Twelve essential questions to include in your managed print services request for proposal
A well-structured MPS RFP produces directly comparable proposals across providers and surfaces operational fit alongside price. These twelve questions, grouped by category, form the structural backbone of a defensible MPS procurement document.
An MPS RFP that produces useful proposals shares one structural property: every responding provider answers the same questions in the same format, allowing direct comparison across responses. A loose RFP — one that lets providers reformat the proposal to match their preferred narrative — produces responses that look impressive individually and become impossible to compare side by side. The twelve questions below organise the RFP into four categories of four questions each, covering commercial, technical, service, and transition concerns. Each question deserves a specific, comparable answer from every provider.
The objective is not to make the RFP exhaustive — adding twenty more questions reduces response quality because providers run out of bandwidth before they finish the response. The objective is to ensure the twelve most-decisive questions get clear answers. Other detail can surface in the follow-up conversations with the two or three providers who pass the initial response review.
What is your proposed pricing structure?
Request itemised breakdown by device-tier monthly fee, mono per-page, colour per-page, and service-tier premium. Avoid single bundled numbers.
How are price adjustments handled across the contract term?
Annual CPI escalator structure, cap percentage, indexation reference, and any mid-term review provisions that affect pricing.
What is included in the headline rate?
Confirm whether toner, paper, parts, labour, software licensing, and finisher consumables sit inside the per-page rate or carry separate billing.
What overage rates apply above contracted volumes?
Surcharge rates for volume above the contracted monthly band, and the threshold at which overage rates trigger.
Which print-management software platform do you deploy?
PaperCut, uniFLOW, YSoft SafeQ, or in-house. If the office operates an existing platform, confirm whether the provider can work with it.
How do you integrate with our identity stack?
Active Directory, Azure AD, Google Workspace, Okta support. Confirm authentication mechanism (SAML, OAuth, LDAP) and the deployment timeline.
What security baseline applies to deployed devices?
Hard-drive encryption, secure-print release, audit logging, firmware-update policy, and adherence to specific standards (ISO 27001, NIS2, GDPR).
What reporting will we receive and at what cadence?
Sample QBR report and monthly dashboard. Confirm the depth, refresh cadence, and whether reports are user-accessible or provider-only.
What service-level agreement applies and how is it measured?
Response time, resolution time, device-availability percentage, and the measurement methodology. Confirm credits or remedies when SLA is missed.
Who is the named account manager and what is the escalation path?
The day-to-day account-manager contact, the escalation path when issues are not resolved at that level, and the executive sponsor for major incidents.
What does the implementation timeline look like?
Phased deployment plan, site-by-site rollout schedule, business-continuity arrangements during transition, and the timeline from contract signing to live operation.
What are the end-of-contract terms and exit provisions?
Notice period for non-renewal, conditions for early termination, end-of-contract device disposition, data-handling at contract end, and any final-period costs.
How to read the responses once they arrive
Score each provider's response on each of the twelve questions independently before reading the full proposal narrative. The narratives are designed to be persuasive and the structured-question scores are designed to be comparable; reviewing both in that order produces a clearer evaluation than reading the narrative first and then trying to identify what is missing.
For most SMB and mid-market offices, three responses produce enough comparison to support a confident decision. More responses produce diminishing returns and consume substantial procurement bandwidth. Selecting three providers up front — one from each provider category in the companion article — produces a balanced response set that surfaces meaningful trade-offs across categories.