A3 vs A4 and Colour vs Mono: Choosing the Right Printer Lease

A3 suits offices that regularly print floor plans, spreadsheets across facing pages, legal exhibits or signage, because an A3 device prints and copies both A3 and A4 from the same tray.

A4 suits offices that mostly print letters, invoices and standard reports, where a smaller desktop device covers the job without paying for A3 capacity that sits idle.

The deciding question is not the paper size alone, it is whether any regular part of your workload needs a sheet larger than A4.

A blended office, printing standard letters most days but running occasional A3 drawings or posters, still needs an A3 multifunction on site rather than outsourcing those jobs.

Mono printing uses a single black toner and a longer life drum, which keeps the device and the monthly figure at the entry end for text heavy offices.

Colour printing draws on four toners and more complex consumables, which is why colour heavy volume moves you to a higher device tier built for that duty cycle.

Quocirca Print Services 2024 benchmarks Australian managed print click rates at around 0.8 cents per mono page and roughly 6 cents per A4 colour page for SME volume bands.

That industry figure describes the wider market, not how LeasemyPrinter bills: toner, parts and service labour sit inside the monthly set plan, and paper is the only separate cost.

The deciding question is how much of your regular output is client facing colour work, such as proposals and marketing material, against internal mono paperwork.

An A4 mono workhorse sits at the entry end of the range, benchmarked against Kyocera Australia product specifications for A4 mono and small workgroup A3 multifunction units.

LeasemyPrinter leases from that entry tier start from $160 per month on a 36 to 60 month term, with toner, parts, service labour and call outs included in the monthly set plan.

Moving to A3, to colour, or to both lifts the device tier and the monthly figure, because the engine, the toner set and the finishing options all scale with the job.

Entry class A3 mono multifunction devices such as the Toshiba eStudio 2528A run around 25 pages per minute at 1200 by 1200 dpi, enough for most SME quote packs and floor plans.

There is no page allowance and no per page rate on these leases: the monthly set plan covers toner, parts, service labour and call outs, and paper is the only separate cost.

1. Pull your last three months of print jobs and separate anything larger than A4, such as floor plans, spreadsheets or signage.
2. Count what share of your monthly pages needs colour, such as proposals and marketing material, against plain text paperwork.
3. Match that mix to a device class: A4 mono, A4 colour, A3 mono or A3 colour multifunction.
4. Request a quote for that class on a 36 to 60 month term so toner, parts, service labour and call outs are already inside the monthly figure.