Why the Cheapest Printer May Become the Most Expensive
Low machine price does not always mean low total cost of ownership.
A lower machine price is the easiest thing to compare on a quotation, and the least reliable guide to what a printer will cost you. Over a typical 3–5 year life, running costs are many times the purchase price, so a small difference in consumable cost or downtime outweighs a large discount on the machine.
A worked example
The two printers below are hypothetical, but every figure is calculated with the Mark & Code cost engine on the same line: 20,000 prints a day, 26 days a month, 12 hours a day, 15-character codes.
Printer B is the calculator's default CIJ setup: ₹4,50,000 machine price, ₹5,351 a month in consumables, 4 hours of downtime a month.
Printer A is 20% cheaper to buy (₹3,60,000), but its consumables cost 40% more (₹7,492 a month) and it stops twice as often (8 hours of downtime a month).
- Monthly running cost: A ₹80,875 vs B ₹68,735 — A costs ₹12,141 more every month.
- Cost per print: A ₹0.156 vs B ₹0.132.
- 1-year total cost of ownership: A ₹13,30,504 vs B ₹12,74,817.
- 3-year total cost of ownership: A ₹32,71,512 vs B ₹29,24,451.
- 5-year total cost of ownership: A ₹52,12,520 vs B ₹45,74,086.
Printer A's ₹90,000 saving at purchase is used up in about 7.4 months. Over five years the "cheaper" printer costs ₹6,38,434 more.
Why this happens
- Purchase price is paid once; consumables, maintenance, downtime and rejection are paid every month.
- Downtime and rejection scale with your production, not with the machine price — and they are rarely in a quotation.
- Consumable pricing is often set after the sale, when switching suppliers is hard.
What to do instead
- Compare printers on 3- and 5-year total cost of ownership at your own volume.
- Get supplier-rated consumable yields in writing, not just prices.
- Ask reference customers about real downtime, not the brochure figure.
- Put a cost on an hour of downtime and on a rejected product before you compare.
Run your own version of this comparison in the TCO Calculator, or compare several technologies side by side in the TCO Wizard.