Understand Photocopier Pricing

Photocopier Pricing – Capital vs Operating Costs

Photocopier pricing involves both capital and operating costs.

The capital cost is the upfront purchase or lease amount.
Operating costs include:
- Maintenance
- Repairs
- Supplies – especially toner and ink
Cheap copiers have expensive supplies, raising the cost-per-page.
More expensive copiers save long-term through:
- Durability
- Lower service costs
- Greater efficiency
For maximum value, consider capital and operating costs together.
Quality and efficiency drive lower total costs more than upfront price alone.

For maximum savings, look at both capital and operating expenses when purchasing a photocopier. Prioritizing quality and efficiency will minimize your total photocopying costs in the long run.

Functionality

Photocopier price functionality: As photocopiers are modular this means you can add additional functionality as you require it. Things like staple finishing, faxing, folding, additional paper sets can all be added on along with mobile phone printing, postscript and hole punching but these all come at a cost.

Faxing can be £150 to £600 pounds; staple finishing can be £500 to £5000. Some things can come included with the machine, some A4 machines include the document feeder as standard. Many new copier machines come with mobile printer functionality included as standard. It’s always worth finding out if you really need that option and what the cost will be.

Colour or monochrome

Photocopier colour price: Colour is about 10 times more expensive than mono. You may think this is odd because there are usually 4 colours. The reason is it’s not only the toner or ink that you must factor in, things like drums and fuser units all need to be accounted for and are regularly changed. The purchase of the colour photocopier machines themselves are similarly priced with only a difference of a few hundred pounds.

Monthly duty cycle

Photocopier duty cycle: This relates to the amount of printing you do in the machines life. All machines you’re buying have a maximum and going above this will mean more repairs, increased engineer visits, more replacement of consumable parts and downtime. This all can cost money and so it’s a false economy to buy cheap early on.

You should consider not only how much printing you’re doing now, but what your maximum is likely to be for the future. Its better to get an MFP printer that is over specified than under specified, even if it will cost more.

Document size

Photocopier document size: Whether its A4, SRA4, A3, A1, SRA3 etc, as a rule, is the larger the paper you need to print to the more expensive the printing device be. Not only the machine will be pricier but the toner and service cost too for each print.

Page coverage

Photocopier page coverage: If you buy your ink and toner, its pretty much a given that the more page coverage you use in print the more you will need to pay. Imagine if you covered the whole page in black ink, this would obviously cost more than if you just do a couple of spots. The problem is that it can be difficult to keep a handle on costs and many businesses find that the expenses can spiral.

Printing speed

Photocopier print speed: The faster, the more expensive. You have probably seen that most printers and copiers have got PPM (pages per minute) next to a number. This relates to the speed or how many pages you can produce in a minute. Ranging from 10 – 130 PPM the faster the printer the more expensive it is.

Contracts

In the contract terms, there will be various clauses which can significantly change what you will pay. Things like scanning charges, service increases, IT connection fees, contract settlements, admin fees and documents fees etc will all increase the price you pay.

Drums

If you have bought the printers or photocopiers and had them for some time without a service contract you will know by now you have to buy drums and fusers on laser devices. These are generally not mentioned at the time of sale but are all required and will have to be changed and so will add the overall cost of the photocopier.

Ink & Toner

If you’re buying, hiring, leasing or renting

This basically comes down to interest and duration when it came to overall cost, although you may have other things to think about when choosing between these options including the service and consumable expenses. The cheapest way to get buy a photocopier is to purchase it cleared funds. This way there are no other expenses or interest added on.

If you lease you will have document fees, interest, buyout costs, late payment fees, equipment retention fees etc.

If you’re renting you will have the rental fee (which can be expensive if you have the machine for a long time) you could also get late and delivery fees.

Lease rate

If you buy a copier on lease you will be subjected to a lease rate. This determines the amount of interest you are required to pay for loaning the money. What people don’t often realise is this can be dependant on your finances, quite often companies will have a main lease rate and a company they will use.

If you have poor accounts though you will then go to a secondary lease company whose rates are not as good but are more able to get the order through. If this happens, you will end up paying more interest.