Low-priced (sometimes free) personal printers from “big-box” electronics stores are not the answer, but they can be found in every office. These small, slow devices may have hardware costs of only $99 or $199, but their real operating costs can be prohibitive for a sizeable organization. With a color ink cartridge cost of about $36, many people don’t realize that the yield averages only 300 pages or so, which results in a cost-per-page of 12 cents or more.

Alternatively, some organizations buy pre-printed full-color templates or shells from print vendors and then copy text in-house on a black and white copier. Not only is that method slow and tedious, it is also costly, as these pre-printed shells tend to cost 10 to 12 cents each.

In recent years, purchase prices of color copiers, printers and MFPs (multi-function printers) have declined to more attractive levels, allowing more churches to be able to afford color printing. But how affordable are they? Most color copiers and MFPs have cost-per-copy charges of six to eight cents. At an average cost-per-copy of seven cents, an organization printing 1,000 two-sided newsletters would spend about $140 on copy charges, plus the cost of paper. During the course of a year, those costs exceed $7,200.

In addition to the operating costs of color copiers, buyers also need to consider their reliability and durability in handling high volumes. Copiers use a heat process to fuse toner to the paper and as volumes increase, so do paper jams and equipment service calls. Unfortunately, as many have learned, these machine breakdowns often occur about half way through the print run.

So before you buy your next copier or printer, take a closer look at your total cost of ownership for the next several years.