Ask These 6 Questions Before You Deploy Your Next Printer (2026 Guide)

Printer deployment is a budget decision, a security decision, and a workflow decision

A printer feels like a small purchase. It is not. Once you add toner, paper, repairs, downtime, and the staff hours lost to print problems, the average employee work-related printing habit reaches roughly $725 per year, according to figures cited in industry analyses (verify against your own usage data). Multiply by your headcount and the number gets serious quickly.

The choice also shapes your security posture. Recent surveys suggest 67 percent of organizations faced a print-related breach in 2024, with only 36 percent applying firmware updates promptly. So a printer rollout is also a small cybersecurity project, not a furniture decision. We recommend you verify the latest figures from primary sources before quoting them in board meetings.

And the choice shapes daily workflow. Hybrid teams print from phones, tablets, home networks, and shared workspaces. A device picked for a 2018 office often cannot keep up. So Smart Technologies treats every new deployment in Daytona Beach, Orlando, and across Central Florida as a fresh assessment, not a like-for-like swap.

Will the printer need to connect to other branch locations or cloud apps?

Knowing connectivity requirements upfront saves painful changes later. Many Central Florida companies run multiple locations, a remote workforce, and a stack of cloud apps. The printer fleet has to fit all of it without becoming the weak link.

For multi-site offices, deploying printers with Group Policy is a clean way to push drivers and settings consistently. For something more flexible, a print management platform can pull every device into a single dashboard so IT does not have to chase each printer individually.

Connectivity features worth asking about

• Native AirPrint, Mopria, and mobile app printing
• Cloud print release (Universal Print, PaperCut Hive, similar)
• Direct scan to OneDrive, SharePoint, Google Drive, and Dropbox
• Pull printing across locations with a single login
• SNMPv3 monitoring for fleet management
• Optional fax over IP for compliance-heavy industries

If your team is split across Volusia, Flagler, and the Orlando metro, this question matters more than people expect. A printer locked to a single VLAN becomes a forever ticket.

How big will the workforce be, and how much will they really print?

A commonly cited benchmark suggests one printer per 4.4 employees. We have seen the figure repeated across industry blogs, and it is a useful starting estimate. Treat it as a rough planning number rather than a hard rule, and verify against your own volume data.

Then look at the actual print volume per person. Knowledge worker counts are very different from claims teams running insurance documents. A property management firm printing leases and inspection reports needs more device capacity than a SaaS shop printing the occasional one-pager.

Sizing your fleet for real volume

• Light office (under 500 pages per user per month): smaller MFPs are fine, but plan for a backup
• Moderate office (500 to 2,000 pages per user per month): mid-range A4 or A3 color MFP per cluster
• Heavy print (2,000+ pages per user per month): A3 production-class MFP, possibly paired with secondary mono workhorses
• Mixed workflows: combine a central production device with smaller desktops at each pod

And size for the worst week, not the best one. Tax season, open enrollment, end-of-quarter, and back-to-school spikes all break under-sized fleets.

Is there an opportunity to make the office better, not just functional?

A new location is the cleanest moment to fix the frustrations from the old office. Maybe it is the constant toner runs. Perhaps print jobs sit on the tray for hours. Or there is no real scan-to-folder workflow.

So treat the rollout as a chance to upgrade. A few common improvements:

• Move to a true managed print services agreement so toner shows up before you run out
• Layer on secure print release so confidential documents do not sit out in the open
• Add scan-to-cloud workflows so paper does not pile up on desks
• Bring in a document management system to digitize HR, AP, contracts, and customer files
• Set print quotas or rules so casual color printing stops eating budget
• Build a simple offboarding step that wipes a departing employee’s print credentials

And do not skip cybersecurity. Modern multifunction devices store data, run a small operating system, and sit on your network. Treat them like the endpoints they are. Smart Technologies layers our Managed IT and Managed Print teams so the printer fleet inherits the same patching cadence and security policies as the rest of your environment.

Six ways our Central Florida team makes a printer rollout less painful

What Central Florida businesses get wrong about printer deployments

We are based in Daytona Beach, and our team has been deploying office technology across Florida since 1999. So we have seen the local patterns.

Humidity matters more than people expect. Devices sitting near the door of a coastal office or in a back room without strong climate control pull moisture into paper trays. Sheets cling. Jams climb. We often recommend a small dehumidifier and a covered intake tray for offices anywhere east of I-95.

Hurricane season also shapes the plan. A printer losing power mid-job during a tropical storm, and then coming back on an unstable line, can corrupt firmware. So a basic surge protector and a small UPS are not optional in Volusia, Flagler, or Brevard. We bundle this into our standard deployment checklist.

Multi-site businesses across the Orlando metro should also think about central monitoring. With offices in Lake Mary, Winter Park, and Daytona, you do not want three different IT teams managing toner separately. A single MPS dashboard usually solves it.