Copier vs. Printer: What’s the Difference?

It sounds like a simple question, but it trips up a lot of businesses shopping for office equipment: what is the actual difference between a copier and a printer? Add the term multifunction printer, or MFP, and it gets murkier still. The words get used interchangeably, yet they describe different machines with different strengths. Understanding the distinction takes about three minutes and can save you from leasing the wrong device for years.

What a printer does

A printer has one core job: it takes a digital file from your computer or phone and puts it on paper. That is it. Printers range from small desktop units to larger office models, and they are great when printing is all you need. What a traditional printer cannot do on its own is copy, scan, or fax a physical document, because it has no way to read a page that is placed on it.

What a copier does

A copier’s original job is to reproduce a physical document: you place a page on the glass or in the feeder, and it makes copies. Modern commercial copiers are built for volume and speed, with large paper capacities, sorting, stapling, and the durability to handle thousands of pages a day. Where a printer is built to print files, a copier is built to reproduce documents at scale.

What a multifunction printer (MFP) is

Here is the part that clears up most of the confusion. Almost every business copier sold today is actually a multifunction printer, or MFP, sometimes called an all-in-one. An MFP combines all the functions into one machine: it prints from your devices, copies physical documents, scans to email or the cloud, and often faxes too. When people say they are leasing a copier for the office, they almost always mean an MFP. The single device replaces a separate printer, copier, scanner, and fax machine.

So which one should your business lease?

For nearly every business, the answer is a multifunction printer, because it does everything and consolidates several machines into one. The real decision is not copier versus printer, but which MFP fits your needs:

• Volume: how many pages you print and copy per month, which determines the class of machine you need
• Color: whether you need color or can run mostly black-and-white, which affects both price and cost per page
• Features: paper sizes, finishing like stapling and folding, and scan-to-cloud features your team will actually use

Once you know your volume and feature needs, choosing the right MFP is straightforward, and it is exactly the conversation a good leasing partner should walk you through rather than just quoting a box. Not sure which machine fits your office? Tell us how you work and we will match you to the right multifunction printer, then quote it in seconds. Get a quote.