Have You Thought About Cheaper Color Prints?

Are Fixed Color Costs a Less-Expensive and Green Idea for You?

Are Fixed Color Costs a Less-Expensive Idea for You?

It’s a little funny being in toner sales here in Denver sometimes. I get calls from people who are upset about toner prices from their retailers and are making the switch to us because we’re $5-$10 cheaper on a common toner cartridge. That makes sense: cost is important. However, what baffles me is the same customers who make the switch because of prices glaze over when I mention how much they could save by switching to a Xerox PagePack program.

“Well,” they reason “I’ve already paid off this $2,400 HP color printer, so I’m really not interested in switching to a Xerox plan.” While that logic does make sense at first, what doesn’t make sense is the math! If the same customer uses color toner at high coverage, they will probably end up spending between $6,000 and $10,000 more over three years than they would with a Xerox PagePack plan (which allows for unlimited coverage for a fixed price per month)…including the printer!

Here’s how the PagePack plan works: You pay a fixed price per color print no matter how much color you have on the page. This is extremely attractive to Realtors, who’s color house flyers are generally around 80% coverage (this is for the ones that look like they’re around 40% tops!). So, instead of paying an unknown amount of money for color toner in Denver, you’re paying a fixed $.06-$.11 cents a print (depending on the contract length and copier model). This makes monthly budgeting simple and effective. If you do a lot of color printing, give us a call for a detailed description of how a Xerox PagePack program can save you a lot of money on your toner in Denver.

HP Toner: Better Buying Tips

HP toner is probably the most common toner we sell in Denver. HP printers (and therefore HP toner) are the most prolific multi-purpose office printer here in the Denver area. The good thing about that is that compatible and remanufactured toner is readily available for them. The nice thing about having such common toner is that the sheer volume of compatible manufacturers means you can choose the highest quality HP toner compatible cartridge out of many manufacturers. I wrote an article several weeks ago about the importance of your toner retailer having multiple suppliers. This is because each supplier will have different manufacturing strengths and weaknesses.

Many Denver toner suppliers don’t really realize this themselves, so they end up selling you the product with the highest margin or most convenient supplier. Here at Pahoda Image Products, we only use the highest rated suppliers, but even within them (with color toner cartridges), there are strengths and weaknesses in their color toner output. With HP toner, all compatible toner cartridges are not created equal! They vary in quality between compatibles (or virgin remanufactured) and the drill and fill cartridges.

If you want to get high-quailty prints, save some money, and do a little good for the Earth, we reccomend going with the compatible HP toner from a manufacturer who’s cartridge works best for your printer. Quality compatibles use new drums, quality dry ink, and are measured by independant testing groups. Give us a call for your HP toner supply needs here in Denver!

HP Toner in Denver

We have an HP LaserJet 4350dtn(Q5942X) in our office that we’re selling. It’s a good printer with plenty of mileage left on it. We’re asking $500 for it, and it comes with a two-thirds full X HP toner cartridge. For an HP machine that prints 55 pages per minute, it’s a great deal.

That’s part of what this post is about. The other part is about HP toner in general. HP toner has one of the smallest margins of profit for OEM cartridges. For most toner suppliers like us, HP OEM toner is only marginally worth doing for the overhead and slight profit margin. That may make you tempted to think, “whow, HP toner must be a great deal then!” This is in fact false. HP just charges a lot for their toner!

HP compatible toner is one of the most common types of toner we sell here in the Denver metro area. HP toner, while not as expensive as Lexmark, can make monochrome printing fairly expensive if you’re purchasing OEM toner. Bying compatibles makes the most sense if you’re primarily doing B&W printing. The cost difference between OEM and compatibles is generally around 30-40%. That adds up quickly when you’re printing more than four reams per month. With HP color toner compatibles, the price difference is even more dramatic. However, compatibles generally produce slightly lower quality images (something most compatible retailers will deny!). If you’re doing high-volume advertising flyers (like some of our real estate customers), compatibles make the most sense, since a slightly lower resolution image still looks fantastic.

However, if you really want to get extreme crispness from your HP toner images (graphic design or photo-quality images), you’ll probably want to spring for the OEM HP color toner. If you let us know what you’re wanting out of your prints, we’ll give you the best advice for all of your HP toner queries. Give us a call for a quote or just to see what our monthly toner specials are!

SoyPrint Article from Idiana Soybean Alliance

Here’s an article from the Indiana Soybean Alliance web site about their partnership with SoyPrint. There is a lot of excitement here in Denver (and the printing community overall) about this new product. We here at Pahoda Image Products recently became distributors of SoyPrint cartridges here in Denver! I boldfaced the type on Rick’s statement at the end of the article. His points are extremely important, and they make so much sense for the hesitant buyer. Even the most staunch anti-environmentalist can’t help but be impressed by the localism of the product. It’s made here in the US (for HP and Cannon brand printers), so all manufacturing must be at least up to our environmental standards! Enjoy:

–Everyone can print black, but now consumers can make the choice to print green. SoyPrint is an environmentally-friendly, soy-based printer toner cartridge that is making its way into the marketplace thanks in part to funding from the Indiana Soybean Alliance’s (ISA) Indiana New Ventures and Enterprises in Soy Technology (INVEST) program.

