Posted by JandB on 1/4/12 5:40pm
Msg #408218

Cost per page with maintenance contract for your printer

After reading the posts here re: printers I'm pretty sure most of you buy your printers as needed and order your toner as cheaply as possible from sources like Amazon and E-Bay. We bought a rather expensive Kyocera printer several years ago and have enjoyed a maintenance contract which provided toner and maintenance for a little over 1 cent per page. The printer has printed 533,000 copies and cost $1000 ($1000/533,000= .0019) so the cost per page is roughly 1.0019. Not bad! This does not include the cost of paper and this machine would have never made 533,000 without the maintenance agreement.

Sadly, we are moving away from our contract provider and have been quoted .03 per page which includes maintenance, toner and leasing of a new printer.

So I'm wondering, have you figured out the cost per page (not including paper) when you consider the cost of your machine, maintenance and toner?

Reply by Shauna/WA on 1/4/12 11:34pm
Msg #408228

I haven't figured out per page, but I did the cheapie way.

My printer cost $40 off Craigslist, plus the guy threw in a spare same model for free. I've printed right around 100,000 pages this year. I've bought full priced toner from Staples at $156ish each. I think I bought around 8 of them, give or take.

For maintenance, I get on the internet and figure it out or bug my husband.

Reply by JandB on 1/5/12 9:29am
Msg #408238

I make that about 1.5 cents per copy. Not bad! Thanks, Shauna.

If I go with the .03/page quote, my cost for 100,000 pages would be $3000. Your cost for printer and toner is about $1288.

Reply by Mark/SanJose on 1/5/12 5:09pm
Msg #408296

I buy used $100 Brother printers off Ebay. For "maintenance" I bought 2. When 1 dies I throw it out and order another. I have 250K+ pages on the current unit. I pay $20 for toner cartridges on Ebay yielding 5,000 pages per cartridge. $35 per drum yielding 20,000 pages each. Total cost without paper $0.006 per page. Always perfect quality and I have the dual tray add-on that I move to the next printer in the line.