Photocopier Or High Spec Printer

SCRIBES

Our charity may be getting a grant to replace our old B/W photocopier. My dilemma is whether to buy a new colour photocopier or a high spec colour printer? I've read that with the new colour printers printing costs can work out cheaper than photocopying costs. We only do about 20,000 copies a year. Any suggestions/views ??

Savvy_Sue

I'm not in a position to comment on costs, but you need to take into consideration that if you have a new and whizzy printer/copier then you will do more on it and you will make more mistakes. At least if you don't, your colleagues will ...

I think this particularly applies to colour - although our choice is between a laser printer / copier and an inkjet colour all-in-one, so probably not a fair comparision.

But I know what happens when we're printing in colour: you print a single copy, it looks fine, you hit the button to do 20 copies, half way through one of the colours goes a bit manky, and you have 1 usable copy and 19 useless ones.

One reason why I find that outsourcing any volume of colour printing gets better results is that our printers know their paper! That will look good on silk, that on gloss, you want something heavier than 80gsm for that and so on. They know their paper, and they have it available. I have to experiment, and that all takes time.

If there's more to go wrong, it will go wrong ...

Savvy_Sue

Thinking about it, you'd probably get more help from the Small Biz & Charity Organisers board, so ...

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joffyw

Hi Scribes,

Where are you based Scribes as i'd be more than happy to advise.

There are several things to consider such as the type of print required, the type of paper, do you need folding and stapling etc etc.

As a rough idea 20k copies would equate to approx £1000 if done on a copier with a contract however you've got the cost of the machine to factor whether brand new or refurb, this can be anything from £600 up to £6000.

lots of permutations but it all comes down to making sure you choose the most cost effective approach so by all means contact me if you want to discuss further.