Long-Term Costs of Printing

The cost of home printers is lower than ever.  Even the all-in-one printers that contain professional grade scanners, copiers and fax machines can be found for less than $50.  The fact of the matter is that many different printer manufacturers are competing to be the one to sell you their machine-not necessarily because of the money they will make at the point of sale, but on the future cost of replacement toner cartridges.  For example, brand name products like the Dell inkjet printer may look like a fantastic deal, but what many buyers are not thinking of is the future cost of the Dell inkjet ink cartridges. 

There is a difference between the toner cartridge replacement rate for inkjet and laser printers.  For a while, lasers printers were clearly more efficient when it came to ink usage (and some other things too).  Now, inkjet printers are getting better and better and the difference is a little closer, but for the purposes of this article, I'm only going to talk about relative costs for inkjet ink. 

Depending on the type of printer you buy, it can even be possible for the replacement cartridges to be as expensive as the original machine itself.  This cost of ink is an often overlooked part of purchasing a printer, and it complicates shopping for a printer.  The savvy printer shopper will research the cost per page figure for a given machine, and compare them.  This is simply the cost of replacement toner cartridges divided by the number of pages that one toner cartridge can print.  It can reveal a hidden cost to that inexpensive printer. 

This figure only becomes more important when you're shopping for a larger, professional grade printer for an office.  If the print volume is high, that cost per page is going to add up very quickly.  If you are printing detailed full-page or custom-sized color pages, that cost is going to add up even faster. 

When you are measuring simple black ink, you generally assume that about 5 percent of a normal 8.5-by-11 inch page will be covered in ink.  This is a basic typewritten page of text printed out in black.  For this, less than one cent per page is pretty safe.  In fact, a per page cost of more than one cent can indicate an expensive printer cartridge that you should probably avoid. 

When it comes to a full page of color, the expectations should change.  When dealing with a color print job, usually more than 5 percent of the page is covered because pictures, logos and other larger blocks of color are probably included.  Depending on the type of work, it could even mean a full page color photo.  Color ink is also more expensive than black ink because it actually includes the three primary colors mixed in different degrees.  For color, the cost could easily exceed 10 or 12 cents per page. 

A little research into the cost per page of that new printer can save a lot of money in the long run.