How to shortlist a managed print service provider
- 5.0 on Google from 150+ reviews
- Trading since 2010
Managed print service providers in Australia fall into 4 types, and they are not interchangeable.
- Ten questions, no email required, nothing gated
- Includes our own answers to the two hardest of them
- Operated by Global Document Solutions
Every MPS provider on your list will describe the same printer fleet in different words.
Ten questions separate a provider who will run your fleet from one who wants to sell you hardware.
Tick them off below against each name on your list.
Written for the person who has been handed the job of comparing suppliers across five or more offices.
There is no obvious way to tell them apart.
Check their numbers against the market
Put us through the same ten
- 5.0 Google rating, from 150+ five star reviews
- Since 2010 Australian owned and Queensland based
- 500+ Australian businesses on an agreement with us
- Next day A technician on site the next business day
Trading year and client count: published by Global Document Solutions, who operate this service, and read from their site on 5 September 2026.
Rating and review count: from the Google Business Profile for Global Document Solutions, read the same day.
Next business day attendance: a commitment we make, not a measured result.
Ask who employs the technician who will attend each of your addresses.
Not who holds the contract.
Who employs the person.
Ask it in these words.
“At each of our addresses, is the technician who attends employed by you or by a firm you contract?”
Almost every national supplier attends through somebody other than their own staff somewhere.
The ones worth shortlisting will tell you where without being pushed.
Last updated 5 September 2026.
What are the different types of managed print companies
Every name on your shortlist is one of these 4.
Knowing which of the 4 you are talking to explains most of what they say next, and it is rarely stated on their website.
| Type | Good at | The built in conflict |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer, direct | Deep knowledge of one brand, strong finance, national account handling | Every answer ends in their own hardware, whatever your fleet is now |
| Authorised dealer | Technicians within reach, faster escalation, a real person who knows your sites | Tied to one or two brands, and coverage stops at their territory |
| IT managed service provider | Print folded into an existing IT contract, one supplier for everything | Print is a side line, and the technician is usually subcontracted anyway |
| Independent print operator | Brand agnostic, will fold in the machines you already own | Smaller balance sheet, and coverage outside the home state is contracted |
We are the fourth kind, so read that last row as a description of us.
Every state we work in, the home one included, is served by our sister service company rather than by vans of our own.
That is the limitation the row describes.
Put us on the shortlist and ask us the same ten
You get all ten answered in writing, including the two above.
What should you ask a managed print provider before signing
Ten questions.
Tick each one your shortlist can already answer without going away to check.
The score at the bottom tells you how much is still unknown.
Fleet management, print security and reporting analytics all sit behind those ten answers.
Tick what your shortlist can already answer
0 of 10
From $160 + GST a month per device.
Volume is pooled across every site, so a larger fleet prices into a lower band.
Paper, staples and pages above your agreed volume sit outside that figure.
How do you tell the best managed print services from the rest
Not by the quality of the answers.
By which of the 10 make the room go quiet.
Three of them do it more than the rest, and 1 of those 3 is genuinely serious.
- Question 1
-
Why does a pause on who employs the technician matter
This is the most common pause and the least serious one.
Nearly every supplier subcontracts somewhere, so a pause here means unprepared rather than dishonest.
Across 8 sites in 4 states, expect at least 2 different contracted firms behind any national supplier.
That is normal.
What is not normal is being unable to name them a day later.
What matters is what follows the pause.
A supplier who comes back within a day naming who attends each address is fine.
A supplier who comes back with a map is not answering the question.
- Question 6
-
A pause on the early exit figure
This one is serious.
Most Australian equipment agreements run three to five years.
The exit cost is the largest number in the contract that nobody quotes.
If it cannot be given as a formula in the meeting, ask for it in writing before the next one.
A supplier who will not put it on paper is telling you what they expect you to want to do.
On a 5 year term signed across 8 sites, the exit figure is routinely the largest single number in the agreement.
It is the only one that never appears in the proposal deck.
- Question 7
-
What does a vague answer on overage tell you
The published Australian bundled range is 1.2 to 3.5 cents a mono page, according to the CopierChoice benchmark.
That is the rate inside your committed band.
Above the band it is whatever the contract says, and on a fleet that grows it is where the invoice quietly stops matching the quote.
Get the number and get where the band starts.
Proactive monitoring is what keeps toner and consumables ahead of the print volumes rather than behind them.
A committed band set too high is the other half of it, and suppliers rarely raise that half.
