Google ‘cloud print’ and you’re going to read a lot of articles expounding its benefits. More flexible. More scalable. More secure. We’ve written a few of them ourselves .
One thing you won’t find much of is articles discussing the limitations of cloud print, or why it might not be quite right for your business.
Cloud print and cloud printing solutions have transformed enterprise printing, enabling businesses to manage devices, users and workflows remotely with minimal infrastructure.
But while cloud printing offers real benefits, it’s not the only print solution. Nor is it a good fit for every organization. And in some cases, it’s flat-out wrong.
Cloud print is not right if you have limited internet or poor bandwidth
This might sound obvious, but cloud print relies on stable, high-speed internet. If your business operates in a remote location or suffers from unreliable bandwidth, cloud-based print queues can slow to a crawl or sometimes fail completely.
We’ve seen it happen. In these cases, on premise print servers may offer better reliability and a more stable connection.
Reconsider cloud print if data sovereignty really matters
Highly regulated industries like finance, healthcare and government often require data to stay within national or regional borders. These aren’t recommendations; they’re regulations.
Cloud printing services don’t always neatly align with these strict data residency rules, especially when job data gets routed through offshore servers. Which happens more often than you’d think. In these cases, compliance can become a major roadblock.
Legacy hardware issues
Many small to medium-sized businesses still rely on older multifunction devices, or printers that don’t necessarily support cloud protocols.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but if your MFDs are over 8-10 years old, there’s a good chance they’ll only support legacy protocols like LPR/LPD or RAW 9100.
And that’s another thing: upgrading an entire printer fleet to be cloud-compatible isn’t always feasible, and middleware solutions can be clunky and unreliable. If you want to read more about optimizing your printer fleet, check out this article .
Hidden SaaS costs add up with cloud print
Cloud print typically runs on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model (just like everything else these days), which means recurring subscription fees.
For businesses with tight IT budgets, these ongoing costs can quickly outweigh the benefits, especially when compared to the one-time expense of an on premise solution.
It’s a little like culling your at-home streaming subscriptions: you need to weigh the benefits of each and figure out which ones are driving real growth and value.
Complex workflows don’t always fit
If your business relies on intricate routing, custom workflows, or integrations with legacy ERP systems, moving everything to the cloud can be more trouble than it’s worth.
It sounds counterintuitive, but some workflows actually require low-latency, local execution, which cloud printing can’t always deliver.
Offline? Cloud print won’t work
Not all business environments are always online. Warehouses, remote mining sites, field operations – they can all suffer outages, or in some cases be completely disconnected.
At times like that, local printing is essential, and cloud print can become a liability rather than an asset.
In general, no matter whether you go for cloud print or on-premise infrastructure , we recommend looking into High Availability (HA) principles like redundancies, monitoring and seamless failovers.
Consider your real-time printing needs
In some industries, like logistics, healthcare and manufacturing, print jobs need to be executed immediately. Like, right now. Frictionless. As fast as possible. Any delay caused by round-trip communication with a cloud server can spiral and lead to operational bottlenecks.
This is where on-premise solutions kind of shine: they typically (not always, but typically) offer better performance for high throughput demands.
Small teams need big support
Usually the cloud’s simplicity is its selling point. But for organizations without dedicated IT staff, managing a cloud print environment can introduce some new complexities.
From user onboarding to security configuration and troubleshooting, the ongoing support burden often falls on external providers (or, let’s face it, already-stretched internal resources).
This isn’t necessarily a cloud deal-breaker, but it’s definitely something you should factor in before migration .
Beware ecosystem lock-in
Many cloud print platforms only work with specific brands, vendors or subscription tiers. It’s a bummer, but that’s just the nature of the industry. That kind of vendor lock-in can limit your flexibility to change print infrastructure down the track.
So if your print strategy requires adaptability, just be aware that cloud-only solutions don’t always provide it.
For more on this topic, definitely read up on vendor-neutral print management solutions .
No a backup plan? Cloud print might not be for you.
What happens if your cloud service goes down, or your internet connection fizzles? Without a local print fallback plan, business continuity can grind to a halt.
Hybrid solutions that blend cloud control with local spooling often offer the best of both worlds. You should also be looking into regular system backups .
At the end of the day, cloud print is a powerful tool. No-one’s denying that. But it’s not one-size-fits-all. From technical constraints to compliance headaches, cloud printing introduces real trade-offs – especially for businesses with unique security and workflow requirements.
All we’re saying is, before you migrate your entire enterprise printing infrastructure to the cloud, take a hard look at your needs, your users and your environment.
In some cases, keeping your feet on the ground may be the smarter move.
Still not sure if cloud printing is the way?
We know, it can be a lot to think about, especially if you’re also trying to focus on running a business.
That’s why we’re here to help – chat to our friendly team and we’ll help you identify whether cloud print is the right next step for you.
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