This is a checklist for anyone who buys office supplies for a team and has to explain the budget afterward. It is not a product review. It is the process I use before ordering anything from a Moleskine classic notebook a5 to a sticker printer.
When I first started managing procurement, I assumed the line-item price was the price. Three overruns later, I learned to think in total cost of ownership (TCO). I manage an office supplies budget around $180,000 annually—maybe $184,000, I'd have to check—and I've been buying notebooks, label rolls, and printers for a 150-person company for about five years. There are five steps. Do them in order. The last one is the one most people skip.
Who this checklist is for
If you are a procurement manager, an office manager, or the person who gets asked to "just pick a printer," this is for you. It works for small quarterly orders and larger annual contracts. The exact products change—Moleskine notebooks one quarter, sticker printers the next—but the checklist stays the same.
The 5-step checklist
Step 1: Separate the unit price from the total cost
Total cost of ownership does not require expensive software. It requires writing down every cost that comes after the quote. The base price is the iceberg tip. The rest is under water (unfortunately).
- Setup, tooling, or artwork fees
- Shipping to each office location
- Rush charges
- Reprint or replacement costs
- The hours your team spends receiving and distributing the order
Last quarter, I compared two vendors for 300 corporate gift notebooks. Vendor A quoted a Moleskine classic notebook a5 at a lower unit price. Vendor B was higher by $1.20 per notebook. But Vendor A charged $75 for logo setup, $40 to ship to two locations, and a $50 "custom packaging" fee. Vendor B's quote included all of that. The total difference was about $0.70 per unit in B's favor. The unit price told me the wrong story.
To be fair, Vendor A wasn't hiding anything—I had just not asked about the other line items. That is exactly the point.
Step 2: Make the purchase unit match the usage unit
According to Moleskine's product pages (moleskine.com), the Classic A5 is a standard notebook in their lineup. It is easy to treat it as an obvious purchase unit. But the right unit depends on how the notebook is actually used.
If you are buying Moleskine Classic A5 notebooks for a quarterly meeting, cost per notebook is fine. If you are buying a smart notebook Moleskine set for a paper-to-digital pilot, the purchase unit should not be "one set." It should be "one active user per quarter." A smart notebook that sits in a drawer because the setup felt complicated is 100% wasted, no matter how good the unit price was.
In my experience, the question everyone asks is "what does one cost?" The better question is "what does one cost per month it is actually used?" That one change stopped me from overbuying.
Step 3: Price sticker printers by the label, not by the machine
The same logic applies to sticker printers. A $79 thermal sticker printer looks like a reasonable buy. Then the label rolls are proprietary, and each roll costs $28 and prints 500 labels. That is $0.056 per label. A $149 printer with generic rolls might have labels at $0.032 per label. If you print 6,000 labels a year, the more expensive printer saves about $144 in the first year, and the gap grows as you use it.
I went back and forth on this exact decision for two weeks. On paper, the cheaper machine made sense. My gut said we would be stuck with the supply pricing. The $149 printer was the right call for us. (I should add that this assumes the generic rolls meet your label durability requirements. We tested that before ordering.)
Step 4: Use a percent off calculator to check the math, not to set expectations
A percent off calculator is a useful tool, but it only subtracts the discount from the base price. It does not tell you that the vendor added a "technology fee" after the discount. I learned that in Q2 2024. A vendor offered 20% off, and the finance team was thrilled. The discount was applied to the product line. Then the shipping charge—calculated on the original total—stayed the same. After setup and a rush fee, the invoice was only about 6% below the undiscounted amount.
The percent off calculator said "save $410." The actual saving on our order was, I want to say, $118—but don't quote me on that exact number. The point is the ratio. A percent off calculator gives you the discounted base, not the total cost. Use it to verify the final price, then add every other fee. If there is no box for "other fees," you are using the wrong calculator.
Step 5: Build setup time into the purchase decision
This is the step most people skip. Hardware and software cost more than their list price because someone has to unbox, install, configure, and test them. Take "how to connect hp printer to computer." The generic answer is: go to support.hp.com, download the full driver software, connect via USB or Wi-Fi, and run the setup wizard. That works only if the computer is on the same network, the network password is available, and you have time for a Windows update restart. If those things are not true, the setup cost is not 10 minutes. It is a support ticket, a loaner device, and a frustrated employee.
According to HP's support site (support.hp.com), the setup path starts with identifying your model and connection type. That is a good reminder for procurement: if you do not know the model and the network environment, the quote is incomplete.
If I am buying a batch of HP printers for a new office, I budget 20 minutes per printer for setup and a test page. For a sticker printer, that includes loading a test roll and checking alignment. Setup time is part of the total cost of ownership. It is not overhead.
Notes from the spreadsheet
Looking back, I should have built a TCO template earlier. At the time, I thought the invoice itself was enough. It wasn't.
- Order one sample before you order 500. This matters if you are adding a logo to a Moleskine notebook or testing whether a label sticks to your asset surfaces.
- Track the reorder date. A smart notebook Moleskine pilot can look cheap until you realize the team switched back to paper and the pen is charging in a drawer.
- Verify current pricing. Prices in this article are from memory and past quotes in early 2025; verify current rates before you sign anything.
The goal is not to avoid spending. The goal is to know the full number before you spend. A Moleskine Classic A5 can be a reasonable corporate gift. A sticker printer can save money. An HP printer can be easy to set up. The difference between a good purchase and a bad purchase is the same: what does the total cost actually look like after the quote arrives?
Need help applying this idea?