The Real Cost of a Printer

Before buying any printing device, calculate the total cost of ownership. You may be surprised at what you find.

By Dennis Walthers

If you are considering the purchase of a new printer, take a few minutes and research the total cost of ownership. The TCO varies by printer technology. While technologies like ink-jet have a low initial cost and are well suited for day-to-day correspondence, they are not intended for the business that needs to print 10,000 color pages per month.

Printer technology has changed rapidly in the past 20 years and even more so just in the last 10 years. Affordable color printing technology was not even available until the mid-1990s. Since then the technology has evolved rapidly and prices have dropped significantly.

When you are looking at printer features, pay close attention to how the specification is measured. It does you little good to purchase a printer that says it can print 20 pages per minute in draft mode unless draft mode is acceptable to you. Likewise, when you look at cost per page, consider that, in most cases, manufacturers use five percent coverage as a guideline. Five percent coverage is a short business letter with a small color logo. For full-page color, your cost per page will be much greater.

Items like network adapters, cables, memory, paper trays and print servers can quickly add to your TCO. If you need a network printer, look for a printer that has this feature built in.

What follows is an overview of various printer technologies.

Laser Printers

Laser technology has proven itself to be reliable for the heavy printing needs of small offices and large corporations. The advent of color laser technology has allowed these printers to gain popularity and market share. The price of color laser technology has come down considerably in the last few years.

However, there is a bit of hidden cost that needs to be considered when looking at laser technology. The printer uses a drum and fuser assembly to print a document. These components must be replaced every 10,000 to 100,000 pages and can cost up to 50 percent of the price of a new printer. In the case of a color laser printer, you can have four drums and fuser assemblies to replace. Fuser oil and waste bottles will also need to be replaced on a regular basis. These factors may increase your TCO.

Laser offers advantages of speed and the ability to support a work group through a network. This can reduce the total cost by sharing the printer among many users. Black-and-white laser printers have a cost per page of approximately six to eight cents while color laser printer costs will top 12 to 25 cents per page.

Ink-jet Printers

Ink-jet technology has seen the most rapid advancement in print quality and speed over the past few years. While speed has improved considerably, ink-jet technology is still slow when compared to higher-end printers. In the past couple of years the most popular ink-jet products have been the all-in-one or multi-function printers that can print, copy, scan and even fax documents in color.

Ink-jet technology is perfect for the small office with one to five users and light printing demands. While the initial hardware cost can be low, the consumables can drive the cost per page to 10 to 65 cents per page, depending on what is being printed and how much color is being used.

Solid Ink Printers

A relatively new technology is solid ink technology. These printers continue to gain in popularity because of their reliability, low maintenance cost, low cost per page, speed and image quality. The technology overcomes some of the challenges faced by color lasers by providing a very low maintenance cost and a low cost per page.

The newest solid ink printers from Xerox produce a magazine type color print quality at 16 ppm. The drawback to these printers is the higher initial expense. However, over the long haul these printers will have a lower total cost of ownership than other high-performance color printers. These printers are typically used in a network environment with users that have a demand for large volumes of color printing. Cost per page will run 11 to 20 cents on average.

Tip: If you use a solid ink printer on a daily basis, do not turn the printer off each day. When these printers power up they will cycle some ink through the system. This will decrease your page output.

Dot Matrix Printers

Dot matrix is an older impact printing technology introduced in the early 1980s. It was the mainstay for many years in the computer industry. This technology is still in use today where there is a need for multi-part form printing. Cost per page is relatively low but the drawbacks are lower print quality, slower speed and noise. Unless you have the need to print multi-part forms, there are better options available.

Dye-sublimation (Thermal)

Dye-sublimation technology is great for producing excellent quality photo prints. It uses a thermal heat process. The drawbacks to dye-sublimation are its higher cost per print and its slow speed. This technology is not for high-volume color printing or everyday office correspondence.

Opal and Onyx Technology

This is a new technology being developed by Polaroid. It has a bright future with its claim to fame being its ability to produce beautiful color photo prints in just a few seconds. This is another specific-use technology for the printing of photos. As digital photography grows, this type of technology will gain in market share.

Maintenance Costs

While not typically the first thing you look into when considering the purchase of a new printer, it may prove to be the most important. Downtime and printer repairs can become expensive quickly.

Carefully consider the warranty and service options. Maintenance expenses can dramatically increase your TCO. If you are using your printer in an environment where the printing demands will be heavy, it would be wise to invest in a maintenance contract or on-site service program.

Consumable Costs

This is where most of your printing expense will come from. The consumable expense should be a key factor in making your purchase decision. If your printing demands are light, then ink-jet may be the right decision; when printing demands are heavy, look to laser or solid ink technology to improve your cost per page.

It can be a little deceiving to determine your true consumable expense with laser printers. The toner cartridges will provide many thousands of pages, but you must also factor in the expense of replacing fuser assemblies and drums to get a true TCO. The Solid Ink printers will also require maintenance kits that will need to be used every 10,000 to 40,000 pages. The cost for these maintenance kits can be as low as half a cent per page.

Third-party Ink and Toner

Many third-party companies are now vying for the consumable business. While legitimate companies follow stringent guidelines to provide a quality product, others do not adhere to fair and legal trade practices. You should be cautious. There are many counterfeit products coming into the U.S. on a regular basis. The use of a third-party ink or toner will not void your printer warranty. Use appropriate precautions when purchasing these types of third-party ink and toner products and enjoy the savings.

Paper Costs and Waste

Depending on the type of printing you do, paper can quickly inflate your TCO. A word of caution here: Some low-cost papers can create problems for higher-performance color printers. They tend to leave a greater amount of paper residue or dust, which can create paper feed problems over time. Stick with a quality paper of a weight recommended by the printer manufacturer.

While not easy to measure, one expense that will greatly increase your TCO is waste. These are the print jobs that were printed with errors and trashed, or jobs where 100 copies were made when you really needed just 10.

The use of "print previews" in your software applications are a great tool to reduce your printing expenses. You would also be wise to print one copy for final review before running a large job. Most high-performance color printers can notify users when they run low on ink or paper, therefore reducing potential waste.

Network Cost, Support and Service

Wherever there are computers, networks and printers there will be a cost of maintaining the network. This adds an indirect cost component to the TCO equation. This is something to keep in mind when considering the ease of installing the new printer on the network.

If possible, negotiate to have maintenance and service included with your new printer. Many manufacturers offer these services as incentives. A product with an on-site service agreement is preferable to one with a slightly lower initial cost. It's likely your TCO will be lower in the long run.

Total cost of ownership is not an exact science and will vary from user to user. There are new programs offered in the market that provide a very low TCO. One such program is offered by FreePrinters.com. It provides a high-performance color printer and on-site service for businesses that need to print 1,500 color pages or more each month. A program for the small office is FreeInk-jet.com, which offers an all-in-one color printer that can print, copy, scan and fax. Both are economical programs that will lower your TCO.

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Dennis Walthers has worked in the printer industry for more than 20 years. He has held positions in executive level management for companies like Canon, Epson America and Dell. For more information, visit www.freeprinters.com