Unused committed pages are not refunded on most agreements, so a shrinking fleet keeps paying for pages it no longer prints.
Ask what happens in writing if the fleet drops 20 per cent in year 2.
An answer that only covers growth has answered half the question.
- Any question
-
An answer that arrives as a saving percentage
A supplier who responds to a direct question with a figure like thirty per cent off your current spend has not seen your current spend.
Ask what it is a percentage of.
Printing costs vary too widely between organisations for a figure offered before an audit.
The question is usually enough on its own.
The CopierChoice Australia Printer and Copier Cost Benchmark Report 2025 publishes ranges rather than fixed prices.
That is precisely because the spread between 2 organisations of the same size is wide.
A single saving figure offered before a meter read is arithmetic performed on nothing.
Our own answers to the two hardest questions
Two of the ten have answers a supplier will usually talk around.
Here are ours, in writing, before you ask.
Who actually attends your sites, question 1
The person who attends is employed by our sister service company.
That is true at every address, in every state, this one included.
We dispatch them, we manage the ticket and we pay the invoice.
A single point of contact across every address is what that arrangement is worth.
One company covers every address, so the standard does not change between your sites.
One service company against every address is the part you can hold a supplier to.
Put the same question to every provider on your list.
A supplier who cannot say plainly who attends is usually forwarding the job to whoever is free.
That is the arrangement that produces a different standard at every one of your addresses.
How managed print writes the dispatch chain into a contract is the longer version of that answer.
Question 10, the proof we do and do not publish
Four figures appear on this site, and all four belong to Global Document Solutions.
The Google rating, the review count, the trading year and the client count.
Each is labelled as theirs and dated where it appears.
No uptime figure, no fix time figure and no named client, because none of those is published.
A claim without its evidence is just a nicer looking guess.
The about page sets out the same position at length, and it is in the footer of every page here.
Ask each provider on your list which of their published figures they can show the working for.
Ask the same of any sustainability or environmental impact claim beside them.
A 99 per cent uptime claim with no measurement period fails that test most often.
On the same benchmark, two organisations of the same size sit far apart.
It is wide enough that a single saving figure cannot be honest before a meter read.
What buyers ask before they shortlist anyone
What should you ask a managed print provider before signing?
Ten questions matter more than the rate.
Who employs the technician at each address.
Whether the attendance commitment varies by location.
Whether they will quote before seeing twelve months of meter reads.
Whether the per page rate includes the device.
What happens on the day a site moves, closes or opens.
What early exit costs, in dollars against a real fleet.
What the overage rate is, and where the band starts.
Whether they will fold in devices you already own.
Who wipes device storage at end of term.
Whether the quarterly review is a diarised meeting.
The first of those separates a supplier who owns the outcome from one who forwards the job.
Published rates are ranges and not fixed prices in the 2025 CopierChoice benchmark, so a quote that skips these is guessing.
What are the different types of managed print companies?
There are four in the Australian market.
Manufacturers direct, authorised dealers, IT providers who fold print in, and brand agnostic independents.
Each carries a built in conflict.
Manufacturers end every answer in their own hardware.
Dealers are tied to one or two brands and a territory.
IT providers treat print as a side line.
Independents carry a smaller balance sheet outside their home state.
The manufacturer channel sells its own hardware and prices the agreement around it.
The independent dealer carries several brands and is judged on the service arrangement behind them.
The software led provider licences print management tools and leaves the machines with you.
The IT managed service provider adds print to a wider contract and usually subcontracts the attendance.
None of the 4 is wrong, and the type decides which of the ten questions is the one that matters most.
Put us on the list and ask us the ten
Send the sites and we will answer all ten in writing.
Including the two above, in the same words.
No call unless you ask for one.
What their customers write on Google
Managed Printer Services is new. Global Document Solutions, who run it, is not.
When something breaks
We have had a great experience with this team.
They are always prompt, helpful and really easy to deal with.
Any issues are sorted quickly and the whole printer leasing process has been seamless.
On price, and on being told things
I highly recommend Cyrus at Global Document Solutions.
The service was brilliant from start to finish, with clear communication and attention to detail.
Pricing was extremely competitive and offered value for money.
Replacing a machine already on contract
We replaced our existing machine (also through GDS) and, as always, the process was seamless.
We had our machine up and running with minimal downtime.
These are reviews of Global Document Solutions, who operate this service, and not of this site.
Each one is copied word for word from their Google Business Profile, under the name Google shows, read on 7 September 2026.