Did you know that ounce for ounce printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids you can buy? When purchasing ink cartridges, the cost per ounce can be anywhere from $42 to $65 – or more! In comparison, gasoline is about 2 cents per ounce, a Starbucks Espresso about $2.50, and Chanel Coco perfume around $28. With that kind of knowledge, it makes sense that you would want a printer that is as economical as possible.
Average print costs per page for printers under $200 are 5.5 cents for black and white and 8.9 cents for color. Spend a little more on your printer ($200+) and your average per page costs reduce to about 3.9 cents for black and white and 8.3 cents for color. If you purchase a good quality monochrome laser printer you can even get per page costs down to around 2.5 cents. That could be a difference of $7-$15 per ream of paper (500 sheets). The extra money spent on the purchase is quickly recovered in per page savings.
Inkjet printers will almost always be much more expensive per page than laser printers. For example, a Brother MFC-J480DW will cost about $90. A full set of ink cartridges for that printer will cost about $70 (with the black ink cartridge being the costliest at around $25) and yield approximately 550 pages. With that example, if you print in mostly black and white, your per page is 5 cents with color printing coming in at 13 cents. While a Brother monochrome laser printer with similar capabilities such as the MFC-L2740DW will set you back $250 with toner for that printer costing about $75 and a 2,600-page yield. Printing on that machine will cost 3 cents per page or $10 less per ream of paper. The printer purchase price difference is made up once you have printed about a case and a half of paper (or 8,000 pages). While you would be sacrificing the ability to print in color your potential savings (especially if you print a lot) quickly makes up the difference.
In addition to the cost savings, further considerations are the fact that ink is a liquid and liquids tend to dry up. When an inkjet printer sits for a few days (sometimes as little as a week) that drying ink can clog the print head and require cleaning. Most inkjet printers have a “clean printhead” option built into the machine, but that uses a lot of ink and further drives up costs. Toner used by laser printers is a dry powder. Rarely if ever will you end up with a clogged laser printer, they tend to just output the pages when you need them to.
When you are looking for your next printer, locate a trusted company that will provide a breakdown of your overall costs and help guide you to purchase the printer that fits your specific requirements. If you are printing a lot of photos, then an inkjet might be your best option. If you print a lot of business type of papers than a monochrome laser is an extremely good choice. There are color laser options available, but typically the printers themselves cost quite a bit more, and the per page costs increase significantly. If you purchase a black and white laser and just HAVE to have something done in color, you can always use that same trusted local company to print those documents for you. The expense of printing that occasional document will easily be recouped through the day-to-day savings you will enjoy. Printers are quite a bit like horses, the cheapest thing about one that doesn’t cost you much to acquire IS the initial purchase. QCBN
By Greg Hicks