What Is a Managed Print Service and How Does It Work?

If you have heard the term managed print service but are not entirely sure what it means, you are not alone. It is one of those business terms that gets used constantly without anyone stopping to explain it properly.

This guide covers everything you need to know: what a managed print service actually is, what it includes, how much it costs, and why thousands of UK businesses are switching from managing their own printers to working with an MPS provider.

We will also go beyond the basics and look at the areas that make the biggest difference: energy savings, print management software, device optimisation, mobile printing, security, employee productivity and sustainability. Because a managed print service is not just about photocopiers. Done properly, it touches almost every part of how your business operates.

The Simple Explanation

A managed print service, commonly shortened to MPS, is when a specialist provider takes full responsibility for your office printing. Instead of your team buying printers, ordering toner, booking engineers and trying to keep track of what everything costs, your MPS provider handles all of it.

You pay a single, predictable monthly fee that covers the equipment, supplies, maintenance and support. Think of it like a mobile phone contract but for your entire print environment. One bill, one point of contact, no surprises.

Most businesses find that once they move to MPS, their total printing costs fall significantly, typically by 20 to 40 percent, because waste is eliminated, equipment is right-sized and costs are made visible for the first time.

What Does a Managed Print Service Include?

Every provider structures their offering slightly differently, but a comprehensive managed print service from a quality provider like XOS will typically include:

• A thorough print audit at the start to understand exactly how your business currently prints, where money is being wasted and what the right solution looks like

• The right devices for your needs, whether that is one multifunction device or a fleet across multiple sites

• Automatic toner and consumable delivery so you never run out unexpectedly

• Remote monitoring that spots problems before they cause downtime

• Regular maintenance and servicing to keep everything running at full performance

• A dedicated support line so help is always available when you need it

• Print management software to give you control over who prints what, when and how

• Detailed usage reports so you can see exactly where your print budget is going

• Ongoing reviews to ensure your setup continues to match your business as it grows and changes

How Print Management Software Reduces Waste

One of the most powerful tools in a managed print service is print management software. Solutions like PaperCut, Printix and Xerox Workplace Solutions sit between your users and your printers, giving you a level of control that most businesses simply do not have today.

Without print management software, printing in most offices is essentially uncontrolled. Anyone can print anything, in colour, on both sides or single-sided, in any quantity. The result is enormous waste. Industry research suggests that up to 30 percent of all print jobs are never collected from the printer tray.

Print management software addresses this in several ways:

• Secure print release: jobs only print when the user authenticates at the machine, eliminating abandoned prints entirely

• Default settings: automatically defaulting to black and white and duplex (double-sided) unless colour or single-sided is specifically requested

• Print quotas: setting limits on how much individual users or departments can print each month

• Cost allocation: charging print costs back to individual departments, making waste visible and encouraging more responsible printing

• Follow-me printing: allowing users to send a job to a shared queue and collect it from whichever device is most convenient

• Detailed reporting: showing exactly who is printing what, allowing managers to identify and address high-cost behaviour

Businesses that implement print management software as part of their MPS typically see an immediate reduction in print volumes of 10 to 20 percent, simply by making people aware of what they are printing and giving them the tools to be more selective.

Device Optimisation: The Right Equipment in the Right Place

One of the most common findings from a print audit is that businesses are running more devices than they need, in the wrong locations, of the wrong types. It is extremely common to find offices with several desktop printers on individual desks, each used infrequently, when a single well-placed multifunction device would serve the entire floor more efficiently.

Device optimisation, which is a core part of any good managed print service, involves analysing your current print environment and recommending the right number of devices, of the right type, positioned in the right locations. This typically means:

• Replacing multiple small desktop printers with fewer, higher-capacity shared devices

• Matching device capabilities to actual usage, as not every team needs an A3 colour printer

• Positioning devices to minimise walking time while maximising shared use

• Ensuring devices have the right features for each team, such as scanning, stapling or booklet making where required

• Introducing A3 production devices only where there is genuine need, avoiding expensive overspecification

The result is a leaner, more efficient fleet that costs less to run, is easier to manage and delivers a better experience for the people using it every day.

Energy Savings: The Cost Nobody Talks About

When businesses calculate their print costs, they almost always focus on toner and paper. Very few include the cost of electricity, and yet printers and photocopiers are among the most energy-hungry devices in a typical office.

