to reconstruct the existing position. What equipment is there? What are the lease payments? What service rates are being charged? What are the volumes? Are there additional monthly costs? Is there a settlement outstanding?
My proposal can then compare like with like rather than creating an artificial saving.
If your invoice says one thing but pages × cost per page says another, find out what is making up the difference.
Open-ended annual increases
Cost-per-copy increases are not unusual. Suppliers have rising costs too. The question is whether the contract gives you enough certainty about what those increases can become.
I have seen an agreement that allowed annual increases without clearly setting a maximum. Historically the increases had been relatively modest, so customers became accustomed to that. The wording, however, left the amount open.
A later annual increase of around 30% caused serious internal disagreement within the supplier itself. The important point for a buyer is not whether 30% is common—it isn't something I would describe as normal. The lesson is that an open-ended clause gives you less certainty about your future costs.
Illustration: what a 30% annual CPC increase does
The following is an illustration only, not a quoted Camelott rate or a statement of typical market pricing. It simply shows why the wording of an annual increase clause matters.
| Year | Illustrative CPC | 1,000 pages/month |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 4.00p | £480.00/year |
| Year 2 | 5.20p | £624.00/year |
| Year 3 | 6.76p | £811.20/year |
| Year 4 | 8.79p | £1,054.56/year |
| Year 5 | 11.42p | £1,370.93/year |
At a flat 4p, 60,000 pages over five years would cost £2,400. With the hypothetical 30% annual increase above, the same page volume would cost about £4,340.69—approximately £1,940.69 more.
Again, those figures are there to demonstrate the compounding effect, not to suggest that 30% increases are standard.
Before signing, ask one simple question: “What is the maximum this charge can increase by each year?”
6. Minimum billing: the cheap cost per copy that may not be cheap
Minimum billing is another area that deserves attention.
A contract can advertise a low cost per copy, but if you are committed to a minimum monthly charge or a minimum volume, the headline CPC may not represent your true effective cost when your usage falls.
COVID made this particularly obvious. Offices emptied and print volumes collapsed. Camelott did not use minimum billing on those agreements, so if customers were not printing they were not being charged a fictional volume by us.
I spoke to other organisations whose contracts worked differently. They were still receiving minimum charges even though very few people were in the office and very little was being printed.
Sometimes the invoice doesn't make the minimum obvious
This is why I physically calculate invoices.
If the customer tells me they pay a particular CPC, I multiply the recorded page volume by that rate and compare it with the invoice.
Sometimes the minimum charge is clearly identified. Sometimes the only way it becomes obvious is when the maths does not add up.
I have seen situations where the bill was several times what you might expect from the customer's actual print volume and quoted cost per page because of the minimum charge.
Don't only read the CPC. Do the multiplication.
8. The salesperson can cost you money—or save you a fortune
Salespeople get a bad name, and sometimes that reputation is deserved.
A salesperson can over-specify equipment because it creates a bigger sale. They can under-specify it to make their quotation look cheap. They can concentrate on a headline monthly payment while ignoring the running cost. They can fail to ask enough questions.
But the opposite is also true.
A good salesperson can be one of the most valuable parts of the transaction because they have seen hundreds or thousands of different print environments and can spot something that an occasional buyer will understandably miss.
A good salesperson should sometimes sell you less
The customer I told not to buy from me
I visited a business in Shrewsbury that was producing a significant amount of mono A4 output across several printers.
I could see how we could improve the environment in future, but they still had too much remaining on the existing finance and the machines were working satisfactorily. Their current cost per copy was also reasonable.
Replacing everything at that point would not have created enough genuine benefit to justify the cost.
So I told them to stay where they were and revisit the project closer to the end of the agreement.
That is sales too.
My job is not simply to put a new machine into every building I walk into. It is to help the customer make the right decision.
What I do before I recommend a machine
My first meeting is primarily about understanding.
I want the paperwork. I want the current invoices. I want to know the lease position and the service rates. Then I want to understand the physical environment.
I look at the machines. I talk to staff. I look at volumes, colour usage, scanning, paper types, long runs, finishing and peak periods.
Only after that do I start comparing equipment.
Often I then come back for a second meeting with a proposal that begins by showing the customer's current position, broken down clearly, followed by the alternative.
“Here is a better solution. Here are several reasons why it suits you better. And here is the money it can save.”
It is not always possible to improve all three things. Sometimes the best solution costs roughly the same but gives the customer far better equipment. Sometimes spending slightly more prevents years of frustration.
Five years is a long time to live with the wrong photocopier.
9. The photocopier price is not the same as the lease cost
Another area many buyers never see is the finance rate used to turn an equipment price into a monthly or quarterly lease payment.
Two suppliers could theoretically finance the same equipment value over the same term and still produce different rentals because the rate applied to the finance can differ.
I have worked in an environment where the lease rate was loaded at more than one level of the sales structure. By the time the rate reached the customer, the monthly cost made equipment difficult to price competitively even before discussing the actual machine margin.
That experience changed how I look at finance.
If you want to understand a lease quotation properly, don't only ask: “What is the monthly payment?”
