True Toner Cost Per a Page

[dgad]

Is there a system to actually calculate how much toner is used while printing (actually a full consumable cost breakdown). We own our printer, a Ricoh Pro C5200s. We don't have an option where we are located for any pay per a click charges and I have a lot of demand for full coverage flyers and booklets in color. Not really sure how to cost it considering toner is based on 8.75% converage and a high density print will use a lot of toner. I was looking. for a software in our Fiery or otherwise to help calculate the cost but only found something for a specific Xerox unit.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[famerdave]

Tell me about it. I've been trying to find a way to accurately calculate white toner usage in my machine for a long time. Same with my wide-format that I use for blueprints. It's just anybody guess.

 

[dgad]

Tell me about it. I've been trying to find a way to accurately calculate white toner usage in my machine for a long time. Same with my wide-format that I use for blueprints. It's just anybody guess.

Wide Format is usually via the RIP. It can calculate ink usage. I tought having a Fiery would help here but not. I have been assuming full coverage is as high a cost of almost 50¢ a ltr size page for full coverage (toner is based on between 5-8.75% coverage, and you can have as high as 300% coverage.

 

[pippip]

You have to consider more than toner cost per page, what about drums, transfer belts, service etc.
To be honest I'd forget about coverage, it'll drive you nuts trying to work out each individual job like that when quoting.

You need to just take a rough guess of how much toner, drums etc you're getting through per say 100,000 clicks and start documenting what you actually use per clicks and you can then average it out. The longer you run and document the more accurate you'll be.

WIde format is different and depending on the job is worth being accurate with but as mentioned the RIP should be able to calculate that.

 

[dgad]

I actually have a spreadsheet with drums toner etc . It is the toner amount that is tricky. Since I am out of pocket for toner (and I am sure many people are) there must be a better way to calculate toner use per a document? Drums, fuser, service kits etc. on my machine comes out to 5¢ a page.

 

[Shawnd]

That is why most of us just go the CPC route, fixed cost that is much easier to calculate your "all in" costs with the lease costs included.

Some of the RIPS will tell you coverage % but trying to link that back to your supplies costs will drive you nuts.

 

[jwheeler]

I was looking. for a software in our Fiery or otherwise to help calculate the cost

I'd imagine the vendors don't build in this feature because they want to push people to the CPC model. Aside from the method others mentioned of just taking averages over time, this might be a workaround that is more job specific:

You could divide the cost of a toner bottle by 100, then take note of the percentage level before starting a job, then note the percentage after the job is completed and calculate. In your Fiery, check out this section: Device Center > General > General Info > Consumables. The percentages of toner will be displayed.

For example:

1. Toner bottle is $150 ÷ 100 = $1.50 <---this is your cost for every 'percent' of toner
2. Percentage at start of job is 72%
3. End of job is 68%
4. 72 - 68 = 4
5. 4 x $1.50 = $6.00
6. If the job was 500 sheets, then: $6 ÷ 500 = $0.012 cost per print (for that toner color only)
7. Do the same for the other 3 colors and add them up

 

[TJPrinter]

I was just thinking about this the other day. I’m on CPC but I had a request come in for a long run that normally would be offset but the customer needed it quick. I looked at my supply of toner and thought, well I should have enough for this job (it was heavy coverage), but what do I do if I use it all and need to order more. Normally this isn’t a problem but getting supplies is not normal yet (Xerox). I passed on job because I would rather make one customer unhappy than make all my customers unhappy if I run out toner and can’t do any work.

I think the best idea is to keep track of your toner usage for a while like others have said. But I was wondering if you weighed a sheet of card stock in grams unprinted and then print the same sheet with full coverage and theoretically there should be a difference. How many grams of toner is in a cartridge and how much did you just use? Could it work? Sounds good to me but I’ve been wrong about many things.

 

[Shawnd]

Check out this spreadsheet and see if it helps: https://doit.niu.edu/doit/_files/calculate-your-print-costs.xlsx

 

[gregbatch]

APFill APFill - Ink and Toner Coverage Calculator, How to calculate ink coverage and consumption - AVPSOFT

This program uses Ghostscript, which is an opensource application. APFill is an interface that simplifies using Ghostscript, gather data, and calculate the costs. To me it's cheap for what it does. It also handles spot colors, so if you are running a 5 color machine you can calculate 5th color coverage

If you want to go cheap, as in FREE, you can just use Ghostscript. Example:

Command:
gs -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -o- -sDEVICE=ink_cov YourPrintFile.pdf

Results:
Page 1
0.10022 0.09563 0.10071 0.06259 CMYK OK
Page 2
0.06108 0.05000 0.05834 0.04727 CMYK OK

You want the pro version of APFill for CMYK and spot colors. There is a 30 day free trial to see if it works for you. There is also a Mac program on the market. I'll see if I can find that one.

 

[Stickman42]

But I was wondering if you weighed a sheet of card stock in grams unprinted and then print the same sheet with full coverage and theoretically there should be a difference. How many grams of toner is in a cartridge and how much did you just use? Could it work? Sounds good to me but I’ve been wrong about many things.

Run some blanks first and see if the fuser cooks out a measurable amount of moisture?

 

[gregbatch]

The Mac program can be found here: Ink Coverage