“The award of this grant, and the creation of the INVEST program itself, speak volumes about ISA’s leadership and ingenuity in the industry,” said Rick Greenlaw, vice president of SoyPrint. “Once again, it has been on the forefront, introducing another soy-based product, the first of its kind anywhere in the world.”

SoyPrint is a soy-based toner cartridge, brought to the market by PRC Technologies, for use with home or office personal-use laser printers. An environmental breakthrough in office printing for businesses, schools and colleges, this is the first company to offer laser printer cartridges using toner powder derived from soybeans.

“Indiana’s soybean farmers are excited to support the development of products like SoyPrint with our checkoff dollars,” said Jerry Osterholt, ISA director and farmer from Roanoke, Ind., who participated in reviewing INVEST applications. “Products like this are critical to our future, not only because they are a new use for soybeans, but because they are ecologically smart products that help protect the environment for all of us.”

Although soy ink has been available for some time, this is the first time a soy-based option has been available for laser cartridges. And according to PRC, the print quality and page yield matches that of name-brand cartridges. Pricing is also similar to a brand name laser cartridge found in an office supply store.

“Making the toner for one (traditional) cartridge requires two to three liters of oil,” Greenlaw said. “SoyPrint cartridges use soybean oil to produce that toner instead of petroleum. One hundred million cartridges are used in the U.S. alone each year, or 200 to 300 million liters of oil.”

“Environmentally, unlike most brand name models, SoyPrint is assembled in the U.S., and thus the fuel usage to bring it to the consumer is less. Many name brand models are made overseas,” added Greenlaw. “Our recycled cartridge saves three to five pounds of plastic made from oil, and we arrange for the empty cartridge to be recycled, saving another three to five pounds of plastic from landfills.”

Xerox Phaser 8400 solid ink

The Xerox Phaser line is pretty impressive. It started in 1999 when Xerox bought Tektronix color-printing division, a Wilsonville, OR company. Tektronix had developed the solid ink technology back in the early ’90s, which basically eradicated the toner cartridge and replaced it with the minimalistic ink-block. It revolutionized the toner world, and has made the cost-per-print price drop dramatically over the years. The Phaser 8400 has been discontinued; I was just talking to a gentleman the other other day who traded a couple of his 8400s in for the Phaser 8860 (and received Xerox’s $500 per machine trade in!). However, if you have one that’s been more gently used than his, I’m sure it’s still pumping out the prints for a very good price!

In our Print Share Program (where we help Denver non-profits receive printer and toner donations from our corporate clients), the only machines we recommend for color are the Xerox Phasers due to the price-friendly nature of the solid ink technology. The green nature of the solid ink process makes it more attractive to our earth-conscious clients as well. Because there’s no bulky cartridge, it reduces the amount of plastic that needs to be made and eventually recycled. The best option if you’re doing a lot of printing (esp. high-coverage) and have consistent print volumes is Xerox’s cost per print program. Feel free to give us a call about details and getting a quote!

Apple Compatibles: Are You Hip?

I’ve been looking at some of the OEM cartridges for Apple lately. The prices would make make even the most devout Mac-lover blink twice over their non-corporate triple latte! I was pricing the OEM Laserwriter 8500 cartridge (the M5893G/A), and found the best deal was $230 plus shipping! It prints 14000 pages, however, so do quality compatibles, which cost between $159 and $190 here in the metro Denver area (the $159 with free shipping is ours).

The price differences between Apple OEMs and compatibles are almost as great as Lexmarks. If you are looking for ways to cut costs on your Apple printers, especially on your LaserWriter Series IIF, IIG IINT, IINTX 6000, or IISC (all are the M6002 Apple cartridge), going with compatibles can save you a bundle. The list price for the 4000 page OEM is $52, while a high-quality compatible only costs $38! That means for $100 you can print 7,690 pages (OEM) or 10,530 pages (compatible). That’s almost 3000 more pages for the same price!

Whether you like running numbers like this or not, it is a very worthwhile activity. The key is to shop around and make sure you are getting a good compatible with a solid warranty in case you get a bad one. The savings are one of those easy ways to tighten your belt (isn’t it nice to save money without giving up venti coffee-based beverages?). Give us a call, and we’ll give you a quote!

Buying Smart Saves You Money…

Toner Denver: Buying Smarter!

We can receive orders for toner frequently for small machines or extraordinarily infrequently for large machines. Something I find strange about this is that owners and CFOs don’t run spreadsheets at least once a year to assess printing use and possible solutions for expensive prints.

