How much does printing cost at staples?

Printing cost calculator

• I have an HP all-in-one color printer/scanner/copier (OfficeJet G55) on which I print both color and B&W photos. The rate of ink drainage from the color cartridge can be extraordinary, depending, of course, on several factors. When I asked HP for cost-per-print info, I recd the following response: Dear Bob, It is very difficult to determine the exact cost for printing one page. There are various factors that determine the cost of a page printed out. Some of them are whether the printout taken is a color or a black and white printout, the size of printout taken etc. However I would recommend that you refer the following Web site for information on the cost per page based on approximates: http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=bpu03033 It is important to us that we answer your question. If you need further assistance, please reply to this message, we will be happy to help you. Sincerely, Robin HP Consumer e-Support The web page that HP cites above is too simplistic to be helpful. It would seem that a calculator could be devised that would take into account the following parameters: a) Cartridge type b) Cartridge cost c) Color or B&W d) Resolution of scan e) Paper size f) Paper type (i.e., whether printer is set at "best," "normal," or "fast") Does such a calculator currently exist?

• Answer:

  Hello again nautico, Thank you for your question. Methods for calculation seem to vary, but all seem to assume an 8.5 x 11" sheet size (if testing for a US printer and user). Resolution of the image itself is not a factor, but "print quality" or the print resolution is. See how a few testing labs calculate their ink costs, perhaps a bit more accurately and "real world" than the manufacturer might claim for the same printer: ZDNET details their testing procedure as: http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2862742,00.html "Printer-economy tests To determine an inkjet printer's cost per page, we install a new ink cartridge in the printer and print special drain documents created in Adobe Photoshop for the CMY (color) or K (black) cartridges. The K drain document comprises 50 percent pure black bars and 50 percent blank space. The CMY drain document is composed of alternating groups of cyan, magenta, and yellow bars with blank spaces between the bars. The printer outputs the documents until the image deteriorates due to lack of ink or until the printer refuses to continue. This test yields two cost-per-page numbers, one for the black ink cartridge and one for the color ink cartridge. Calculating cost per page To determine the cost per page for black ink, we divide the current street price of a replacement black cartridge by the number of pages printed in the K drain. We then divide this result by 10 to determine the cost per page based on an actual ink coverage average of 5 percent. Our labs uses a similar calculation for the CMY result. The CMY cost-per-page calculation uses a 25 percent color-coverage figure and assumes some black ink is also used in most color documents..." RMIT: http://www.testlab.rmit.edu.au/inkjet_test_procedures.php "Ink Cost Test Procedures We set the printer drivers to "Standard" or "Normal' settings which is of course vendor dependent. We do not set any edge-to-edge printing options but leave the printers at the defaults (some do not support edge to edge printing). We have found that the actual printing area is extremely close on all the printers tested if we use this method. We use Adobe PhotoShop 6 to perform the tests. BLACK (Nominal 5% coverage) From PhotoShop we print copies of the file BlackTest.PSD repeatedly until we detect a fault in the print quality of the output. The number of full "perfect" pages are counted. We then take the first faulty page and measure up to the point the ink started failing we then calculate what proportion of a page this represents. For example we might get 8.40 full pages before the ink starts to run out resulting in a printing fault. We then use the following formula to calculate the number of 5% coverage pages (discounting of course the outside margin in this calculation). Number of 5% black pages = (number of 100% pages) * (100/5) In the above example the result is: 168 = 8.4 (100/5) To then calculate the ink cost per page we use the following formula: Ink cost per page = (Cost of black cartridge) / (Number of 5% black pages) COLOUR (no black and nominal 15% coverage) Again we follow a similar procedure to the black test but this time use the file "MASTER CMY.PSD" which was created in PhotoShop and consists of 1/3 pure Cyan, 1/3 pure Magenta and 1/3 pure Yellow arranged in three solid bands - we DO NOT tweak the colour to match the printer. We count the number of full "perfect" pages and then measure the point where the colour begins to first run out. For a single tricolour cartridge this is as far as we go. But in the case of clear individual C, M and Y cartridges we go a step further. We measure the amount of ink in the cartridge when full then because typically, but not always, only one of the three colours run out we measure the remaining ink in the two partially empty cartridges. For a Tricolour cartridge and individual ink tanks we then use the following formula: Number of 15% pages = (number of 100% pages) * (100/15) This will determine the number of pages from a tricolour cartridge because effectively it is useless when one colour runs out. However we need to go a step further for individual tanks to then enable us to calculate a "truer" ink cost per page. As an example VendorX's C, M and Y clear plastic ink tanks typically contain 40mm of ink when full. After running the colour test until the first ink tank just runs out we then measure the remaining ink in the tanks. Lets say the results were: Colour Used Remaining Magenta 40 0 Yellow 37 3 Cyan 31 9 TOTALS 108 12 Say we obtained 60 colour pages at 100% coverage for VendorX's printer up to the point where the Magenta just ran out. So in effect 108mm of ink produced 60 pages. Therefore the remaining 12mm of ink would produce the following number of pages: Pages (100%) = 60 * (12 / 108) Which of course equals 6.66 pages at 100% We then calculate the 15% coverage as: Colour pages (15% coverage) = 66.66 * (100 / 15) The result of which is 444 pages. The total cost of all three CMY ink tanks is then divided by 444 to yield the ink cost per 15% colour page. If the CMY ink tanks were $20 each then the cost per page would be determined as followed: Ink cost per page = (total cost CMY tanks) / Number of 15% pages Ink cost per page = ($20 + $20 + $20) / 444 Ink cost per page = 13.5 cents COLOUR (with Black and nominal 20% coverage) We simply calculate this page on 5% each of C, M, Y and K by adding the cost calculated in the Black only scenario (black at 5%) to the cost of the 15% colour (5% each C, M and Y but no black)." You can see examples here, though your printer is not included in their test list: http://www.testlab.rmit.edu.au/graphs.php And PC Magazine notes their testing: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,3195,00.asp Ink Again December 26, 2001 What Does It Really Cost? By Jeremy A. Kaplan "Figuring out the cost per page was the hard part of this formula. We performed rundown tests on each printer to determine how many pages of our test target each unit could actually print before its cartridges ran out of ink. Half the target contains black text; the other half contains cyan, magenta, yellow, and black color blocks that represent color output (keep in mind that black is an important part of any color image). Printer companies traditionally cite cost-per-page numbers based on a document with 5 percent black text coverage - essentially a typed, double-spaced page. Color pages are based on 15 percent coverage. These are pretty unrealistic documents, however, so we took to the Web to come up with more realistic information. First we ran a survey on PCMag.com to ascertain whether people print more text-only files or graphics files. According to these results, people print approximately half text files and half graphics files (including photos), as well as a number of Web site pages. Next, we downloaded and analyzed many common Web sites to determine what percentage of Web pages are covered by ink once they're printed. It turns out that 8 percent of an average printed Web page is text and 8 percent is graphics or photos. So our target is covered in 8 percent black ink and 8 percent color—16 percent total. Determining the cost per page (we cite the cost per average page, rather than the cost of a black page or a color page) is the challenging part. We started with the cost of a regular-capacity black cartridge, rather than the high-capacity or starter cartridges sometimes supplied; divided it by the number of pages printed before the black ink ran out; and multiplied this figure by 62.5 percent. The 62.5 percent figure is important because of the nature of our test target. Half the target is text, and half is color; remember that black makes up one-quarter of the color half as well. One quarter of one half (or 12.5 percent) plus the 50 percent for the all-text half yields a total of 62.5 percent coverage. We determined color ink costs similarly: the cost of the cartridge divided by the number of pages output times 37.5 percent. Black ink cost per page plus color ink cost per page equals the average cost per page..." It would seem that their calculations are more real world and more informative for the average user. Most of the online cost per page calculators are very rudimentary and seem to target just estimating printing costs for companies or departments for budgetary concerns. For example: http://www.equitrac.com/calculator/default.htm Document Cost Calculator Use this interactive calculator to determine your document production costs. Here they assume .08 -.30 per page for inkjets, which doesn't really address your question. There are few software programs to calculate costs. The following is primarily for laser printers, but would seem to work inkjets as well: http://www.bertl.com/pagcheck.html PageCheck Image Analyser Software with Cost Per Page Calculator PageCheck automatically scans your documents, measures the page coverage (of a single page or average of 6 pages) and calculates the true cost per page you are likely to obtain. PageCheck compares the manufacturer's claims and cost-per-cartridge against you actual scanned documents to show you the real cost per page. SCANS: You simply install PageCheck onto a computer that has a standard TWAIN scanner. At the press of a button, PageCheck fires up your scanner and allows you to import and save the document image. PageCheck uses the latest 8 bit imagery and handles mono or color documents... ...PageCheck contains a built in calculator designed to work out your cost per page. You simply key in the price per cartridge, the manufacturers estimate page yield, the % coverage that the manufacturer used and the actual coverage of your own document (measured in PageCheck as a single page or average of multiple pages). " I was unable to locate any similar programs. And, unfortunately, this program seems very pricey at a single user license of $899 yearly: http://www.digital-times.net/scripts/purchase/index.cfm Finally, I checked to see what others claimed as the cost per page for your "OfficeJet G55": VarGlobal http://www.varglobal.com/Cartridges.htm 51645A US$$30.00 Color HP45 Black 42ml Page yield: 833 (based on 5% coverage) C6578AN US$55.00/piece Color HP78 Tri-color (AN=38 ml, DN=19 ml) Yields: 970 pages (C6578AN); based on 15% coverage Search Strategy: inkjet +"cost per page" inkjet +"cost per page" +calculator "cost per page" +calculator "cost per page" +software OR program inkjet +"cost per page" +software OR program inkjet +"cost per page" +test OR monitor "cost per page calculator" calculate +"cost per page" "OfficeJet G55" +"cost per page" I trust my research will be helpful for you to determine your actual costs per page on this printer. If a link above should fail to work or anything require further explanation or research, please do post a Request for Clarification prior to rating the answer and closing the question and I will be pleased to assist further. Regards, -=clouseau=-