Understanding How Can You Lower Your Cost Per Printing Page In Houston

What is the cost for you and your company for printing, copying and faxing on an annual basis? If you tend to do a lot of printing of documents and photos for someone else, using your own printer, you may be interested to know what that is actually setting you back from a financial point of view. Let's begin with the actual printer. If you have a printer already you can skip over this section. Printers on the market today fall into one of several categories, however, it is the type of documents and photos which you will be printing that determines which printer you should purchase, as well as the amount that you should spend on the printer and all of its accessories. In recent years, there have been big improvements made in both laser and inkjet printers. Print speeds are quicker, memory capacity is larger and the print resolution is better, as well as the price per page being at a lower rate. As these developments continue to be made, the price of printers keeps getting lower. This means that the user can create their prints at an even lower cost. As well as this, as the prices are dropping the ease of use is getting better and many printer features are also improving. Hence, you can save time when you print. All-in-one printers are also seeing home business owners, as well as companies, seeing increased productivity, a quicker rate of work and less space required for the actual equipment. That being said, since there is such a wide choice of printers it is essential to take several factors into account when you make your choice. One of the key ones is the cost per page:

The Printer Price

The price you pay for an inkjet printer tends to only represent five percent of the lifetime cost that running the printer will bring. As an example, an inkjet-printed page tends to come in around 7-10 times more expensive than a laser page would do. This is down to the cost of ink, paper, electricity and service calls and then dividing the total by how many pages are created. We can use the same principle for laser printers. if you purchase a laser printer for $1,4000 and we'll say it's $90 every time you buy a toner cartridge will pretty likely spend more on consumables than the actual first price of the printer itself. This means that even if a printer has a cheap purchase price it doesn't always mean you are getting yourself a good deal. The long-run also has to be cost-efficient with a low cost per printed page and low maintenance expenses. Printers last different amounts of time, however getting three to five years is usual. To figure out the extra cost of each printed page against the initial purchase price you need to know what your total expected duty cycle will be and divide this by the purchase price of the printer. For instance, if we said the estimated duty cycle of a printer was 10,000 pages and printer price was $250, we could get the idea that the cost per page is $0.025 plus, of course, the price for consumables and maintenance needs to be added on to this.

Consumables

Consumables are the next highest cost component for your printed pages, these include things such as inkjet cartridges, printer papers, electricity (we don't take this into account for inkjet printers), laser toners and so forth. You can get inkjet cartridges in various combinations, there are black and color cartridges, color, and black or solo cartridges (knows as grouped cartridges, these cartridges mix three colors when black is required), you can even get separate cartridges for each color. Grouped cartridges are usually used on lower-priced inkjets. Usually, the best option is a printer that has a separate cartridge for reach color, this means you only need to replace a color when it runs out and won't waste any ink. An inkjet that has separate cartridges for each color will also use a lot less ink than a grouped cartridge. There are some models of inkjets that have an ink tank so that your ink usage can be even more efficient and give you a lower cost per page. The printer you have purchased will determine how much you pay for ink, the cost can be between $20 - $100 or even more for your replacement cartridges and from $5 to $50 for your separate black cartridge, the quality will determine the price. It will cost you more for a dye that is fade resistant (such as the HP 26) than those that tend to fade in a short space of time. It is not an easy task to figure out the accurate cost of ink per page. As we all know different pages require different amounts of ink. Photos need a lot more ink than printing graphics or manuals, for example. Hence, printing costs are going to depend on think being used for each page. However, let's take a look at a few facts. If an OEM HP 15/78D, which you can buy for approximately $60 is used, the cost for each page for photos would be more than $0.08 per page. So the 15/78D can come in at around $60 for 500 pages while the 78A at $79.99 for 2100 pages. Hence the cost for each page with the 15/78D combo of $0.12 and the cost for each page for the 78A of $0.04, show a difference which is threefold more. Key Point: HP, Lexmark and such as printers have an embedded print head in the cartridge which is replaced when you change the cartridge. Canon printers, however, do not include this in the cartridge but it can be replaced over the lifetime of the printer, sometimes several times. Epson's have an integrated print head with the printer, while this can be replaced it tends to be the same cost as the printer itself. Hence, the print heads could play a significant role in the price per page. It can coast from $50 to $200 for toner cartridges used in monochrome laser printers, for color printers that price can go up to over $300! Indeed this consumable is a costly one. That being said, you will be able to print a lot more pages (normally 4,000 - 10,000) using only one single toner cartridge!

The Print Paper

Buying low-grade paper or recycled paper is one of the biggest mistakes that can be made in an attempt to be cost-efficient with your printing needs. Inkjet paper has a coating that controls the dot size on the image that is being produced. This means that the paint can dry at a quicker speed and hence ink can be controlled when the printer is in use giving a better photo image overall. As well as this, it stops ink droplets from absorbing into the paper too deeply or from bleeding into one another. When the ink goes through to the coat it is not possible to see all of the colors in the photo. Of course, if you are just printing plain text then it really does not matter what type of printer paper you decide to opt for. Paper costs are around half a cent or less for each page going to as little as $0.02, however, premium paper can set you back as much as $0.10. If you plan to have a varied output, you should opt for a printer that is capable of photo-quality output. In such cases, it will just be a matter of guesswork as far as how many photos you will print, the size and the types that you will opt for. You can choose glossy paper at 8.5 x 11 or premium glossy at 4 x 6 as a few examples. The prices can vary quite a lot for each type.

How Can You Lower The Cost Per Page For Your Printing?

Opting to refill your ink cartridges can bring the cost down per page. It is easy to purchase an ink refill kit, in fact, these kits are very popular as they offer a good saving opportunity. If you find yourself out of ink at any given time it only takes a few moments to refill your ink cartridges and be up and running again, plus there is no mess involved. If you want to make even more of a saving you can opt to bulk buy printer inks. It is possible to save up to 75% by using bulk color, black and refill inks. That being said, if you really don't want the hassle of refilling your cartridges or simply do not have the time to do so, you can get compatible inkjet cartridges as well as remanufactured ink cartridges. In such cases, this may end up being your best option. Contact us or call Advanced Business Copier today if you have any questions on the right copier for you! Visit our blog for more related articles!