Free TOTAL PRINTER COSTS CALCULATOR at www.printeradvice.com

[roytje]

Finally a site has developed a consumer-friendly printer cost calculator. Most sites only tell you how much a printer costs in the shop, but this site calculates also the costs for your ink. You fill in how many pages you print each year and how many years you want to use the printer, press the submit button and it shows you the average total costs a year in dollars for 22 of the most common used printers in the United States. Some parts of the site are under construction, but the calculator works perfectly. The printers in the database cost between 40 and 300 dollar. The results of the calculator are shocking: when u print 2000 or 3000 pages a year and you use it for 6 years, a 200 dollar printer that offers perfect quality appears to be much cheaper than a 50 dollar printer! The total cost differences between the printers are really enormous! The site is www.printeradvice.com

 

[Quick]

I checked the site above. Very interesting, and very useful. It seems that they base their data on manufacturers published data. Since the manufacturers data tends to be well, uh, "optimistic", It probably significantly understates the true printing costs, with some variability depending upon just how "optimistic" the particular manufacturer is. Even though the cost of ink is large in these calculations, real-world ink costs are probably significantly higher.

Another approach is taken by TomsHardware. (www.tomshardware.com) he reviews printers and makes actual ink usage tests under a variety of conditions. Two such summaries are given in http://www6.tomshardware.com/consumer/20041025/printer-10.html for eight current printers, and http://www6.tomshardware.com/consumer/20041229/high_end_printers-08.html for three high-end printers.

Some generalized conclusions:

1. HP and Lexmark are a lot more expensive to run, with text printing running up to 10 for a text page and a dollar per letter-sized photo print. This is for ink costs alone, with paper cost backed out.

2. Canon is the most economical (no surprise here), with text at 2-3 cents and full-size photo at 20-26 cents.

3. Epson is somewhat higher than Canon, with the pigment-based ink more expensive than the dye based. (This is probably because pigments are particles, and therefore go on thicker.)

Read the reviews for a better understanding.

Bob Quick

 

[Nifty]

Very interesting information. Thanks to both of you.

I've been very interested in this topic for quite some time

There are so many variables involved with this topic. In my spreadsheet I've realized that with HIGH volume printing the cost of the printer can be almost negligible when compared to the ink prices. This is why on my spreadsheet I've not added the cost of maintaining the printer and a few other variables that are heavily overshadowed by ink costs.

I have been working on this spreadsheet for a while:

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/inkjet-printer-tco.php

I'd love feedback and suggestions here:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=40

 

[Quick]

On your comment about the negligible cost of printers, Consider this:

I just purchased two printers, an Epson RX500 all-in-one and a Canon iP4000. I tend to replace my printer every couple of years or so, for reasons that will become obvious. See below.

Take the Epson for example. I purchased this at Sam's Club for $148.88. Epson has a $50 rebate on it, so th net cost was $98.88. The box contained a complete set of cartridges costing $74.04 at CompUSA. Thus the net cost of the all-in-one was $25.84. This purchased a printer, copier, 2400X4800 scanner with transparency adapter, card reader, and a new, unplugged, print head. (My wife's CX5200 had three out of four heads plugged solid after we returned form 2 months away - I blame the pigment settling out of the ink). It is often possible to by the cheaper printers at a cost near, and sometimes below, the cost of replacement cartridges.

Of course, all this is only true if you use manufacturer cartridges. After reading your website, I ordered a complete set of inkgrabber cartridges for each. I have prepared a set of control prints to judge the effects as I replace individual cartridges. I'll let you know how this comes out.

I am not sure my usage will be worth the trouble of refilling, and in any case, it can't be done with the Epson because of that (censored) chip. W'll see how the first experiment works out.

Bob Quick

 

[Nifty]

I'll take you one step more Bob...

I bought a few refurbished i560's for $29.00 + tax out the door (no rebates required). They came with original new OEM Canon carts that I could sell on eBay for $35.00 each. Free printers!

 

[roytje]

Hello everybody,

First I would like to thank you all for your posts about www.printeradvice.com. I was glad to read these positive posts. But we are working very hard to improve the site. Why? We think that transparancy improves competition. The effect we want to achieve is that manufacturers become more competitive and reduce the prices of ink cartridges. We would like you to help us! Please tell us what you think we should do to achieve our goal. You can tell it in this forum or you could tell it in the forum at our site, you could even mail it to webmaster@printeradvice.com. We don't care which option you choose, we just want you to help us make the best printer site of the world! This is the way to make the inkjet market transparant! Ink manufacturers are selling ink for absolutely unreasonable prices and we want this to stop!

Greetings

Roy, webmaster of www.printeradvice.com

 

[roytje]

www.printeradvice.com has a new tool: a photo print cost calculator. I think this new tool is very useful. I would like it when you take a look and post your comments in this forum or you mail it to webmaster@printeradvice.com

Greetings

Roytje

 

[Scrubking]

I would like to see a site that compares ink prices and quality from the many ink sites and stores. It would be even nicer if they included the reliability of the site and mention how often customers have to return bad ink carts, etc.

 

[Nifty]

Scrubking... you already found it!

The list of inkjet refill kits, inks and cartridges is growing and can be found here:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=12

As we receive more data I'll probably compile the information from the forums into a single page.

 

[Scrubking]

Scrubking... you already found it!

The list of inkjet refill kits, inks and cartridges is growing and can be found here:
http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=12

As we receive more data I'll probably compile the information from the forums into a single page.

Yeah, this forum is great. Now if only more people posted their experiences.

Maybe you should include people's printer info in their profile so that when they post a problem we can just look at their profile and see what kind of printer, ink, paper they are using, etc. or create a special submission page where people can share their probs and include all of this info.