How tiered toner billing can help legal firms lower printing costs
TA Triumph-Adler explains how a tiered toner billing model works, why it matters to legal practices and how it fits into a broader approach for cost control and operational efficiency
Legal firms manage document-heavy work every day, which means print and toner costs can easily stack up. Yet the way many suppliers charge for toner hasn’t evolved much: you pay for colour output regardless of how much toner is actually used.
At TA Triumph-Adler, we believe there’s a fairer, smarter way. Our innovative tiered billing model adjusts toner charges based on actual usage (how much colour is used on the page).
How tiered billing works
Traditional billing assumes that any use of colour means ‘full-page colour’, even if the page is mostly black text with just a small logo. That means many pages are charged at a rate that overstates the real toner use.
With tiered billing:
- Mono is still charged as normal at the lowest rate
- Pages with up to 5.1% colour coverage are Level 1
- Pages with moderate coverage between 5.2 and 20% are Level 2
- High colour pages 20.1% and over are Level 3
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Usage is tracked automatically via both the device and our fleet-management software.
Why legal firms specifically benefit
Tiered billing isn’t just a gimmick; it aligns with how legal businesses print. Many pages are primarily text, and might have case-file headers or subtle colour logos. Few are fully colour-intensive.
Analysis of our customer base shows that 79.5% of printing in the legal industry is Level 1, compared to an average of 58.9% across all industries.
By linking costs to actual toner usage, tiered billing provides clearer visibility of print spend, making it easier to understand where budgets are going and how print behaviour impacts costs. Over time, those insights may even inform internal policies or create opportunities to pass savings on to clients.
It’s a small and simple change with meaningful financial and operational effects.
How it fits into a broader cost-control framework
Tiered billing works best when it’s part of a complete managed print strategy. Think of it as one tool among many in your cost-management toolkit. Other tools to consider include:
- Automation and workflow solutions to decrease unnecessary prints, duplicates, or file clutter
- Fleet monitoring and analytics to see which devices consume the most toner and optimise their placement or usage
- Document policies to encourage duplex printing, remove default colour settings and enforce review before printing
- Predictive consumables ordering and maintenance to avoid last minute toner orders or downtime
All of these things are possible with TA Triumph-Adler’s managed print solutions.
Real-world impact
We’ve seen businesses make substantial savings per year simply by moving to tiered billing, without changing daily print habits.
Technology isn’t just about doing things faster; it’s about doing them smarter. At TA Triumph-Adler, we don’t push gimmicks. We build practical systems that adapt to how you actually work — and tiered billing is an example of this. It is a modest innovation, but it has disproportionate impact in a document-intensive industry like legal services.
