If you have had the experience of sourcing and managing office technology like copiers and printers, you've likely explored various options for service agreements. One of the many popular options is a cost-per-click model - pay only for what your company uses. On the surface, this seems like a no-brainer, but in reality, this model for service pricing has some serious drawbacks versus base service pricing.
Base service pricing fosters a proactive approach to maintenance, steering away from the reactive "break-fix" model. Instead of waiting for copiers to malfunction before taking action, preventive maintenance becomes the norm. Regular check-ups and maintenance ensure ongoing reliable performance, minimizing disruptions to your workflow. With base service pricing, you're investing in the continuous health of your equipment, rather than simply reacting to issues as they arise.
By coupling base service rates with a pool of clicks (1 click = the cost of a single imprint), companies can enjoy enhanced flexibility and cost predictability. Click sharing between devices becomes an option, removing the variation between the operational cost of each device. We've encountered situations in which a company has more than 20 different click rates depending on the age of the device and the model. Companies can see big fluctuations in expenses from one month to the next. These fluctuations can be especially significant in industries like Education that are seasonal.
Overall, building service bases into your agreement provides a greater opportunity for simplified billing. This helps finance teams with expense management and it REALLY helps AP teams when it comes to paying invoices. The more complicated the billing structure, the more likely a company is to incur late fees as well as spend far too much time managing that payment process. On some level, it can also be just frustrating.
One thing to monitor with base billing is overages. Overages are secondary bills that are incurred when your operation goes over its allotted amount of clicks in a given billing cycle. Many clients see this as a negative, but a paying a little bit of overage is a good thing. Paying some overages ensures that your allowances are not set too high for your group and you are not paying for a ton of unused clicks. There are companies that do prefer to set their base allowance higher than their average usage to avoid a secondary invoice.
Base billing is a component of a wider strategy, Print Standardization, which helps companies streamline their print strategy and improve system performance. A cornerstone of Print Standardization is reducing the variation in printer / MFP models while ensuring that office team have all the features they need to perform their job.
To delve deeper into the concept of Print Standardization and its transformative impact on printer fleet management, check out our article here. I hope this article helps you to understand the differences between base service pricing and a pay-per-click agreement. If you have questions or would like to speak with our team about options for your business, reach out to our team.