If you’ve just bought new toner or ink for your copier, you’ve most probably already know the difference between colored and black & white costs. Those colored copies are significantly more costly than those black & white prints.
Do the color ones have ingredients that cost more than the b&w toners? Is there scarcity with color toners that dictate the price? There are a lot of possible explanations, let’s find out the correct answer.
Why is copier cost dependent on color or b&w?
Copiers and printers use standard toner cartridges. These are cyan cartridges, magenta cartridges, yellow cartridges, and black cartridges. These all work together to come up with full colors, which you see on the printouts.
Printing in B&W uses the black cartridge only and the paper’s white space to come up with the printouts. This is the reason that printing in color costs more than printing in B&W.
When you print an image or document in color, you aren’t only using a single color in the cartridges. To create colors, in fact, you will be making use of all colors; the four colored cartridges. And you will not only deplete a cartridge, you will deplete all cartridges.
Four cartridges for a color printout means it is four times more expensive than if it was printed out in B&W. While true, this isn’t the only factor that’s making color prints more expensive.
The one consideration that plays a huge role in black & white vs color printing cost is the kind of printout you are making. Black texts on white spaces are simpler; this does not need much toner. The colored prints, however, are more likely to have more and fuller details. A page with even a tiny graph will use multiple colors and can consume all toners available. It’s possible that all four toners will be working together just to fill the image’s colors.
Page coverage is what’s it’s called- the white space of the page that the toner covered. The B&W letters leave more white space on the colored images, graphs, and tables that you may be printing.
Should You Prefer Color Copiers?
To answer whether a color copier machine is perfect for you, ask yourself these two questions first:
- What are you using the machine for?
- Will you be using it for text documents or marketing materials like brochures and visual reports?
If you think your color printing is only for convenience, but can’t give it up, you can lessen your service contract rate by getting B&W models on the side.
Desktop printers need less servicing and are way more affordable. This model is more suitable for convenience and small volume printing.
Can color printers do B&W printouts?
There are copier and printer models that you purchase for your office can print in both B&W and color. Several times, you will need to do B&W in a color printer just to get a copy that is more suitable for photocopying. Either Apple MacOS or Microsoft Windows can be used to configure every time you are doing a copying or printing job.
You can also save ink when copying or printing. Instead of printing in grayscale, choose the “fast draft” or “draft” setting. This is the best way to lessen ink use.
If it is possible that every single print or copy you do can be in grayscale, we recommend that you buy a monochrome laser printer. This kind of model is more pricey upfront compared to inkjets, but in the long run, you will be able to save more. Monochrome laser printers have the least cost per page and they never dry out.
Consult experts when purchasing a copy machine to make sure that what you are getting is the best value for money. With inkjet, don’t forget that no printers are the same.
If you are looking for a Copier for your business, you may contact Clear Choice Technical Services You can ask about Copier Leasing Services, Copier rental services, IT Services, and even Copier Repair services.