Stop right there! You may be abusing your printer cartridges without even knowing it. From how much toner you specify when printing, to printing out everything in color, bad habits can significantly impact your cost per copy—and your bottom line. As business owners, saving money is something we all want to do on a regular basis.
How Bad Habits Affect Print Costs
It is a proven fact that printer cartridges are easily abused, and you may not even realize that you are a culprit. Depending on how much toner/ink you specify for a copy, i.e. what resolution you choose, you can shorten the life of the cartridge. If you look at a toner package, it gives a yield number based on how many prints you should get out of the cartridge. This is based on a 5 percent fill rate, which means there will be 5 percent toner on a single copy.
It is mathematical. For example, toner for an HP printer at one of the major office supply stores costs $147.99. That toner yields up to 6,000 pages. $147.99 divided by 6,000 equals .024665 cents per copy (which is outrageous, but more on that later). If you specify a higher rate of toner per page, you may only get 4,000 prints out of that cartridge. That brings the cost per copy up to .0369975—even more outrageous!
How to Break Free From Printer Cartridge Excesses
Perhaps you print anything and everything, or you tend to print everything in color. No matter what bad habits you have developed, rest assured that you can turn things around.
• Only print what you need. This sounds simple, but it can be hard to do. Think before you print and decide if you will really need to reference a hard copy of that email.
• Use black and white or grayscale printing. If you print in color to better see that chart or pie graph, using grayscale printing provides enough shade variation to see the distinct categories.
• Buy high-capacity toners. Not only will you get more copies per cartridge, but you also will not have to change the toner as often.
Finally, consider managed print services for all your printer and copier needs. Here at Visual Edge IT Ohio, we base our contracts on cost per copy, which varies per account depending on the type of printer or copier, and print volume. On average, the cost per copy for a managed print service contract is between .012-.016. That is much more affordable than in my example above!
When you consider that service and maintenance also is included in managed print service contracts, you will see why they are a popular choice among our customers. If you are a business owner in Canton, Akron, Youngstown or Western Pennsylvania, we can help you, too. Contact us today!
Image Credit: amorphis / 123RF Stock Photo