Buying a printer: How important is cost per page – Times of India

While buying a printer, most buyers consider several things before finalising their purchase. Aspects that buyers look for in a printer include size, weight, connectivity, speed, features and more. One of the key details that an average home printer buyer usually misses out on is the printing cost, also known as CCP (cost per page). CCP is an important factor that identifies the cost effectiveness of any printer. The printing cost is inversely proportional to the cost effectiveness, which means the lower the cost per page is the more the printer is cost effective.
Commercial or office printers have relatively low CCP when compared to the printers used at homes. Although one may think that spending a tiny bit extra on printing a page won’t make any difference, in a longer run it can turn out to be burning the whole in the pocket.
What is cost per page and why it is important
As the name suggests, cost per page is the amount of money that it takes to print a single page through a printer. The printing cost is dependent on various factors such as – ink type, cartridge size, ink usage and others. Several brands offer their printers at lower prices because of the higher printing costs. Such companies aim to draw profits through the ink cartridges and maintain services that they offer later.
It is true that if you only print a few pages in a couple of weeks, the cost per page shouldn’t bother you that much but if you use a printer daily, the difference that printing cost can make on your monthly budget can be huge. Especially for small business owners, using a printer with high cost per page value for commercial printing can be quite expensive in the long run.
How to calculate printing cost of a printer
Calculating the printing cost per page is not very difficult and a few companies also mention low printing cost as a USP to justify the product price. If you want to know the exact printing cost per page of a printer, first you need to divide the cost of the cartridge by the number of pages it can print before refilling or replacing. Now, add the average cost of one paper and you will have the printing cost.
Average cost of printing a paper in India is around Rs 0.8 to Rs 1.5 for the printer targeted for homes. CCP for commercial printers is much cheaper but these devices are also 5-6 times expensive.