How to Get Out of a Copier Lease

First, find out what you actually owe

3 numbers decide every option on this page, and most people do not know any of them. Your buyout figure is not printed on your invoice or in your agreement. It has to be requested, because it changes every month as payments are made.

The three things to locate are the payoff amount (what it costs to end the agreement today), the lease end date, and the notice window (how many days before the end date you must send written notice to stop an automatic renewal). Copier leases commonly run 36 to 60 months, so the end date may be further away, or closer, than you remember.

The simplest way to get all three is to ask in writing. Here is a template you can send as it is.

Subject: Payoff figure and end-of-term notice requirements

Hello,

Please provide the following in writing for account [ACCOUNT NUMBER]:

1. The total payoff amount to terminate this agreement today, itemised
   into remaining payments, any residual, and any fees.
2. The scheduled end date of the agreement.
3. The notice period required to prevent automatic renewal, and the
   exact date by which that notice must be received.
4. The method by which notice must be delivered to be valid.
5. Any end-of-term equipment return obligations and associated costs.

I am reviewing our office equipment arrangements and am not requesting
any change at this time.

Thank you,
[NAME]

Requesting this commits you to nothing, and a lessor is generally obliged to tell you what you owe.

While you wait for the reply, gather the documents below. Together they show what you signed, what you actually pay, and how much you really print.

The five ways out, and what each one costs

5 options cover almost every situation. They differ mostly in who pays the remaining balance and when.

Run out the term

0 extra dollars is the cost of simply finishing the agreement. If fewer than 12 months remain and your payment is not rising, this is often the cheapest path. The one thing you must do is send non-renewal notice inside the window, covered below.

Buy out the lease yourself

1 cash payment of the full payoff ends the agreement. It is a clean break, but it takes capital that many offices would rather keep. See our page on the copier lease buyout for how that process usually runs.

Have a new vendor roll the buyout into a new lease

1 new agreement absorbs the old balance. The new vendor pays your lessor and adds that amount to your new lease. This is the most common way businesses switch copier vendor, and the next section shows exactly what it does to your payment.

Renegotiate with your current vendor

1 conversation, backed by written records, can sometimes fix the problem without moving at all. If your vendor has missed service commitments that are written into your agreement, those records may support a lower payment, a replacement machine, or a revised allowance.

Transfer or assign the lease

1 other business takes over your agreement. Most copier leases do not permit this, or require the lessor's consent. Check your agreement and treat this as the rare exception.

How a "we'll pay off your lease" offer actually works

1 sentence explains it: the new vendor pays your old lessor, adds that amount to your new agreement, and spreads it across the new term. You pay it back with every new monthly payment. Nothing is forgiven. The balance moves from one lease to another and is financed.

That is not a trick. It can be a genuinely useful way to change equipment without finding cash. But any quote that shows only the machine price is leaving out the part you will actually pay for. The two examples below show the same mechanic producing opposite answers.

The difference between them is months remaining, not vendor quality. Anyone who tells you to switch with 48 months left is selling, not advising.

To test your own figures, run the numbers on your own lease. It takes your payment, escalation and months remaining.

The auto-renewal clause that catches most people

12 months is a common automatic renewal period. Many agreements renew for another year unless written notice arrives inside a specific window, commonly 30 to 90 days before the end date. Miss that window by a day and you may owe another year of payments.

These clauses are sometimes called evergreen renewals. They are standard contract mechanics, and they are easy to overlook because the end date may be years after you signed. The fix is a calendar, not a confrontation. Count backward from your end date and act at each step.

Send notice exactly the way your agreement specifies. If it says certified mail, an email may not count. Whether a particular renewal clause is enforceable varies by state and by contract, and that is a question for an attorney.

Which situation are you in?

5 situations account for most of the reasons people look for a way out. Each points to a different first move, and several of them do not start with changing vendor at all.

If your payment rises every year, read how a copier lease escalation clause works; escalation clauses commonly run 5 to 10 percent a year. If you run several machines on separate agreements, see how to consolidate multiple copier leases.

When staying put is the cheaper answer

3 situations make waiting the better financial choice. None of them is unusual.

More than 30 months remain and the payment is not escalating

30 months or more of flat payments means a large balance to roll in, with no rising cost to escape. As worked example 2 shows, the rolled-in amount can raise your payment by hundreds of dollars a month.

Your buyout figure exceeds the remaining payments

1 comparison settles this: if the payoff quote is higher than simply making the payments you have left, ending early costs more than finishing. Run out the term and send your non-renewal notice on time.

The problem is a service issue your current vendor will fix in writing

1 written commitment from your current vendor can solve the problem for nothing. If they agree in writing to fix the service, replace the machine or adjust the plan, that is usually cheaper than moving.

If you have 40 months left on a flat lease, no honest vendor should be encouraging you to move.

What Printree does, and what it costs you

1 thing first: Printree pays off existing leases so a business can move vendors, and that payoff is added to the new agreement and repaid across the term. It does not disappear.

The benefit is not that the balance goes away. The benefit is a single payment, no escalation clause, service included, and a machine that is not failing. A full-size 45ppm color copier leases for $209 to $349 a month with 5,000 black-and-white and 500 color pages included, overage at $0.01 per black-and-white page and $0.07 per color page, and 0% annual escalation. Terms are 36, 48, 60 or 63 months. Delivery and installation take 3 to 5 business days in all 50 states, and service runs through a network of 15,000 dealer partners. For the full breakdown, see how much it costs to lease a copier.

If the arithmetic does not work, we will say so. This page has already shown two cases where it does not: a flat lease with more than 30 months left, and a payoff higher than the remaining payments.

Frequently asked questions