Is Your Business Upgrading To A New Laser Printer? Here Are 3 Tips For Finding One With The Lowest Total Operating Costs
Laser printers were once quite expensive, making them cost-prohibitive for small businesses. However, they've come down in price significantly, which allows businesses on a tight budget to benefit from the increased print quality and speed of laser printing. These printers work by magnetizing a drum inside the printer, causing it to attract a fine dust called toner. The drum presses against the paper, transferring the toner to it. Finally, the toner is baked onto the paper by subjecting it to high heat in the printer's fuser. This method of printing produces very high-quality pages at a rapid speed, making it perfect for business use.
For businesses still using an inkjet printer, the increased speed and print clarity often makes upgrading to laser worth it. Just like with an inkjet, you'll need to factor in the initial purchase price of the printer along with its operating costs in order to find out how much it will cost your business to use. If your business is on a budget and needs to find a new laser printer with the lowest total operating costs, follow the three tips below.
1. Stick With a Monochrome Printer
Color laser printers are much more complicated than monochrome ones since they require four different drums and toner cartridges in order to print in color, whereas monochrome printers only need one. The increased complexity makes color printers much more expensive to purchase, and you'll also need to spend more money periodically replacing all of the color toner when it runs out. You'll save a significant amount of money by purchasing a monochrome printer instead of a color one.
Most businesses require color printing for the logo on their letterheads, and this can be done by using an offset printing service. An offset printing service can print your company's logo, address, and phone number on blank pages of paper. When your business needs to send out a letter with your company letterhead on it, you can load these pre-printed sheets into your monochrome laser printer in order to print the contents of the letter. Using a print service for small tasks like this is most often less expensive than owning and maintaining a color laser printer, which makes combining a print service and a monochrome printer a good choice for businesses who are trying to keep expenses low.
2. Estimate Your Toner Usage and Find a Printer With Low Replacement Costs
When you're searching for laser printers, manufacturers will provide you with an estimate of how many pages can be printed with a single toner cartridge. By comparing this number to the number of pages you're planning on printing each month, you'll be able to estimate the number of months that a toner cartridge will last for. Checking the price of replacement toner cartridges will give you a rough estimate of how much you'll spend each month on toner costs.
Estimating your monthly toner cost is important because it can vary greatly between different printers. As the initial purchase price of the printer increases, the cost of replacing its toner tends to decrease — toner cartridges can print a greater number of pages, and manufacturers will sell them for less when they're used in high-end printers. If your business prints a large number of pages each month, it's usually better to spend a bit more purchasing the printer in order to benefit from less expensive toner costs.
3. Check the Prices for the Printer's Drum and Fuser
Finally, it's also important to check the price of replacement drums and fusers when you're trying to minimize the total cost of ownership of your printer. Drums will wear out over time, losing their ability to hold a magnetic charge. Toner will no longer stick to the drum correctly, so your printed pages will have blank spots and white lines running across them. You'll need to replace the drum when this happens. In order to save money over the entire lifetime of your printer, you'll need to choose one with inexpensive replacement drums.
The same concept applies to the printer's fuser, which causes the toner to adhere to the paper by rapidly heating the page. The fuser can sometimes fail due to thermal stress since it's constantly heating up and cooling down. While you won't have to replace the fuser as often as you need to replace the drum, it's worth purchasing a printer that has inexpensive replacement fusers in order to reduce repair costs.
Overall, the best way to find a laser printer with a low total cost of ownership is to stick with monochrome models — the purchase price and toner replacement costs are always much lower than they are for color printers. After that, make sure that the toner replacement cost is in-line with the number of pages you plan on printing — more expensive printers tend to result in lower costs for replacing the toner. By keeping this in mind, your business will be able to find the perfect point for the initial purchase price of the printer versus the cost for printing each page.
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