Commontray for coworking spaces
Coworking printing that members sort out themselves.
Members print from their own phone or laptop, collect at the printer and pay for the pages that came out. You set the prices once. Commontray handles the rest of it: release, color, credit, billing and the printer that ran out of paper at 9:05.
Hot desk memberHot desks
- 12 pages B&W
- $1.20
- 3 pages color
- $1.50
- Printing credit
- −$2.00
On next invoice$0.70
Printed ✓
How it works
From a member’s phone to your invoice, without the front desk.
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Members print
They open the print page, upload a PDF, photo or Office file and see every page and the price. Or they email it to your print address.
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They release
At the printer, they scan its QR sticker or tap Print now. Pages come out for the person standing there, not for whoever walks past.
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Credit, then billing
Once the printer reports it’s done, printing credit pays first. What’s left is charged at your prices, for the pages that actually printed.
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You see it all
Pages and money by member, printer and day. Nobody reads a page counter or fills in a spreadsheet again.
Charge members for printing without arguing about it.
Printing disputes usually start with a bill nobody can explain. Commontray shows the price before a member confirms, and records the charge only after the printer says what it printed, so the number on the invoice is the number they saw.
- Your prices. Per page, per paper size (A4 and Letter), black & white and color.
- Color only where there’s color. Commontray checks every page. A 30-page report with one colored chart is charged as 29 black & white pages and one color page.
- After the printer finishes. If it reports 8 of 10 pages printed, the member pays for 8.
- Never for nothing. Failed, cancelled and never-collected jobs cost the member nothing.
New members print on their first morning.
Coworking spaces have the hardest printing problem in any office: a different set of laptops every week. Hot-desk members, day passes, a team that moved in on Monday. With a driver-based setup, every one of them needs the front desk.
With Commontray there’s nothing to install. The print page works in any browser, so a member on a Chromebook, an iPad or a locked-down company laptop prints exactly like everyone else. They sign in once, and their documents are theirs alone.
- No drivers, no app, no printer to add in system settings.
- PDFs, photos and Word, Excel or PowerPoint files.
- Members only ever see their own documents and jobs.
Less front desk
The printer stops being the community manager’s job.
Most printing questions at a coworking front desk are the same five. Commontray answers them before anyone asks.
“Is the printer working?”
Members see a stopped printer before they pay. You get the alert in plain words, by email, Slack, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat. Printer alerts.
“Whose is this printout?”
With secure release, documents only print when their owner is at the printer, so the tray stays empty.
“Why was I charged for this?”
Every job shows its pages, its color pages and its price, and the charge follows what the printer reported.
“How do I add the printer?”
They don’t. They open the print page. You can put its QR code on the printer and in your welcome email.
“How much did we print this month?”
Reports by member, printer and print type, with a CSV for anything else. Reports.
“Can I print this email attachment?”
Members forward it to your print address and release it at the printer. Email to print.
Works with Nexudus.
If you run your space on Nexudus, Commontray connects to it. Members sign in with the account they already have, printing credit from their plans and bundles is used first, and charges become lines on their Nexudus invoice, exactly once.
- Member sign-in with their Nexudus login.
- Printing credit from plans, bundles or an admin, the member’s own first, then their team’s.
- Charges on the member’s next invoice, never twice, even after a restart.
Invoice lineMonthly
- Printing, A4 black & white × 140
- $14.00
- Printing, A4 color × 12
- $6.00
- Printing credit used
- −$10.00
Printing this month$10.00
The details
Built for how coworking spaces actually print.
Any number of members
Commontray is priced per location, not per member, so a busy month doesn’t cost you more. See pricing.
A setting per printer
The printer in a private office can print straight away; the one in the open area can wait for a scan.
Print from anywhere
Turn on remote access and members can send from home, then release when they arrive. No port forwarding.
A screen at the printer
The Commontray Box shows the release code, the printer’s status and how many documents are waiting.
Printers only Commontray can reach
Plug printers into the Box’s printer port and nobody can print around your prices from their laptop.
Documents don’t stay
Each document is deleted as soon as its job ends. Uncollected ones go after the hold time. Security.
Questions
Coworking printing questions
How much should a coworking space charge for printing?
Start from what a page costs you: toner or ink, paper, and the printer itself. Most spaces then add a margin and round to a simple number, with color priced well above black & white. Our guide How to charge for printing in a coworking space walks through it, and the cost per page calculator does the sums.
Can we include free pages in membership plans?
Yes. Commontray uses a member’s printing credit before anything is billed, so a plan that comes with credit covers their first pages and only the rest is charged. Today printing credit comes from the Nexudus integration: credit from plans, bundles or an admin, the member’s own first, then credit their team shares.
Do members need to install anything?
No. Members open the print page in the browser on their phone or laptop, sign in once and print. There’s no driver and no app, so a new member can print on their first morning without asking the front desk.
What if the printer jams halfway through a job?
Members are charged only after the printer reports the job finished, and only for the pages it says it printed. A job that fails costs nothing. If a printer has a problem that stops printing, members see it before they pay, and you get an alert.
Can members print from home before they come in?
Yes, if you turn on remote access. The print page then has a secure web address, so members can send a document from anywhere and release it when they arrive. No port forwarding is needed.
Will it work with the printers we already have?
If they take PDF or support IPP Everywhere, yes. Most network printers from the last decade do. Run the free printer checker to see a verdict for each one.
Make printing the easiest thing in your space.
Your first printer is free. Set your prices, put the QR code on the printer and let members get on with it.