For most of what businesses print or copy in their offices, monochrome is good enough. But sometimes, color, even in small doses, adds clarity, emphasis, or attractiveness,: black-and-white pages with the company name and logo in color, spreadsheets with negative numbers highlighted in red, not to mention web pages and maps. And in some documents color is essential, like marketing materials, presentations, and photos.
But color printing costs more.
For example, at my nearby Staples copy and print shop, monochrome printing is 10 cents per page, while color is 49 cents per page. At a local print shop, 10 cents versus 39 cents, and over at Kinko's, it's 11 cents versus 60 cents.
Color is pretty. But it costs your business more in purchase cost, consumables (ink or toner), and in the resulting cost-per-page whether you use a standalone printer or a multi-function printers (MFPs) (also called All-in-Ones), which can print, copy, scan, and, in some cases, fax documents.
Color-capable printers and MFPs, particularly laser-based ones, cost more than their monochrome cousins. That’s not surprising, since they need more components.
Happily, the premium that companies pay for color continues to decline – enough so that companies that might have once simply dismissed color capability, or reserved it for specific groups and users, should re-assess their purchase plans.
Here's some reasons the price of color output is coming down, and why the price gap between monochrome and color is continuing to narrow.
Today's desktop color inkjet printers and MFPs are available for under $100. Color laser printers and MFPs cost more than their monochrome cousins, with the bottom of the line beginning at around $100. That’s a far cry from the $1,200 that I spent for an HP IIP personal laser printer when it first became available in 1989.
"Color machines have four times as many imaging elements as monochrome ones, so they are more expensive to manufacture," notes Steven Miller, distinguished technologist at HP’s Laser Enterprise Systems. "But we have closed that gap. The price gap used to be much greater."
On the low end, the difference in hardware acquisition cost may be as low as 50%, with higher-end machines costing up to three times more. For example, color laser printers for use by small work teams (3-10 people) start today at a few hundred dollars, and laser MFPs which can print about 21 color pages per minute can be had for $600. In the midrange (6-15 people), machines that can print 30 color pages per minute range from a $650 printer to $2,500 for an MFP that includes options like a second paper tray and a higher-capacity Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) scanner. For larger workgroups (10-25 people), expect to pay $1,100 for a printer capable of 35 pages per minute for monochrome, up to about $4,000 for a color laser MFP that does 45 pages per minute and offers two-sided printing (duplexing).
If your company replaces its printers every three years, you’re paying $10-75 per month per machine for the option of printing color, just in machine purchase cost. Many offices keep their printers for far longer, which brings down that additional cost-per-month — although keep them too long and you'll miss out on the improvements and new features in newer models.
The prices are still headed downward. The cost-per-page for printing monochrome pages on a color device is coming down, reducing the purchase "penalty" to have color capability even if 90% to 95% of the machine's use is monochrome.
Of course, cost-per-page of output also depends on other factors, notably consumables and energy consumption.
Reducing the Cost of Consumables
According to Andy Slawetski, president of Industry Analysts, the cost per page – including consumables, but not power, paper, or the machine – varies between 1.5 cents for monochrome, to 3.5 cents (the latter are on printers that initially cost less). "For color, we are seeing around eight to ten cents per page, and that's coming down."
Marlene Orr, senior printer analyst at Buyers Lab, says, "In our lab testing, we've certainly seen color cost per page slowly declining over the years, in terms of supplies — cartridges versus tested yield. While it's a generalization to an extent, and there are exceptions, depending on the class of device, as the price of the device goes up, the price per page goes down, and vice versa, so users need consider total lifecycle cost when determining the cost of their color printing."
However, there are ways to reduce the cost of these color consumables.
Materials science improvements are reducing the amount of ink needed, which also means a cost-per-page reduction, says Mark Whibbels, Distinguished Technologist at HP’s LaserJet & Enterprise Solutions.
