Printing is the smallest part of what printing costs. Industry research puts the price per page at around 20% of the total — the other 80% sits in the process around it: the people, the proofing, the storage and the waste.
Where the money goes
| Cost | What it covers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Printing cost | Cost per page | 20% |
| Process cost | Employee time, document prep and proof, fulfillment and distribution, warehousing and inventory management, unused documents, equipment and maintenance | 80% |
For every $1.00 spent on print, another $3.00 or more is spent on the process and the services around it. Warehousing, storage and inventory management alone add 19% to the total, and between 10% and 20% of business documents are discarded without ever being used. Mimeo clients report an average time saving of 40% against their previous methods of print procurement.
Where the 80% hides
Each part of that process cost behaves differently when print is produced on demand and shipped direct.
| Where the cost hides | What changes with Mimeo |
|---|---|
| Employee time | Employees are the single biggest cost of running a business. Every hour spent chasing a print job or walking a file to the print room is an hour not spent on work that moves the business forward. Handing production over gives that time back without adding headcount. |
| Document prep and proofing | Upload, build, proof, order and reorder online in under five minutes. No back-and-forth with a local print shop, no proofing the same file twice, and no waiting for an internal print room to free up. |
| Warehousing and inventory | Storage and inventory management add 19% to the total cost of print. Producing on demand and shipping straight to the destination removes most of the reason to hold printed stock, along with the space and the stock checks that come with it. |
| Equipment and maintenance | Nothing to buy or lease, no inventory to pre-print, and nothing sitting idle between runs. There are no minimum volumes, cutoff times are late in the day, and reordering takes minutes rather than a new round of quotes. |
| Unused documents | Between 10% and 20% of business documents are discarded without ever being used. Ordering only what is needed, when it is needed, removes that waste and keeps content current, because nothing sits in a cupboard going out of date. |
| Fulfillment and distribution | Content is created so that someone reads it. Mimeo handles not only production but the logistics of getting materials to the right place at the right time, across the United States and internationally, with tracking the whole way. |
Figures from InfoTrends, True Cost of Business Communications, and Cap Ventures. Download the full PDF.
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