This is due in part to people overbuying and under-buying equipment. Just this week, I was working up a quote for a company with around 70 employees in three offices. They were content with their toner CPP (cost per print) for their color volume. However, they are leasing four machines that retail around 18K apiece (72K for a 36month lease…that’s $2000 a month without including prints)! We are recommending a Xerox Phaser 8860 which is less for toner (dry ink technology) and about less than half the lease price. If they needed 20K color pages per month, along with non-stop copying, they would be making a reasonable fiscal decision. However, by looking only at the toner price, they have drastically over-bought for their needs.

We are willing to sell more expensive toner because a customer is married to a machine that doesn’f fit their need. However, we tell them how they can improve their saving for their specific needs. If you have regular monthly outputs, I reccomend looking at our cost per print programs. It is probably the safest way not to over (or under) buy. Don’t hesitate to call if you have toner questions or would like a cost per print analysis.

HP Toner and Compatibles: The Real Savings

Like I’ve mentioned before, using HP toner compatibles can provide substantial savings for the high-volume business. Compatibles provide savings for the little guy too, but like they say, “the more you spend, the more you save.” Here are a couple examples for some common models: The HP 3600; HP 4600; HP 4700; and HP 5500.

Saving 60 bucks a year used to be something mortgage companies might have laughed at just 12 months ago. However, if they’re buying OEM “Q6470A” Black HP toner cartridges from Staples online at two per year (10000 B&W pages per month), they’re overpaying by $180 in three years*. If they have more than one machine, well, you can run the numbers!

The HP C9720A, HP Q5950A,and the HP C9730A for the 4600, 4700, and 5500 respectively would add up to $130 in savings at one HP toner cartridge apiece! Since people are watching their pennies more, and the bottom line is becoming more important to managers and owners, a 20 minute price comparison of what you currently pay on OEM and what you could pay on compatibles may save you a hundred bucks. It’s worth doing! Feel free to ask us for a quote and we’ll show you what you could save on your toner this year.

*Compared to our published compatible prices.

Mantenance Kits and Dentists: Why You need Both!

Maintenance kits aren’t an issue if you’re leasing a machine or have a cost-per-print program (something we strongly recommend for large print volumes). However, if you own a laser printer, a maintenance kit can be your best friend. Having one on hand allows you to take charge of your machine’s health!

Your printer is kind of like your teeth. If you only visit the dentist when you have a problem, you’ll probably only go when small problems have become major ones! Keeping up on your scheduled maintenance procedures will make sure your prints (and teeth) are always crisp, clean, and nice to look at. There are some good sites that give fairly detailed instructions along with pictures. This one does a good job explaining the HP color LaserJet 4600, HP LaserJet 4610, and HP LaserJet 4650: http://www.printertechs.com/tech/mkinst.php

Here are the basics. A maintenance kit keeps your printer going by replacing a few key parts (this is for most models):

1.It contains a new fuser (installer should reset the fuser page count on HP models).

2.It contains the manual feed parts that load the paper to the cassette rollers.

3.It has the new cassette rollers (the rollers that take the paper to the drum).

Doing the scheduled maintenance may not keep you from having any problems, but it will help keep the major bummers to a minimum! If you don’t like maintenance, give us a call about our cost per print program, which includes all scheduled (and unscheduled!) maintenance.

Automatic Duplex Printing: Save Cash and Paper!

Not everyone can duplex print, but if you can, you should. To find out if your printer supports duplex printing, look at your printer manual or look for the Two-sided (Duplex printing) or Print on both sides drop-down menu in the Printer Properties dialog box on your PC (sometimes found in the Printer Shortcuts tab). By doing the printing automatically, it cuts the printing time in half (technically it doesn’t cut it in half, because it takes a more complex path, but it more or less is cut in half…) without you having to flip the page over (like the good old days). The good news is that setting your printer options to automatic duplexing is simple. Here are the steps:

Step One:Go to your PC’s Printer dialog box and click on Properties.
Step Two: Click on the Printing Shortcuts tab, and select Two-sided (Duplex) Printing from the drop-down menu.
Step Three: Select Automatic from the drop-down menu.
Step Four: Flip on the long edge means flip the page along the 11″ side like a newspaper or book…(This way you don’t have to turn the page around if it were a two page letter, just flip it over). Flip in short edge means flip the page on the 8.5″ edge (PowerPoint will typically be flipped this way).

Why should I duplex, you may ask?

1) It saves the environment by using less paper
2) It saves cash by using less paper that you have to buy.
3) It saves time if you need the pages printed on both sides (a duplex print normally takes longer than 2 single sided prints to come out as it takes a more complicated engine path).
4) It saves engine and roller life. Printing duplex is easier on the engine than picking 2 separate pages and the the fact is the rollers will also last longer meaning less maintenance

What does all of this have to do with toner? Nothing really, we just thought it would be helpful to give you some other tools for printing that might help!!