Printing Labels: Should I buy my own printer?

[lnBetween]

I'm looking to print around +200 sheets per month of white glossy labels, as shown here:

https://www.onlinelabels.com/OL5275.htm

I asked a printing shop and they would charge me around $1 per sheet (they would provide their own labels). They told me they would print the labels on their high end XEROX digital printer.

I know I could buy the blank labels online for around 20 cents a sheet. So I was thinking about buying my own printer to print the labels myself. Something similar to this $176 printer:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BR3VZCG

The graphics are mostly black and fake gold as in the image attached, and the blank labels have a glossy finish.

Q1 - Should I expect the visual quality of the print to be a lot less with my own printer? Would the difference be significant?

Q2 - Should I buy a more expensive printer?

Thank you!

 

[lnBetween]

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[bill kahny]

The quality will go down as you run. The cost for toner and drums will be more as you try to keep the quality up and count wasted sheets. If we could run $176 dollar printers just as good and cheap as our $50,000 we would. If a builder could build your house with just a hammer everyone would be building then, Right?

 

[lnBetween]

I will see a significant difference in visual quality even for simple graphics as the image I attached in my original post?

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I will see a significant difference in visual quality even for simple graphics as the image I attached in my original post?

Yes.

 

[Possumgal]

You also may run into other problems, such as toner from a cheap printer rubbing off the coated labels, unless it has settings for coated stock.

 

[jwheeler]

I agree with the comments above. And even though the artwork may look simple to you, it has heavy coverage. Another thought...instead of ordering 200 sheets per month, is it something that you can order in bulk, possibly on rolls? Or does the artwork change regularly? The price of $1 per sheet is quite reasonable considering the cost of the media alone. With that much coverage, you will be going through toners and drums quite rapidly on that small $200 printer and you'll probably end up spending more in the long run. Another challenge you may face on a small printer like that which doesn't have the tools built in like higher end digital presses is the registration. You're trying to line up artwork to very precision positioning. I imagine that printer will jump around from sheet to sheet.