One easy way to reduce the cost-per-page for color (and monochrome) consumables is by looking for sales, promotions, and other SKUs and versions that translate to better prices. HP, for example, offers extra-large high-capacity color and black cartridges for many machines, and also offers dual-packs, and Toner Refill Kit Rainbow Packs, all of which reduce the cost-per-page. Depending on your print usage, a more expensive machine that offers higher-capacity, and therefore lower cost-per-page, consumables may be less expensive overall.
Design changes also help reduce consumables cost. For ink jet machines, says Ann Priede, VP of publications at Lyra Research, "We are seeing a shift to individual ink tanks for each color, instead of cartridges. An integrated cartridge means you are replacing the ink and also the print head. Ink tanks mean you are just replacing the ink, which helps bring down the cost per page."
Also, suggests Priede, companies anticipating less use of color may want to consider lower-capacity cartridges to reduce the purchase price.
In estimating the cost of doing color in your office, recognize that the traditional price estimates for color typically are based on print yield against "standard" pages, like the ones defined by ISO/IEC 24712, "Colour test pages for measurement of office equipment consumable yield." Your documents’ color density may be only half that of the ISO test pages. So re-assess your cost estimates accordingly. The consumables cost of your color needs may not be much more than that for monochrome unless you print lots of color charts and graphs.
Energy Use is Down
One non-trivial factor in the cost of printing – whether color or monochrome – is the cost of the printer’s electric power. This includes start-up, power used while actively waiting for a print job, while printing, and when in "sleep" mode.
The price of electricity isn't going down... but the amount of power used to print a page is.
Today's printers and MFPs use less energy than their predecessors, in "startup," the power-per-page during operation, and when dormant. And with today's faster startup times, machines can be set to go dormant sooner.
"If you track the industry overall, the power to print a page drops about 5-10% per year," says HP's Miller. "The energy to start a device has gone down. And 'fusing' (melting the powdered ink onto the paper fibers) is getting more efficient."
Other improvements, such as reducing the energy used when in "sleep" mode, and optimizing going into sleep mode based on improvements in how fast and efficiently a device “wakes up,” also contribute to reduced power requirements. "Four to five years ago, 80% of a device's energy consumption was spent waiting for jobs," says Miller. "Today, it's roughly only about 25%. And color machines shouldn't use any more power than monochrome ones when in 'sleep' mode."
But That’s Not All...
The cost of color in your company's printing budget isn't just about what you print, but also what you don't print. For example, the growing use of smartphones, GPS, and other mobile devices has reduced some printing needs where color often is used, as with maps and directions.
This is especially prevalent with younger employees versus older, print-heavy users, says Industry Analysts' Slawetski.
One option is for IT to restrict access to a printer’s color output capabilities. Some printers have color access controls, like the ones in HP Access Control Printing Solutions, let companies monitor and restrict color usage, including user and job usage accounting. If a user must enter a password to print in color, it may make her think twice about whether it’s really needed – and save money when the answer is No.
Moving to managed print services can also save money, through a mix of assessing print usage, finding digital alternatives to printing, and "right-sizing the print fleet" to machines that match these needs — which includes some color machines.
Plus, refreshing old machines means serious improvement in performance and in cost-per-page. "If you're using 8-10 year old printers, you can get color for the cost you're printing black," says Slawetski.
As with any business IT purchase, buying color-capable machines should be based on known or expected needs. This can include looking to reduce color printing currently being done through outside providers to reduce costs, speed turnaround times, and do shorter "print runs."
"When you switch to color, some lasers can produce color output that is good enough to substitute to going to a print shop," says M. David Stone, contributing editor and lead analyst for printers, scanners, and projectors at PCMag.com. "Even if you're handing out PowerPoint presentations, reports for clients or customers, even a sales proposal for an important potential customer, you get a subtext with a color laser that you can't get with a black-and-white." And, Stone, notes, "This is not just because of the benefits of color. It's a better quality image."
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