5% coverage not even close!

[mrmunroe]

Fun Facts from paid invoices:
5% coverage on an 8.5x11" sheet yields 15000 sheets from 460 grams of Xerox Phaser toner.
460k grams is approx. 1 pound
1 pound of toner from my aftermarket supplier costs me $35.00.
5% coverage of 8.5x11" sheet equals a solid square 2.35" square.
A 12x18" image of solid colors on a 13x19" sheet = 92 of those 2.35" squares.
So, if I divide 92 squares into 15000 sheets I get 163 sheets.
The net result is that if I print 163 sheets of 13x19" with a 12x18"" image in solid colors, I will use up 1 pound of toner.
If I had a contract with a copier company that included 5 cents a click for one 13x19" sheet with toner included in the click charge, they would get paid $8.15 in click charges for the 163 sheets.
After receiving their $8.15 they would have to send me another pound of toner and still repair and/or service the machine, cover overhead, and make a profit . . . . . all with $8.15?
What am I overlooking?

 

[msaeger]

The one contract I looked over carefully said 5% coverage was average, but the company reserved the right to charge for excessive use of toner.
It appears to me that I would use a lot more toner than 5% coverage. The question is still what happens when the copier company starts counting pixels and finds that I average 80% coverage?
Since you are a tech, I wonder if you are aware of what happens in a case like this?
I was hoping I'd hear from some printers with the same situation.
I can't imagine a company that would have me sign a contract stating 5% coverage and then sending me ten times that amount of toner for free.

I have never had a customer tell me they were charged extra for using too much toner. I can't say I know what the contracts say though. All I have heard is some people saying they can't order as many at a time as they want. Then they have to order more often instead of having a mountain of toner.

 

[kdw75]

Fun Facts from paid invoices:
5% coverage on an 8.5x11" sheet yields 15000 sheets from 460 grams of Xerox Phaser toner.
460k grams is approx. 1 pound
1 pound of toner from my aftermarket supplier costs me $35.00.
5% coverage of 8.5x11" sheet equals a solid square 2.35" square.
A 12x18" image of solid colors on a 13x19" sheet = 92 of those 2.35" squares.
So, if I divide 92 squares into 15000 sheets I get 163 sheets.
The net result is that if I print 163 sheets of 13x19" with a 12x18"" image in solid colors, I will use up 1 pound of toner.
If I had a contract with a copier company that included 5 cents a click for one 13x19" sheet with toner included in the click charge, they would get paid $8.15 in click charges for the 163 sheets.
After receiving their $8.15 they would have to send me another pound of toner and still repair and/or service the machine, cover overhead, and make a profit . . . . . all with $8.15?
What am I overlooking?

I have thought to myself many times, that I would hate to try and build a multi-billion dollar company on click charges, but obviously it works. How many government agencies, or corporate officers use much less toner? I am guessing most.

 

[Keith]

There's also the law of averages. You're gonna have some jobs that don't have heavy coverage, not everyone wants a solid color background. At the end of the year, I'm sure they come out ahead. It would be tedious to try to calculate coverage on every order. I had a machine that I owned and would cry everytime I got a post card or flyer job with heavy coverage because the toner was so expensive, no market fair market price would cover your costs. I would pray for a letterhead or envelope job so I could make some money. But you know what? At the end of the year, I had a net profit on that particular machine. So I would imagine these large dealers could average out toner usage across pay-for-print shops and internal office use.

Plus, the mark-up on toner is insane. Just like desktop inkjets, these copier/digital press manufactureres don't make their money off of selling boxes; it's the service contract/ink cartridges.

 

[jwheeler]

Hi MrMunroe,

I sell production printing equipment for Konica Minolta. I would make sure to let your sales rep know about this situation up front so they can adjust the service contract accordingly as some other users stated. Typically, customers have coverage all over the board and as long as it's not consistently heavy coverage using insane amounts of toner, their account won't get flagged. But there are rare instances where an account is flagged due to excessive toner reordering. I have had customers from Oce/Canon tell me that they get back-billed for using more than their contract called for based on industry standards (5%). But when our customers get flagged, we usually revisit their contract and adjust moving forward even though the fine print of the contract (for us and most every vendor) states that we can back-bill for over-usage. It's best to know this up front and a good production print specialist should be asking the right questions from you to know this. But I feel it's also to the customer's benefit to bring this up in the beginning because the equipment recommendation may change accordingly as well, not just the service. You might get bumped up to a better fit machine or added accessories such as a humidifier which helps to avoid the static and bricking caused by the heavy coverage you're describing.

 

[buckeyewta]

I had an issue just like this with ComDoc. They wanted to charge extra for high toner usage. We refused to pay more than contract price so they pretty much dropped service on us. We have since signed direct with Xerox and have no issues so far. I would encourage signing directly with the manufacturer and not a dealer like ComDoc. They did have lower pricing but after the paper was signed they were out to get us in any way possible, even to the point of wanting to charge me $1200 for parts that were included in the service deal.

 

[Possumgal]

I remember a past post a few years ago from somebody whose click charges were raised because they used more toner on a regular basis than the contract specified. If I remember correctly, their contract was also with a third party and not through Xerox directly. Just read that stuff, even if you need a microscope.

 

[mrmunroe]

Thank you to ALL who took the time to respond to the original post. The info will prove useful. This forum seems to be a valuable source of honest opinions. I appreciate it.

Obviously, I was a little paranoid about the 5% coverage inclusion in a contract.

What I learned from this exchange:

- 5% is an unrealistic basis for coverage in a commercial printing situation, but that copier companies try to leave it in a contract as a bargaining chip if toner usage exceeds some unknown amount.

- The "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later" rule is in effect with the usual contract. Not a very solid basis for the buyer especially since the amount charged for extra toner is not specified.

- On the other hand, No Clicks, No Money for the copier company. The copier company has to negotiate, rather than demand, extra money for excess toner.

- It is better to buy a machine directly from the company.

- A machine buyer is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to picking the right machine to do heavy coverage on a regular basis and also in predicting how much heavy coverage he will produce in the future.

- I like cliches because they help me remember things.