Figuring the actual cost of printing a particular page from an inkjet is difficult enough. On top of that, ordering replacement ink cartridges is usually a painful experience, particularly for creative professionals on a budget. However, it is possible to reduce some printing costs without sacrificing output quality.
As I pointed out in my previous column, there’s a wide gap between the ratings of printer performance and the reality of creative work. The bottom line is that large inkjet images can be costly.
Think Before You Ink
"The time to know ink cost is before you buy the printer," Brooklyn-based designer Peter Joseph said in an e-mail response to my column. "’PC Magazine‘ ran total cost of ownership (TCO) ratings in an inkjet roundup a few years ago. The differences between printer brands and models are really startling."
"Since inkjet printers are like razors (the manufacturers essentially give you the basic equipment and make it back 10 times over in supplies) and inkjet manufacturers are kind of sneaky about TCO, this should be one factor anyone evaluates in buying a printer," Joseph added in a follow-up message. "All other things being equal, why not buy the one that costs you less to operate, especially, if like me, you use a desktop inkjet mainly for quick-and-dirty proofing? If you’re making fine art prints, other factors (like the cost of paper) are naturally going to outweigh the cost of ink."
Joseph makes some good points and total cost of ownership should certainly be a consideration for any purchase, printer or otherwise.
Yet, creative professionals — unlike the average consumer — will do better to base their purchase decisions on image quality and performance. It’s all about the image, whether that hardcopy will be part of the evaluation process or the final product that’s presented to clients. If TCO considerations come into play at purchase time, they should be subordinate to the quality of the image.
Still, there are other routes to TCO savings for printing, while still keeping quality in mind. It requires a bit of thinking outside the box (or the enclosure in this case).
No Ink is Good Ink?
Of course, the easiest way to save on inkjet printing costs is to force someone else to print out the hardcopy. This was the model for the fax machine and PDF makes this very convenient nowadays. But sooner or later you will have to print something, right?
So, the second easiest way to save on printing is to switch some of your inkjet output to a black-and-white toner-based printer. The cost per page from a laser printer — regardless of the coverage — is vastly cheaper than inkjet.
Before you scoff and think me a total hypocrite about my color quality message above, take a brief look at your own printing habits. I know many content creators who frequently print out Web pages, recipes, and Yahoo Map directions on their inkjet printers. All of these pages add up and are a complete waste of good (and expensive) consumables.
Monochrome laser printers offer many advantages for these ordinary pages. Laser print engines output sheets much more quickly than inkjet printers; they also have high "duty cycles," or the number of pages the machine can output in a month (a mark of reliability, and more than just the number of pages that could be printed in a given month if you ran it day and night). And laser engines can help the budget since the cost per page can range from pennies to a dime.
The past criticism of laser printers was their lower resolution and their high purchase price. To the first point, you don’t need the greatest quality of output for this purpose (remember, you’re not replacing your inkjet, only supplementing it for some types of work).
As for cost, many of us remember the laser printers of the past, when memory, networking, and processing power added up to great expense. Today, most of us don’t need a heavy-duty departmental printer for our personal printing, and besides, the cost of laser printers has plummeted over the past few years.
This article was last modified on January 6, 2023
This article was first published on May 22, 2003
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