How much are printers for offices?
Most organizations still rely heavily on the venerable printer as a key piece of equipment. being able to physically produce printouts, posters, design plans, marketing materials, and even a traditional letter; When it comes to crucial papers, printers serve a utilitarian purpose, but they also have the ability to turn creativity into reality.
There are several options available when selecting a printer from the market. You must choose whether your company needs a laser or inkjet printer that performs a particular function or has several uses.
Continue reading to learn about the expenses involved in buying a printer in detail and to learn about some common misconceptions about the laser vs. inkjet printer dispute.
The typical cost of a commercial printer
Purchasing a printer is typically just the beginning of an investment. There are several factors to take into account, and choosing the cheapest model isn’t necessarily the greatest choice for obtaining the best value for your money. There are two types of costs involved with buying printers:
Costs of acquisition: investigation, shipping, and installation
Maintenance, paper, and ink/toner costs are operational expenses.
First, the price ranges that printers come within are briefly broken down as follows:
Low-tier cost: £100 – £500
Mid-tier cost: £500 – £1,500
High-tier cost: up to £10,000
The price you might anticipate spending for a printer will depend on a number of things, including the cost of the printer itself. These factors include the quantity of printing you need, whether you need A3 printing capability, duplex printing on both sides or just one, and optional features like scanning, wireless printing, or even emailing.
See the chart below for a more thorough breakdown of the costs you might anticipate when buying a printer:
| Type of printer | Average domestic price: (less than 1,000 prints per year) | Average business price: (2,000+ prints per year) |
|---|---|---|
| Inkjet printer | £50 | £300 |
| Laser printer | £150 | £500 |
| Wide-format printer | N/A | £3,000 |
| Industrial printer | N/A | £700+ |
| 3D printer price | N/A | £4,500 |
Which is better for me: inkjet or laser?
An inkjet printer is less expensive than a laser printer for residential use or circumstances in which fewer than 1,000 pages would be printed yearly (model and manufacturer dependent, of course).
However, the laser alternative is more cost-effective if your printing requirements surpass 2,000 copies annually.
Despite having higher maintenance expenses, inkjet printers are less expensive to purchase initially. Although more expensive, laser printers are typically simpler to maintain. In addition, toner is less costly per page than ink, especially in commercial settings where annual print volumes surpass 20,000 copies.
HP printers are the most often used option because they are the company that manufactures more than 50% of the printers sold in the UK.
The HP Deskjet 3050A inkjet printer, HP’s top-selling model, costs about £90 new. Cartridges for the 3050A range in price from £10 to £15, and they print 165 pages in color and 190 in monochrome.
Comparatively speaking, the HP CP2025 color LaserJet is the company’s best-selling laser printer. The initial expenses of purchasing a laser printer are quite high, costing £300 at retail and £110 for toner cartridges. With a print output of 2,800 color pages and 3,500 black-and-white pages, laser printers have comparatively low manufacturing costs.Inkjet vs. laser: the basics
Despite having lower startup costs than laser printers, inkjet printers have more expensive ongoing operating expenses.
This is because ink is expensive and an inkjet system is prone to malfunctions because of its complexity.
A laser printer is your best choice if you want the most affordable, long-term printing solution. Despite the significant upfront cost, they offer the best value for the money because of their greater toner yield and lesser danger of malfunction.
Inkjet printers have better resolution than laser printers, which results in sharper, more precise lines in the images. Therefore, an inkjet printer will be most useful if your company produces a lot of photographs, design prints, blueprints, or graphics.
Businesses that require label and package printing should use industrial printers since they are more specialized. To print things like banners, wall coverings, and large-scale images, though, you’ll need a wide-format printer.
How much will each page cost me?
Up to 3% of a company’s income is reportedly spent on printing, paper products, and related expenses, claims Gartner, Inc. With this fact in mind, it’s critical that your investment be targeted appropriately; you need to buy equipment that’s appropriate for your company in order to make every printing count.
Here is an estimate of the price per page you might anticipate to pay according to the result of a typical laser printer:
| Paper size and print type | Pence per piece: single sided | Pence per piece: duplex (double sided) |
|---|---|---|
| Mono A4 | 2.75p | 4.5p |
| Mono A3 | 3.75p | 5.5p |
| Colour A4 | 6.5p | 12p |
| Colour A3 | 7.5p | 13p |
Using a specific kind of paper will affect the costs in the above table. Paper type is referred to in the business as “stock,” and it is priced according to its gsm (grams every square meter) thickness.
Here is a list of many stocks along with some potential business applications for each:
- Colored stock – is enjoyable to print on but can wreak havoc on your picture quality since colored paper changes how inks or toners appear. used for one-off print projects or promotional brochures.
- Coated stock – meant to enhance the print’s aesthetic appeal by making the colors stand out. Three unique but clearly “premium” finishes for A4 paper are silk, matte, and gloss. used for printing with plenty of images and for crucial mail exchanges.
- Uncoated stock – delivers a matte appearance and has lately become fashionable as a new print resurgence takes root in popular culture. Uncoated stock zaps strong colors from your images, making it ideal for internal papers or giving advertising material a nostalgic, faded effect.
Since they will be most knowledgeable about the optimum paper for your printer model, we advise buying the material from your printer provider. The effectiveness of your printer and the caliber of your prints may be significantly impacted by this.
Costs of ink and toner
Printers need ink or toner in addition to the printer itself, which you must use with paper. On the surface, the ink appears to be less expensive than toner, but it also has to be refilled more frequently. On the other side, toner costs more money but lasts longer.
| Average ink cost (full colour) | Average toner cost (full colour) |
|---|---|
| £30 – £60 per machine Bi-annual replenishment | £100 – £300 per machine Annual replenishment |
Top tip: The European Toner & Inkjet Remanufacturers Association claims that using refilled cartridges as opposed to fresh ones will help you save up to 50% on pricey inks or toners.
Important factors affecting printer Pricing
The main factors to take into account when buying a printer are:
Inkjet cadence
The rate at which it can create pages per minute (ppm). Do you require a high-volume printer, or will an average ppm suffice?
Print price/toner output
This will specify the volume of paper you can print before having to swap out the toner or ink cartridges.
print excellence
The print resolution establishes this. The print quality you want, expressed in dots per inch (DPI), depends depend on the purpose for which you intend to utilize your printouts. Printouts intended just for internal usage may have a somewhat lesser quality than printouts you would display to clients.
Duty cycle printing
This is the monthly printing capacity of a printer before it becomes overworked and risks system harm. The print-duty cycle increases as the printer becomes stronger and more durable.
Some of the typical costs associated with purchasing a printer were covered in the article above. Remember that you will also have to pay for maintenance, new toners and ink, and paper in addition to the original expenditure.
