Not All Laser Printers Are Created Equally
The price you pay for a low end laser printer is not the true cost, according to Douglas Walley, President of an east coast printer sales company. Of course most of the laser printers on the market are very reliable, as matter of fact most service managers agree that printers now are much more reliable than let’s say 5 years ago. Reliability factor runs thru most makes and models of laser printers with HP, in my opinion, being the most reliable. However, the cost of a printer whether it is an ink jet or a laser printer is not what your true cost is.

Most of the printer manufacturers are using the same marketing concepts, getting the price of the printer as low as possible to compete with each other and to get more people into the frame of mind to buy a printer for business or at home.  It seems as though they are all most willing to give you the printer as long as (you got it) buy the cartridges, ink or laser. I guess it’s the same old theory years ago when the razor manufacturers came up with the same concept, give them the razor and they will buy razor blades.

When buying a printer consider this, THE COST OF THE TONER OR INK, that’s what the true cost of your printer is. It’s the cost per copy that should be considered. It’s the cost you pay for the cartridge divided by the expected number of copies you will get from it, better known as the yield. Example: if you pay $ 89.00 for a toner cartridge to fit an HP LJ P2035 printer and you get 2,300 prints from it, which is what the manufacturers suggested yield is at 5% coverage, your cost per copy is just shy of 4 cents per print. That cost is based on the original manufacturer’s toner not a compatible toner cartridge cost factor.

Now consider this, buy a larger laser printer that in most cases has more features, faster, more reliable, longer life and the cost per copy is a lot less. Yes, I know what your thinking the machine is going to cost me more. You would be absolutely correct with that assumption, but bare this in mind your cost per print could be more than half of what the smaller printer’s cost per print is. If the cost difference between the smaller printer and the larger more commercial grade printer was $500.00 and you were paying .012 cent per print (less than 1 1/2 cent per print) on the larger printer’s cost per print you can see it won’t take long for the larger printer to pay for itself.

That's why buying a larger more of a commercial grade model laser printer could pay for itself in no time.

So be careful on the up front price of a laser printer, it's probably not the true cost.