Pricing for printers and cartridges can be misleading. Below we will show the actual cost of printing. Quite often, cheaper equipment can cost you more than expensive equipment, through expensive cartridges for it. Therefore, to accurately control your printing expenses, the most important thing to focus on is the printing cost per page.
Printing budgets tend to grow and become impossible to manage if they are not closely monitored. Printing cost per page is very helpful in controlling printing costs.
Determining the average cost of printing a page is quite simple. Here’s a formula to help calculate it:
Cartridge price
It doesn’t matter whether you use ink or toner – replacing printer cartridges is the most expensive part of owning a printer.
Cartridge prices vary widely depending on the make and model of the printer.
Page yield
Simply put, yield is the number of pages a printer can print before you need another cartridge replacement.
Each replacement cartridge – whether ink or toner – comes with an expected page yield.
The expected page yield can usually be found on the back or side of the package in which the ink or toner was delivered.
You can also usually check your printer’s (or cartridge’s) manual for more information on page yield.
Keep in mind, however, that these page yield ratings are based on printouts with only 5% page coverage. That’s about a third of a page of double spaced text. If you’re printing pages with a lot of text or images, expect actual printing prices per page to be much higher and the page yields quoted to be lower.
Cost of paper
The standard cost of printing paper ranges from £15 to £30 per ream, depending on the weight and quality of the paper.
We love Mother Earth, but some recycled paper is garbage. This is especially true if you use an inkjet printer. Paper designed for inkjet printers is designed to catch and hold ink droplets until they dry. Cheap paper allows the ink to run off and the colors to intermingle. Sure, you saved a few zlotys, but your prints look like they fell into a puddle and got run over by a big truck!
Here’s a formula to determine the cost of paper per sheet:
You can cut costs by buying in bulk, but don’t try to save money by buying lower grade paper. Low-priced printing paper can produce cheap results. Remember the metaphor with the puddle and the truck!
To accurately calculate printing costs, you need to take into account the cost of printing paper, as well as the cost of toners or inks.
So we already know exactly what the three main components of calculating printing costs are. Now let’s see how to use these components in practice and calculate the cost of a printer per page.
Let’s assume that you bought an original HP 12A black toner for 239.99 zloty and it achieves an expected yield of 2,000 pages, the average printing cost per page is about 16 cents.
If you were really smart and bought a replacement SmartPrint cartridge for only $19.99, you reduced the cost of printing per page to 5 cents.
Every penny counts, estimate the cost of printing one page!
Calculating the cost of printing in color
Here is the formula for the cost of color per page:
First, determine the cost of a black cartridge per page by dividing the price of the cartridge by its yield in pages.
Then determine the cost of color printing per page by dividing the cost of the color cartridge price by its yield in pages. Now take this number and multiply by three, since you have three color cartridges in your printer.
Finally, add the cost of the black cartridge to the cost of the color cartridge per page, and add the cost of paper per page to the result to determine the total cost of color printing per page.
Color printing costs vs. black and white printing costs
In general, color printing costs are higher than black and white printing costs.
Moreover, cheaper printers generally have a higher printing cost.
For example, a £500 printer may have an average black and white printing cost per page of 10 cents, and an average color printing cost per page of 60 cents.
A £2,000 printer, on the other hand, can print the same pages for about 5 cents for black and white and 30 cents for color. This is because higher-end printers are more efficient and use less ink and toner.
Is it cheaper to print at home or at a print shop?
Do you need to print 1000 color copies?
You’ll get the best price for color printing at a print shop for that page size. They have high-performance commercial printers that should be able to do your job in minutes. Prints under a few hundred pages, your home printer should be able to handle.
For small jobs, it is cheaper to print at home. A lot of printing pages will require at least an office printer. If a lot of printing becomes the norm, it’s worth investing a few grand in a high-end printer to offset the cost of color printing.
Laser printer vs. ink cost per page
This is one of the most important questions when it comes to printing costs: which is more cost-effective laser printers and toners or inkjet printers and inks? Let’s see what the numbers say.
Cost per page of inkjet printers
The cost per page of inkjet printers is usually higher than that of laser printers. This is because inkjet cartridges have a much lower page yield.
Printing cost varies depending on the make and model of the printer. In general, inkjet printers have a higher average cost per page of about 80 cents for a color printout and 30 cents for a black and white printout.
If you’re buying a new inkjet printer, stick with one that uses separate ink cartridges for each color. This will save on the total cost.
At the same time, inkjet printers with capacious ink tanks can also help reduce ink costs per page.
How many pages can be printed with one ink cartridge?
A standard ink cartridge can print an average of 220 pages (with 11 ml of ink). A high-capacity cartridge prints an average of 350 pages (the tank holds 16 ml of ink).
Let’s say you bought an original HP 94 black ink cartridge for PLN 220. HP 94 has a yield of 480 pages, generating a printing cost of about 45 cents.
The HP 95 tri-color ink cartridge has a yield of 330 pages and costs £219.99. This brings the cost per page to about 70 cents per page.
Save more than 20 cents per printed page by buying SmartPrint inks.
Everyone is looking for the cheapest printer per page. Factors vary widely, but many inkjet users praise the HP OfficeJet 8720 All-in-One printer, which provides black-and-white prints for about 10 cents per page, and color prints for about 40 cents apiece.
We have a great deal on a set of HP 952xl high-performance ink cartridges!
Other printers with low cost per page include the HP DeskJet 2135 All-in-One and the Canon PIXMA MX922:
Cost per page of a laser printer
The cost of toner per page is usually lower than the cost of an inkjet printer per page. The average cost of printing a page on a laser printer is 5 to 15 cents for black and white and 20 to 30 cents for color laser prints. However, the cost of color printing can go up as much as 90 cents per page for photos and heavy graphics.
What is the average number of pages a toner cartridge can print?
The page yield of toner cartridges ranges from 1,000 to 5,000 pages for standard cartridges, and from 10,000 to 12,000 pages for high-capacity cartridges Check the side of the cartridge box – the page yield should be listed there.
Note, however, that page yield is based on only 5% page coverage. That’s about one-third of a page of double spaced text. If you print pages or graphics with a lot of text, expect the actual page yield to be about a quarter less. A cartridge with a yield of 4,000 pages under real-world conditions can run out after less than 1,000 pages.
Wojoweb