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What is the running costs for a Xerox Phaser printer?

I know enough to know that it's never the cost of the printer that one should be concerned with, but rather it's the ongoing cost of supplies for running that printer which will get you. Let's say that I'm going to print post cards 4-up on a sheet. So one side will have pretty heavy ink cover (like photos) and the other side of the page will just have some text printed on it along with the name and address. To get to a "per-page-cost" I believe I'll need to know how many prints I can get from each of the four color "crayons" that the Phaser uses given my typical color printed page described above. Once I have that page yield for the color supplies I will then be able to compute some sort of "cost-per-page" for comparison to other color printing methods available in the marketplace.

Public Comments

1. Last Overall Average I saw on the Phaser was 11 cents per page, but that was not for a predominately Photo print page use
2. I'm assuming by your "crayons" comment you are using the wax ink found in (for example) a Xerox Phaser 8550. Each of these will yeild 1,000 prints, or 4,000 of your four-up postcards. You can buy them one at a time for about $39, or buy three at a time for $89. Phaser is a great printer, nearly "jam-free" (if there is such a thing), very reliable and quick! -Xerox employee
3. You have the right idea in regards to focusing on the supplies needed for the printer as apposed to the up front cost of the printer itself. In regards to the Xerox Phasers, the newer ones are starting to go away from the ColorSticks (crayons) and moving to actual toner cartridges. When trying to determine a cost-per-copy it's never an exact science, however you can get a general idea. When you find a printer you're interested in, find out the exact cartridges/ColorSticks it takes and what their "yields" are. A color machine is going to take four cartridges/ColorSticks (black, cyan, magenta, yellow). Traditionally the black cartridges will have a higher yield than the colors. The "yield" stands for page per copy. This number is traditionally determined on 5% page coverage of normal (no bold or heavy usage) print. That is basically two paragraphs printed in Times Roman. Ideally you can take the yield divide by the cost and that gives you the amount of print jobs you'd get in these controlled circumstances. The tricky thing is you can't expect the exact number every time. In your situation, you'll be printing heavy colors and photos which will be taking up a lot more toner per page than the yields calculation. So you can expect to be lowering your page yield. My suggestion would be find the printer which offers the highest yield cartridges. Then I would consider compatible or remanufactured cartridges to keep your supplies cost down. Our web site can give you a breakdown on the differences between OEM, Compatible and Remanufactured cartridges and the advantages of each. http://thecartridgefamily.net/productinfo.php