Hi, I spent about a half hour searching for the answer to this on Google and could not really find it...
I run a small business and I make maybe 5,000-10,000 black and white copies a year. The copies are for kids' classes and the quality doesn't really matter, they are just guide sheets for 2nd and 3rd graders. I have a Canon G5020 printer.
My question is if I print at home on economy black and white, is it cheaper to print at home or to use an online service like bestvaluecopy? There are usually shipping costs with these services, of course.
Thanks so much for any help.
It's been a while (years) since I calculated MY printing costs, during that time I was printing a lot for clients. My numbers would be irrelevant for you as I said it's been a while, there are multiple factors involved like printer model, ink brand/type, and how everything has changed, but printing at home ALWAYS has been cheaper, that's me regarding inkjet printing. Lasers are a different animal as it's a diff technology and need preheating. So no, I won't provide numbers.
The local print shops are more expensive, even without the delivery-shipping costs, and pretty much most of them rely on laser printing (huge machines).
My question is if I print at home on economy black and white, is it cheaper to print at home or to use an online service
Here, absolutely, printing at home is cheaper.
Just, printer models and brands are also important. Cartridges vs ink tank are different, ink tank is sold as cheaper and allowing to print way more, but I'm not convinced, we, like you, used to print a lot (in fact more than you), and the original Epson L series models were better (using original Epson ink) and we could print way more, we bought several of those, and later models were not that economic, and didn't last that long, these were ink tank printers. As for Brother I've had 4 of them, and they worked great, pretty much the same all of them in comparison. I've never been convinced with Canon and HP ink tank, as my (several) Canon and HP printers can print more than modern models.
OLDER printers performed different clean cycles, new ones consume a lot more ink. The administration (where my wife works) changed all the Canon ink tank printers for new ones, they only use original Canon ink, and turns out they are using way more ink than in previous years, many times going into automatic cleaning cycles, it's insane. Anyway, printing or not, the printers will perform cleaning cycles after X amount of time, that's why their design matters.
Get an ink saver option. Printers have ink saver settings, most of them SUCK because the result is changed dramatically (most times), but there used to be ink saver software options like
Preton,
PrintFAB (and others), these things work in between your computer and your printer, it's a transparent process, and they change the printjob inserting tiny white dots, you can control the % of this, and when the ink hits the paper, the dot gain does the rest making the print look absolutely the same without using so much ink.
I've used these things with great success, even at normal and high quality printer settings without noticeable change. The issue is... it's been years since these things were available, as printing became cheaper, people stopped using them and the companies closed or discontinued their software. You might be lucky to still find installers online. Only PrintFAB is still in business, but the ink saver is not available for all printer models.
In real life applications, there is a lot of ink wasted due to dot gain.
