When it comes to selecting a printer for your medical practice or pharmacy, going cheap is not always cheaper, especially if your print volume per month is high. Printers in the $150 or less category may sound like great bargains, but they have a high cost of printing and limited features. Most of them are intended for personal/home use with limited print volume per month and are not suited for a busy professional environment.
To see why a cheap printer is not necessarily cheaper over time, consider the following:
A low-end printer of $150 will require a toner cartridge that costs roughly $100.00 that can print an average of 1,500 pages.
Entry level business printers’ start at around $350, however, they can accommodate high-yield toners that can deliver close to 15,000-20,000 printed pages at a cost of $400 per cartridge.
Assuming that the life span of a printer is 3 years, (most last much longer) and you print 750 pages per month, lets look at the real cost of printing:
Number of pages you will print over 3 years: 36 x 750 = 27,000
The low-end printer described above would require 18 toner cartridges over that period of 3 years (27,000/1500 = 18). At $100 per cartridge x 18 = $1,800. Add the cost of the printer and you are now looking at spending $1,950
The business printer will need 1.8 toner cartridges over that period of 3 years (27,000/15,000. At $400 per toner cartridge your cost will be 1.8 x $400 = $720. Lets round that to $800 because you cannot buy 80% of a cartridge. Add the cost of the printer, and you are looking at a cost of $800 + $350 = $1,150
If you have multiple printers or higher volumes of printing compared to our example, the cost savings can be significant. Higher end printers can also help you become more efficient due to higher print speeds and reliability (they are built with components that enable them to operate for long hours in a business environment).
As you can see, cheap is not cheaper when it comes to printers and printing. If you are in need for a new printer, please contact our team, and they can help you pick the right option for your needs.