Older desktop printers in particular are highly inefficient. They consume significant power even in standby mode, they take a long time to warm up and they are not designed with energy efficiency in mind. When you have dozens of these devices spread across an office, the cumulative energy cost is considerable.

Modern MPS devices are designed to a much higher energy efficiency standard. They include features such as:

• Advanced sleep modes that significantly reduce power consumption during quiet periods

• Fast warm-up times, so devices do not need to stay on and ready all day

• Automatic power-down when not in use

• Energy Star certification, confirming compliance with internationally recognised efficiency standards

• Consolidation benefits: replacing ten old desktop printers with two modern shared devices dramatically reduces total energy consumption

For businesses with rising energy costs, this is not a trivial saving. Some organisations report reductions in print-related energy consumption of 30 percent or more after moving to a managed print service with a consolidated, modern device fleet.

Mobile and Remote Printing: Supporting the Modern Workforce

The way people work has changed. Hybrid working is now standard across most sectors, and businesses need their print infrastructure to keep up. A managed print service includes mobile and remote printing capability as standard, meaning your team can print from wherever they are.

With solutions like Printix and Xerox Workplace Solutions built into your MPS, users can:

• Print from a laptop, tablet or smartphone without needing to install drivers

• Send print jobs remotely and collect them securely when they arrive at the office

• Access the same secure print release system from any office location, not just their usual desk

• Print via cloud platforms including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace

• Work seamlessly across multiple office sites using a single unified print environment

Removing the friction around printing, including no more asking IT to install drivers and no more devices that only work on specific computers, has a measurable positive effect on productivity, particularly for businesses with field-based or hybrid teams.

Print Security: The Risk Most Businesses Are Ignoring

Office printers are one of the most commonly overlooked security risks in UK businesses. Most organisations invest heavily in firewalls, email filtering and endpoint protection, and then leave their printers almost entirely unprotected.

Modern multifunction printers are networked computers. They store data on internal hard drives, they process sensitive documents and they sit on the same network as your servers and laptops. If they are not properly secured, they represent a genuine vulnerability.

A managed print service addresses print security in a structured way, including:

• Secure print release: documents only print when the authorised user authenticates at the machine using a PIN, swipe card or mobile app, preventing sensitive documents from sitting in the output tray

• Data encryption: all data transmitted to and from your printers is encrypted to prevent interception

• Hard drive security: automatic overwriting of stored data on device hard drives

• Firmware management: keeping device firmware up to date to close known security vulnerabilities

• Network access controls: ensuring printers are properly segmented on your network

• Audit trails: full logs of who printed what and when, supporting GDPR compliance

• User authentication: integrating with your existing Active Directory or Microsoft 365 user accounts

For businesses handling sensitive client information, whether you are a law firm, an accountancy practice, a healthcare provider or any other regulated sector, print security is not optional. A good MPS provider will make sure it is built in from day one.

Employee Productivity: Small Frustrations, Big Costs

It is easy to underestimate the productivity cost of a poorly managed print environment. But consider how much time your team spends each week dealing with printer problems. Waiting for a machine that is out of toner. Restarting a print job that failed halfway through. Walking to the wrong printer to collect a document. Calling IT because a driver has stopped working.

Individually, these incidents seem minor. Collectively, across a whole office and a full working year, they represent a significant amount of lost time that should be spent on productive work.

A managed print service removes most of these friction points. Devices are proactively monitored so problems are often fixed before users even notice them. Toner is automatically replenished before it runs out. Follow-me printing means users can collect their job from any available device. And because maintenance is handled by your MPS provider, your IT team is freed from print-related support calls entirely.

The cumulative effect on productivity is real and measurable. Some businesses report saving several hours per employee per month once their print environment is properly managed.

Sustainability: Printing Less, Printing Better

Sustainability is increasingly central to how UK businesses operate. If your organisation has environmental commitments, whether formal targets or a general ambition to reduce your footprint, a managed print service directly supports them.

The environmental impact of office printing is substantial. Paper production is resource-intensive. Toner cartridges contain plastics and chemicals. Old printers consume far more energy than they should. And abandoned print jobs that nobody ever collects represent pure, avoidable waste.

An MPS tackles each of these through a combination of technology, policy and behavioural change:

• Secure print release eliminates abandoned jobs, directly reducing paper and toner waste

• Default duplex printing cuts paper consumption by up to 50 percent

• Print reduction through awareness and quotas lowers total print volume year on year

• Modern energy-efficient devices significantly reduce electricity consumption

• Toner cartridge recycling schemes ensure used cartridges are returned and processed responsibly

• Usage reports allow sustainability managers to track and report on print-related environmental metrics

• Digital workflow integration, including scan-to-email and scan-to-cloud, supports the reduction of paper-based processes altogether

For businesses reporting against ESG frameworks or working towards net zero commitments, the data generated by a managed print service also provides the evidence you need to demonstrate progress over time.

