Customers are becoming more economically conscious when it comes to using their printer or copier, which means I’m getting asked more often about how to minimize printer cost per page.
During the buying process, customers are not just concerned with the sticker price anymore, they’re also concerned with how much it will cost to use the machine. In other words, they want to know the least expensive way to use it to arrive at an affordable printer cost per page.
If you fall into that category, and who doesn’t want to save money these days, then this article is for you. I will go over a few best practices so you can save money on your printing.
Minimizing Printer Cost Per Page: Best Practices
First of all, consider your printing and copying output. If you’re not a moderate to heavy user, then you do not have to be as concerned with printer cost per page as other customers.
If you output a lot of prints, over 50 per day or 1000 per month, then you should be concerned with how much it is costing you to make those prints.
The best advice I can give anyone is to stay away from machines that use liquid inkjet toner. Liquid ink is one of the most expensive liquids on the whole planet.
If you have a machine that uses dry powder toner instead of liquid ink, such as a laser device, then you’re already in a good position to save money.
Let’s break down the numbers.
Liquid Ink vs. Dry Powder Toner
There are essentially two types of toner. It’s pretty well known that black & white printing is cheaper than color printing, which is especially true for laser printing with dry powder toner.
With a laser printer or copier you’re looking at about a penny per print for black & white. By contrast, a black & white print with liquid ink is between 4 to 5 cents per page.
Difference in cost between liquid ink and dry powder toner is even greater if you’re printing in color. A color print with liquid ink costs a whopping 20 to 30 cents per page. The cost is so high because there are 4 colors mixing together.
By contrast, a color print with a laser device is only around 7 cents. So it’s almost 3 times as expensive to print in color with a liquid inkjet printer than a laser printer.
With that said if you’re printing any volume at all, even 250 to 300 pages per month, then you should strongly consider limiting your options to laser printers and copiers.
Printer Cost Per Page: Conclusion
For the vast majority of today’s business applications, a laser printer or copier will serve your needs exceptionally well. Liquid ink produces superior photo prints – but unless you’re in the business of printing high-resolution photos then that shouldn’t be a concern.
Stay away from inkjet and stick with laser. If you need any further advice on the best laser printer or copier for you, please contact me with a brief summary of your business needs.