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Investing in office equipment means many decisions and a lot of research. But before you can find the perfect printer for your office, you need to know exactly what your office needs. One aspect of print needs that is essential to know to make sure you get the right MFP for your workplace is print speed. But how can you figure out which printer is fast enough for your office needs.
Determine your monthly output
The speed of your office printer should be based on the numbers of copies and prints your office does each month. How do you determine your output volume?
To begin, review your bills for your service agreement and any out-of-house printing you do. These will give you a good idea of your current print usage. You can also check your copier’s meter for numbers. Some companies have a network management utility that give you a full rundown of all the prints, copies, faxes and scans send from your office network to your MFP. Dealers also use devices to audit your volume, but they can sometime miss devices like small all-in-one printers and standalone fax machines.
Which printer is right for you?
If you invest in a printer that can’t handle your print needs, you’ll burn through printers and money faster than any office can afford. MFP manufacturers provide literature that will give you an idea of how many pages per month their devices can handle. To get the most out of your printer and keep it running optimally for as long as possible, consider these monthly volume numbers in comparison to print speed (pages per minute):
Pages per Minute (ppm) |
Optimum Monthly Volume |
| Up to 20 ppm | 3,600 |
| 21 – 30 ppm | 9,000 |
| 31 – 40 ppm | 17,000 |
| 41 – 49 ppm | 26,500 |
| 50 – 59 ppm | 37,250 |
| 60 – 69 ppm | 55,000 |
| 70 – 79 ppm | 82,000 |
| 80 – 89 ppm | 135,000 |
| 90 – 99 ppm | 175,000 |
Still not sure?
Think of it this way: if almost everything you print is one or two pages in length, you likely aren’t printing high volumes and speed isn’t nearly as important as if you were printing a lot of longer documents. Also, remember that claimed speeds for inkjet printers and claimed speeds for laser printers is like comparing apples to oranges. Just know that as a rule, laser printers are much closer to their claimed speeds when it comes to text documents, despite the fact that inkjets will often claim faster speeds than lasers — they just won’t live up to their claims.
Of course, if you are still completely in the dark when it comes to your office needs, call in the pros. At BrockOA, we have more than 20 years of experience solving office equipment dilemmas and we’ve pretty much heard it all. Let’s sit down and chat about how you are currently using your printer and figure out what your print speed needs are. Once we’ve got that figured out, we’ll know exactly what your office needs to make your business life better.
