Office Photocopiers
The right office photocopier does more than print and copy. It takes work off your team, keeps jobs moving instead of queueing, and — once the running cost is predictable — stops print being a line in the budget nobody can explain.
Choosing one comes down to three questions. Answer these and the shortlist gets very short, very quickly.
Three questions that decide the machine
- How many prints and copies a month? This is the big one. Volume determines the engine size, and an undersized machine run hard is the single most common cause of breakdowns and disappointing running costs.
- How much floor space have you got? A desktop unit sits on a worktop. A fully-featured machine needs clearance on both sides for paper handling and servicing.
- What has to come out of it? Stapled sets, booklets, hole-punched handouts and A3 all change the specification.
The three formats
Desktop
Small A4 machines that sit on a cabinet or worktop. Speeds are still respectable — these are not home printers — but lower than a floor-standing unit. Available in mono or colour. The right answer for a small office, a branch, or a second machine on a busy floor.
Floor-standing
Multiple paper trays underneath, higher pages-per-minute, and A3 as standard. This is the workhorse most offices land on: enough capacity that nobody is topping up paper mid-job, and enough speed that a hundred-page run isn't a coffee break.
Fully-featured
The largest machines we stock, built for print rooms and high-volume departments. Booklet making, stapling, folding, hole punching and large-capacity trays. If you are currently sending work out to a print shop, this is usually the machine that brings it back in-house and pays for itself doing it.
What you get whichever you choose
Every machine we supply is current-generation, with a touchscreen that works the way a tablet does — which matters more than it sounds when the whole office has to use it without training. All of them print, copy and scan, and all of them report their own consumable levels back to us, so replacement toner arrives before you run out rather than after.
We supply on rental, lease or outright purchase, and we will tell you honestly which one makes sense for your situation rather than which one suits us.
Frequently asked questions
What size photocopier does my office need?
It is decided by monthly volume more than anything else. Under roughly 3,000 pages a month a desktop A4 machine is usually enough; between 3,000 and 20,000 a floor-standing A3 machine is the normal choice; above that, or where you need booklets and stapled sets, a fully-featured machine is the right call. Tell us your monthly volume and we will size it properly.
Should I lease, rent or buy an office photocopier?
Leasing spreads the cost and is the most common choice for an established business keeping a machine three to five years. Rental suits new businesses that cannot get finance yet, and anyone with a short-term or project-based need. Buying outright makes sense if you have the capital and intend to keep the machine long-term.
Do you supply office photocopiers outside Manchester?
Yes. Manchester and the surrounding North West is our core patch, where our engineers are based and where we commit to a three-hour response. We supply and service across a wider area too — ask us about your postcode and we will tell you straight what we can commit to.
Can one photocopier handle both colour and black and white?
Yes, and it should. Colour machines print mono as well, and on a cost-per-copy plan you are only charged the colour rate for pages that actually use colour. A mono-only machine is only worth it if you are certain you will never need colour.