Ask for enough information to understand what is underneath it:
- What is the equipment selling price?
- What amount is actually being financed?
- How many payments will I make?
- What is the total amount payable over the term?
- Is any settlement from existing equipment included?
- Are service and maintenance inside or outside the finance?
- What happens at the end of the lease?
A low monthly rental can still be a poor deal if it runs for longer, contains an old settlement or sits alongside expensive service charges.
10. Buy for the next few years—not just this month's meter reading
Right-sizing does not mean specifying a machine that is already at its limit on installation day.
If a device is comfortable at a particular workload and your organisation is already very close to that figure, I want to understand what happens if the company grows, another department starts using it or print is consolidated from another device.
Sensible headroom matters.
On the other hand, “future proofing” should not become an excuse for selling someone a production machine for an office that prints a few hundred pages.
The salesperson's judgement is finding the middle ground: enough capacity to remain reliable and useful without paying for capability the customer is unlikely to need.
11. My cheap photocopier quote checklist
If you are comparing cheap photocopier deals, this is the kind of information I would want before deciding which quotation is genuinely best.
- New or used? Get the equipment condition stated clearly.
- Correct workload? Make sure the device has sensible capacity for current and likely future volume.
- Correct paper handling? Check A3/A4, paper weight, special media, labels and envelopes.
- Correct workflow? Consider scanning, finishing, booklets, secure print and cloud/document systems.
- Peak demand? Average monthly volume does not show whether everyone prints at the same time.
- Mono and colour CPC? Calculate the running cost using your real print mix.
- Minimum billing? Check whether you will pay even when the machine is barely used.
- Annual increases? Ask whether increases are capped and how they are calculated.
- Additional monthly charges? Look for service, IT, software, scanning or administration costs.
- Consumables included? Understand toner, drums, parts, labour, call-outs and finishing consumables.
- Lease settlement? Find out whether money owed on old equipment is being rolled into the new deal.
- Finance term? Compare total amount payable, not only monthly rental.
- Reliability requirement? Decide what downtime would actually cost your organisation.
- Training? Expensive features save nothing if staff do not know they exist.
- Have your needs changed? Never assume the replacement should be identical to the current machine.
The cheapest quotation and the best-value quotation are often not the same piece of paper.
So what does “cheap photocopier” actually mean?
I don't dislike the word cheap.
Businesses should care about cost. Nobody should spend money unnecessarily.
What I dislike is reducing a complicated five-year business decision to one number at the top of a quotation.
A genuinely cheap photocopier could be a small new A4 machine because you barely print; a larger machine because your volume makes its lower running cost worthwhile; a refurbished departmental machine that gives you far more capability for the budget; a faster machine because staff time and peak-period productivity matter; a simpler machine because nobody uses the finisher or A3; or no new machine at all because changing now would cost more than staying where you are.
That is why I start with the customer rather than the catalogue.
After more than 23 years doing this, I still find that the biggest savings often appear when somebody asks one more question than the previous salesperson.
A good photocopier salesperson should not simply help you buy a machine.
They should help you avoid buying the wrong one.
Cheap photocopier FAQs
What is the cheapest type of photocopier for a small business?
For a genuinely low-volume office, a compact A4 multifunction printer or photocopier may be the lowest-cost option. However, the correct answer depends on volume, colour usage, scanning, paper handling and running cost. A low purchase price does not automatically produce the lowest total cost.
Is it cheaper to buy or lease a photocopier?
Neither route is universally cheaper. Buying gives you ownership and avoids a finance agreement, while leasing spreads the equipment cost over a fixed period. Compare the equipment price, finance cost, service agreement, expected running cost and how long you expect to use the machine.
Are used photocopiers worth buying?
They can be excellent value when the condition, age, meter reading and support are understood and the organisation can tolerate slightly more reliability risk. For a mission-critical print process where downtime is unacceptable, new equipment may justify the additional cost.
What is cost per copy on a photocopier?
Cost per copy, often called CPC or cost per click, is the amount charged for each mono or colour page under a service arrangement. Always check what the CPC includes and whether minimum billing, separate service charges or annual increases apply.
Why can a more expensive photocopier be cheaper overall?
A more capable machine can have lower toner or maintenance costs per page. If your print volume is high enough, those savings can exceed the additional equipment cost during the life of the machine. The calculation should use your actual mono and colour volumes.
How do I know if a photocopier quote is good value?
Check whether the machine suits your workload and workflows, confirm whether it is new or used, calculate the total running cost, identify minimum billing and annual increases, look for separate monthly charges and compare the total finance commitment rather than only the headline rental.
Before you sign a cheap photocopier deal, let somebody check the numbers
If you already have photocopier quotations, contracts or service invoices, Camelott can review the current position and help you understand what you are actually paying for.
We can look at the equipment, your print volumes, the contract, CPCs, settlement position and the way your staff actually use the devices before recommending whether it makes sense to buy, lease, rent, go refurbished—or simply keep what you already have for now.
Want us to review your photocopier costs?
Send Camelott your current quote or talk us through your print environment. We will help you compare the real cost and specification rather than judging the deal by the headline price alone.
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