Laser printer cost per page calculation

So I find that I now need to replace 3 of the 4 toner cartridges in my home laser printer (samsung clx-3170 series), I thought I would work out what it has cost per page to run, so that I can either justify its replacement with a cheaper to run model, or shock me and the rest of the family into printing less!

The Samsung has a neat "supplies information report" accessible through the printer setup, reports menu, so it is this that I have used as a basis of my calculations.

The report, shows the following information that we need:

item	remaining	no of pages
yellow toner	10%	1265
magenta toner	10%	1260
cyan toner	11%	1258
black toner	35%	1140
imaging unit	52%	11719

So I first take the figures and work out a "whole of life" page count for each part, using the formula (page count/(100-remaining))x100 - this gives the figures below:

item	whole of life
yellow toner	1406
magenta toner	1400
cyan toner	1398
black toner	1754
imaging unit	24414

So, looking at the figures above it seemed reasonable to base the initial costs calculation on 1400 pages, as 3 of the 4 toner cartridges will print this amount (give or take s few sheets) during their whole life. I therefore worked out how much life would be used by the black toner and the imaging unit to print these 1400 pages.

I used the formula (1400/whole of life)x100 to work this out. This gave the following figures:

item	used percentage
black toner	80%
imaging unit	6%

I then went online to find current prices for the supplies and then equated these to the price for 1400 pages, using either the whole cost (for the 3 colours) or the percentage above, for the other supplies, giving:

item	online price (£)	cost per 1400 pages
yellow toner	26.45	26.45
magenta toner	26.45	26.45
cyan toner	26.45	26.45
black toner	26.45	21.16
imaging unit	93.14	5.59

So totalling up the whole of life costs gives a cost of £106.10 for 1400 pages, I.e. a cost of 7.58 pence per page

[NOTE: for the purposes of this calculation I have excluded the cost of the waste unit in the printer as last time I looked this was under £10 to buy and last time I opened the printer up it was very nearly empty, so I therefore believe this will have negligible impact on the cost per page price. I have also excluded printer paper costs as these are easily calculated separately]

I really did not have a feel for how much the printer was costing to run, however it does appear that I am exceeding the print life for each of the toner cartridges specified by Samsung which is pleasing.

I have also looked on the internet and our costs are broadly in line with calculations done with other laser/inkjet printers.

Whilst it does come as a shock to get a three figure bill to replace multiple laser toner cartridges this is offset by the reduced frequency in which they occur compared with replacing inkjet cartridges!

This led me on to working out an annual running cost for the printer. The same supplies report showed when the supplies were first installed in the printer and how many prints they have used, so we can work out an annual number per toner per year:

item	installed	pages	pages per year
yellow toner	30/03/2010	1265	1687
magenta toner	30/03/2010	1260	1680
cyan toner	30/03/2010	1258	1677
black toner	05/09/2010	1140	3420
imaging unit	26/11/2009	11719	10817

So with these figures and the whole life figures in one of the tables above I can work out the cost for each supply per year:

item	unit cost	multiplier	annual cost
yellow toner	26.45	1.205	31.87
magenta toner	26.45	1.200	31.74
cyan toner	26.45	1.197	31.66
black toner	26.45	1.949	51.55
imaging unit	93.14	0.443	41.26

So totalling up these costs gives an annual cost of £188.08 or a monthly cost of £15.67

Again these costs exclude the waste disposal unit and paper.

Time to have words with the rest of the family about the running costs and get them to print more efficiently, e.g. by using draft and grey-scale!