Recession Printing: How to Save (or Spend) a Bundle on Color

Even with a new administration and lots of stimulus cash out there, the economy is still in a stall.   People are worrying about their jobs now more than ever, and this is causing some interesting trends in the copier and printer industry.  One big trend is that of businesses and churches bringing printshop outsourcing “in house.”  It is more labor, but for the possible savings, it can be a huge money saver.  Bringing your printing in house may be a good idea.   However, it may not if you don’t fully understand how color costs are computed.

The first thing to be aware of is that for most color printers/copiers (i.e. Lexmark, HP, Kyocera, Konica, Ricoh, Okidata, Xerox, etc…) there is a rated coverage.  This is 20% for color and 5% for Black and white as an industry standard.  When there are deviations (for example Kyocera rates some cartridges for 6% coverage) it will be noted on the spec sheet.  Higher coverage means more toner is used on your print.   However, this does not necessarily mean more of the page is covered in toner.

A brochure with 120% coverage may wind up costing twice of what it would have cost to go to a printer.   However a 50% coverage brochure may be the same cost as your print shop.  There are ways to get per-print charges no matter what your coverage, but you need to assess your average coverage per color print…or you could make a bad scenario worse.

The second thing people face is purchasing a less expensive printer (to keep the budget low), without looking at long term consumable costs.  If you buy a cheaper color printer, say an HP CP1510, you would feel great about spending less than $300 for the printer.  However,  if you are printing 2,500 sheets a month (about a ream a week) using standard office color (20% coverage), at the end of three years, you would have spent more than $12,500 than you should have.   The “super expensive” Xerox 8860 printer would have worked out to be $12,500 less expensive over that 36 month period?  You might have wasted over $10,000 just because you didn’t have all the information before you purcased your machine.

Reasons like these are why having a consultation with us can help you radically reduce your costs on these devices.  We actually consult and show you how to save significant money while INCREASING productivity.   Feel free to give us a call with questions or quote requests.