Print management for shared spaces
Print from any phone. Pick it up at the printer.
Commontray is print management for coworking spaces, serviced offices and teams. People print from the browser they already have, with no drivers and no app. Documents wait until they’re standing at the printer. Every page is counted, and color is only charged where there’s color.
- No drivers
- No print server
- No app to install
- Free for one printer
Works with the network printers you already have
- HP
- Brother
- Canon
- Epson
- Xerox
- Kyocera
- Ricoh
- Lexmark
Models that take PDF or support IPP Everywhere. Check yours in two minutes
How it works
Three steps, and none of them is “install the driver”.
Commontray runs on one small computer at your site, or on the Commontray Box. Everyone else just needs a browser.
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Send
Upload a PDF, photo or Office file from a phone or laptop, or email it. See every page, the color ones marked, and the price before confirming.
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Release
The document waits. At the printer, tap Print now or scan the QR sticker. Nothing comes out for the wrong person to pick up. How release works.
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Count
Once the printer says it’s done, the pages are recorded against the person: charged at your prices, taken from credit, or just reported. See the reports.
Driverless printing
The printer setup you won’t be doing.
Shared printers usually mean a driver on every laptop, a print server in a cupboard and a spreadsheet at the end of the month. Commontray replaces all three with a web page.
The usual way
- Find, download and install the right driver on every laptop, then do it again for the next new member.
- Keep a print server patched, because printer drivers run with high privileges.
- Put guests on the office network so they can see the printer.
- Buy card readers or a release terminal for every printer.
- Read page counters and fill in a spreadsheet to bill anyone.
With Commontray
- People open the print page, sign in once and print. Any phone, any laptop, any browser.
- One small service, or the Commontray Box, talks to the printers. Nothing on anyone’s laptop.
- Guests use the print page, not the printer, so they never need to see your network.
- A QR sticker on the printer is the release station.
- Every job is counted against a person, priced and reported as it happens.
Who it’s for
Made for printers that more than one company shares.
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Coworking spaces
Members print from their own devices, pay per page or from their printing credit, and you never chase a page count again.
- Prices per page, color detected
- Credit first, then billed
- Works with Nexudus
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Serviced offices
Clients from different companies share the same printers, and each one’s documents and costs stay their own.
- Secure release at the printer
- Usage by client
- No client laptops to set up
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Offices & teams
Nobody is charged, but you still want to know who prints what, keep confidential pages off the tray and stop installing drivers.
- Who-printed-what reports
- Hold and release
- No print server to patch
Pay for print
Charged for what came out of the printer. Nothing else.
Most print billing counts what was sent. Commontray waits for the printer to report what it actually printed, and only then records the charge, at your prices.
- Color, page by page. A 20-page report with one chart is 19 black & white pages and one color page.
- After the printer finishes. If it reports fewer pages than were sent, people pay for the pages it printed.
- Never for nothing. Failed, cancelled and never-released jobs cost nothing.
- Credit first. Printing credit is used before anything is billed.
Job 0418 · ReceptionA4 · 2-sided
- Pages sent
- 20
- Pages printed
- 20
- Black & white × 19
- $1.90
- Color × 1
- $0.50
- Printing credit
- −$1.00
Billed$1.40
Printed ✓
Everything in the box
The parts of printing nobody wants to manage.
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Mobile printing
Print from any phone, tablet or laptop browser: PDFs, photos and Office files. No drivers, no app.
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Secure print release
Documents wait until people scan the printer’s QR code or tap Print now. No badges, no card readers.
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Email to print
Forward an attachment to your print address. It waits in the sender’s list until they’re at the printer.
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Charging & credits
Prices per page and paper size, color detected page by page, credit used first.
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Reports
Pages and cost by person, printer and day. Download a CSV with one row per job.
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Printer alerts
“Out of paper”, not error 41.2. Alerts by email, Slack, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat.
Commontray Box
No spare computer? Plug in a box.
The Commontray Box sits next to the printer. Its screen shows the code to scan, whether the printer is ready, ink levels and how many documents are waiting, in your location’s language.
Plug the printers into the Box’s printer port and they disappear from the shared network. Nobody can print around Commontray, and the printers can’t be reached from anyone’s laptop.
Secure printing
Less to patch, less to leak.
Printers are one of the oldest ways into an office network. Commontray takes the riskiest parts out of the picture.
No print server, no drivers
There’s no Windows print server to patch and no printer drivers on anyone’s laptop for an attacker to abuse.
Documents don’t linger
A document is deleted as soon as its job ends. Never-released documents are deleted after the hold time.
People only see their own jobs
Sign-in limits, strict browser protections, and no way to list or release someone else’s print.
Signed updates
Commontray updates itself at night and only accepts builds signed with the Commontray release key.
Pricing
Priced per location. Not per person.
Coworking spaces gain and lose members every week, and companies have visitors. Per-user pricing punishes both. Commontray charges one price per location, for any number of people and printers.
- For your first printer
- $0
- Price per location, any number of people
- 1
- Drivers to install
- 0
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Do people need to install an app or a printer driver?
No. People open the print page in the browser they already have, on a phone, tablet or laptop, and upload a document. Nothing is installed on their device, so it works the same for members, clients, staff and visitors.
Will Commontray work with our printers?
Most likely, if they are network printers from the last ten years or so. Commontray prints to any printer that accepts PDF or supports IPP Everywhere, the driverless standard most manufacturers adopted. Some printers only support Apple’s own AirPrint format and need a driver otherwise; those aren’t supported yet. The free printer checker tells you for each printer on your network.
What do we need to run it?
Either a computer that stays on at your site (Windows, macOS or Linux, including a Raspberry Pi) or the Commontray Box, which plugs in next to the printer. There is no print server to set up and nothing to change on your network.
Can we charge for printing?
Yes. Set a price per page for black & white and color. Commontray detects color page by page and charges only after the printer says it has finished, for the pages it actually printed. Printing credit is used first. See charging and credits.
We don’t charge anyone. Is it still useful?
That’s what the Team plan is for. Companies use Commontray so anyone can print without IT setting up their laptop, documents wait until people are at the printer, and reports show who printed what and what it cost. See Commontray for offices.
How is it priced?
Per location, not per person, so a busy coworking space doesn’t pay more for every new member. One printer is free. See pricing.
Your printers, minus the hassle.
Set up Commontray on a computer you already have or plug in the Commontray Box. Most spaces print their first page in under half an hour.