Personal printer versus a fleet printer/copier
The following is a comparison of the true total cost of the purchase and use of a personal printer versus the cost of the use of a fleet printer/copier.
Results
The cost of the fleet printer/copier remains consistently lower than a personal printer until around 80,000 pages printed. This is well beyond the expected page count in the average lifetime of a personal printer.
Shown by the blue line, fleet printing costs (vertical axis) do not meet those of personal printers -the orange and grey lines- until 80,000 pages worth of printing (horizontal axis).
These results do not include the support costs of the physical installation, local or server driver installation and configuration, network installation and configuration, upgrading and patching of the unit, nor does it consider the environmental factors, energy consumption, or disposal of the unit.
Process
Calculations
The cost of the fleet printer was calculated as the number of pages x the click charge of $0.0439/page. This is a linear function.
The cost of the personal printer was calculated as the purchase price + toner cartridge cost ($103.99) every 2500 pages. This results in a step function.
Assumptions
- The fleet printer click charge will remain the same over the period of the analysis.
- The cost of the personal printer toner cartridges will remain the same over the period of the analysis.
- The fleet printer page charge is based on a unit without a finisher since personal printers do not come with these features.
- Both fleet and personal printers are black and white laser printers.
- Paper cost is the same across both selections. The personal printer paper consumption may actually be higher if a non-duplexing printer was selected.
- Genuine manufacturer toner cartridges would be purchased for the personal printers. Our experience has been that re-cycled toner cartridges fail at a more frequent rate and can shorten the life of a printer. The cost for the toner cartridge: $103.99. The advertised average number of output pages for this cartridge is approximately 2500 pages. Cartridges sometimes need to be replaced before the manufacturer's expected page count because of streaking.
- The selection of the personal printer is a mid-range model with an expectation of a reasonable, 3-4 year life span. Two HP models were chosen: an HP Laserjet M401n simplex printer ($269.99) and an HP Laserjet M401dn duplex printer ($299.99).
Analysis by Keith McGowan of the Arts Computing Office