Redstart Printers

When it comes time to purchase office equipment, an important decision is made between different printer technologies.  You could make the decision to accept the inkjet printers that are almost free or choose to invest your money in laser printers.  Most would think the decision would be easy when you consider the initial financial investment.  However, when you think about the actual cost of using an inkjet printer, the decision to invest wisely isn’t as easy as just accepting it.

Let’s consider a few things about inkjet printers and ink.  First, inkjet printers are widely available at any store.  It’s not unheard of to see an inkjet printer for sale in local grocery stores.  And the ink for these printers is even more widely available even showing up on the shelves of convenience stores.  If anyone has tried to purchase a personal computer, they know that they are often offered inkjet printers as part of a bundle at insanely low prices or in a lot of cases free.

So how do manufacturers make money on inkjet printers?  In one word: Ink.  When you consider the actual price of ink at retail, it is probably one of the most precious liquids in the world.  Let’s consider one of the most popular ink cartridges, an HP 22 Black ink cartridge.  It contains about 5ml of ink and currently retails at a major retail outlet for about $15.  Remember, this is considered budget ink and this price is lower than it was when the cartridge was first introduced.

First, let’s note that is $3 per ml.  At 30ml to an ounce that comes out to about $90 an ounce.  By comparison, you can purchase an ounce of Chanel Number 5 perfume for about $25 an ounce.  This would be considered a luxury and not a budget item.   If you consider that there are 128 ounces in a gallon, you can see that a gallon of this ink would cost you $11,520.  Compare that to a gallon of gas.  I can only imagine that it costs next to nothing to create a gallon of ink.

This same cartridge yields about 150 pages of plain text printing.  That’s not even a third of a ream of paper (500 sheets).  You would have to purchase 4 of these cartridges to use one ream of paper.   And if you only print out a couple of sheets a day you are still looking at purchasing about 5 of these a year.  In my experience, even the best multi-function printer lasts about 2 years.  So your acceptance of an inkjet printer will cost you about $150 or more in black ink.  That’s not even considering color ink.

Multi-function printers are a small business owner’s dream.  You have multiple components in one, but when one of these components fails, it’s more economical to just purchase a new printer than it is to get it fixed.  As printer technology progresses, print head nozzles get smaller to produce finer drops.  This creates the potential for clogged nozzles which can happen in both OEM and third party ink cartridges and results in having to purchase a new cartridge.

This also means that the new cartridges contains less ink for the same yield in prints which further increases the overall investment margin.  Every time you replace your printer with another “economical” inkjet printer you start the process all over again.

With the price of ink being so high, consumers tend to purchase third party ink cartridges or refill kits which have the potential to cause damage to your printers.  Printer manufacturers have made the printers in such a way that if you are not using OEM cartridges you will not get the full benefits of your printer.  Also, if you use a non-OEM cartridge your warranty is voided giving you no choice but to purchase a new printer.

Inkjet printers are getting a reputation as disposable printers.  The printer is cheap, the quality is decent, the speed is unimportant, and the ink prices are tolerable.  But how does this compare to the investment of laser printers?  Find out in part two coming later this week.