Scanning and Digital Workflows: Beyond Just Printing

Modern multifunction devices do far more than print. As part of a managed print service, your devices become the starting point for intelligent digital workflows that can genuinely transform how your business handles documents.

With the right configuration, your MPS devices can scan directly to email, shared drives, cloud storage platforms like SharePoint and OneDrive, or dedicated document management systems. Scanned documents can be automatically named, filed and indexed, removing the manual effort of document processing.

For businesses that still rely heavily on paper-based processes such as invoices, client correspondence and compliance documents, this capability can represent a significant step towards a more efficient, more digital way of working.

Who Is a Managed Print Service Right For?

Managed print services are not just for large corporations. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses often benefit the most, because they are the ones most likely to be overspending on printing without realising it, and the ones least likely to have dedicated in-house resource to manage their print environment.

MPS is particularly well-suited to:

• Businesses with two or more printers or photocopiers

• Organisations spending more than a few hundred pounds per month on printing

• Businesses without a dedicated IT team to manage print infrastructure

• Companies with multiple sites that need a consistent, centrally managed print environment

• Organisations in regulated sectors where document security and audit trails are important

• Businesses with hybrid or remote workers who need flexible printing capability

• Any organisation with sustainability commitments that include reducing paper and energy consumption

How Much Does a Managed Print Service Cost?

This is the question every business asks, and the honest answer is that it depends on your setup. A small office with one or two devices might pay between 50 and 150 pounds per month. A larger organisation with multiple sites and a significant print volume could pay considerably more, but will almost always find that the total MPS cost is lower than what they were spending before.

The key point is that MPS costs are visible, predictable and inclusive. You are not separately buying equipment, ordering toner in an emergency, calling out engineers or absorbing the hidden cost of staff time spent managing print problems. All of that is covered.

The best way to understand what MPS would cost for your business, and what it could save, is to start with a free print audit. At XOS, we will assess your current environment, calculate your true current spend and show you a clear comparison before you make any commitment.

Frequently Asked Questions About Managed Print Services

How long does it take to set up a managed print service?

For most small and medium-sized businesses, the transition to a managed print service takes two to four weeks from the initial audit to full deployment. Your MPS provider handles the installation, configuration and training, so disruption to your team is minimal.

Can I keep my existing printers?

In some cases, yes. If your existing devices are modern enough to support the monitoring, management and security requirements of a good MPS, they can be incorporated. In most cases, however, an audit will identify that older devices are costing more to run than newer alternatives and a partial or full fleet refresh will deliver better value.

What happens if a printer breaks down?

With a managed print service, breakdowns are your provider's problem, not yours. Proactive monitoring often means issues are identified and resolved before you even notice them. When on-site intervention is needed, your MPS provider's engineers attend and resolve the problem, typically within a guaranteed response time.

Is a managed print service suitable for home or hybrid workers?

Yes. Modern MPS solutions include cloud-based print management that works across multiple locations. Hybrid and remote workers can send print jobs securely and collect them when they are in the office, or print to approved home devices where needed.

How does a managed print service help with GDPR compliance?

A managed print service supports GDPR compliance in several important ways. Secure print release ensures documents are only collected by authorised individuals. Audit trails provide a record of who printed what. Data encryption protects documents in transit. And hard drive security ensures no sensitive data is left stored on device hard drives.

Why Choose XOS for Your Managed Print Service?

XOS has been delivering managed print services to businesses across the whole of the UK and in some cases Europe and further afield since 2007. As an authorised Xerox partner, we provide enterprise quality technology with local, personal service.

We do not have a one size fits all approach. Every business we work with starts with a thorough print audit so we understand exactly what you need before we recommend anything. We explain everything in plain English, we are transparent about costs and we will never sign you up to a contract before you have seen the numbers for yourself.

Our local engineers mean fast response times when you need support, and our ongoing account management means your print environment is always optimised as your business evolves.

To find out what a managed print service could save your business, book your free print audit today at xosuk.co.uk or call us directly. There is no cost and no obligation. You will get a clear picture of where your print budget is going and what you could do with it instead.