The sticker price on a printer is the smallest number in the decision. A $199 printer can cost more over three years than an $800 one, and most buyers never find that out until the invoices start arriving.

Here is how to work out the real number before you commit, and what to check so the machine you buy still suits you in year three.

The number that matter is cost per page

Every printer has one, and almost no listing shows it. You work it out yourself with one line of math:

Cartridge price divided by the cartridge's rated page yield equals cost per page.

Say a toner cartridge costs $95 and the manufacturer rates it for 6,000 pages. That is 1.6 cents per page. Now say a cheaper printer uses a $38 cartridge rated for 1,200 pages. That is 3.2 cents per page, double the first one, on a machine that cost less up front.

At 2,000 pages a month, that gap is about $384 a year. Over three years it is more than the price difference between the two printers.

Page yields are published by the manufacturer and are usually printed on the cartridge page or in the spec sheet. They assume about 5 percent coverage of the page, which is roughly a normal text document. If your work is graphics-heavy or you print a lot of forms with shaded areas, expect to use more than the rating suggests.

Do the math once, before you buy. It takes two minutes and it is the single most useful thing you can do.

Laser or inkjet

This is the first fork in the road, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on what you print.

If the machine sits in a shared office and prints invoices, letters, reports, and shipping labels, a laser printer is almost always the cheaper answer over three years.

If you print in bursts, need accurate color, or the machine will sit unused for weeks at a time, look at inkjet. But check the cost per page first, because this is where the gap gets wide.

One thing people get wrong: a laser printer that sits idle for a month is fine. An inkjet that sits idle for a month may need a cleaning cycle, and cleaning cycles use ink. If the printer is for a room people only use occasionally, that matters.

The costs that do not appear on the box

Toner is not the only consumable. Depending on the model you may also replace:

• Drum unit. On many laser printers this is separate from the toner and lasts a few toner cartridges. It is not cheap. Check whether the model you are looking at has an all-in-one cartridge or a separate drum.
• Maintenance kit. Higher volume machines have fuser and roller kits rated for a set number of pages.
• Waste toner container. Common on color lasers.
• Paper trays. If you print on two paper sizes, a second tray saves someone walking over to swap paper several times a day.

Ask for the full consumables list before you buy. A good supplier will give it to you without being chased. You can see what a given model takes on our printer cartridges pages.

Duty cycle, and why the number is not what you think

Every printer lists a monthly duty cycle. It is usually a large number, and it is not the number you should plan around.

Duty cycle is the absolute maximum the machine can physically handle in a month without breaking. The number you want is the recommended monthly volume, which is often a tenth of the duty cycle or less.

If your office prints 3,000 pages a month, do not buy a printer with a 3,000 page duty cycle. Buy one with a recommended volume around 3,000. Running a machine at its ceiling every month is how you end up replacing it in eighteen months.

Count your real volume before you shop. If you have an existing printer, its menu will show a lifetime page count. Divide by the months you have had it.

Features that pay for themselves

Some specs are marketing. These are not:

• Automatic duplex. Prints both sides without anyone flipping paper. Halves your paper cost and nobody has to think about it.
• Automatic document feeder. If anyone scans multi-page documents, this turns a ten minute job into a thirty second one.
• Network or Wi-Fi, not just USB. A USB-only printer serves one desk. Everything else serves the room.
• Scan to email or scan to folder. On a multifunction printer this removes a whole manual step from every scanned document.
• A real paper capacity. A 150 sheet tray in a busy office means someone is refilling it daily.

If you are buying for a school or a government office

A few extra things apply.

Security matters more than people expect. A network printer stores documents in memory. Ask whether the model supports secure print release, where the job only prints when the user enters a PIN at the machine. For anything touching student records or personnel files, that is not optional.

Standardize where you can. Three different printer models means three different cartridge types to stock. Five of the same model is cheaper to run and easier to support, even if the unit price is slightly higher.

Get it in writing. Ask for the cost per page, the full consumables list, and the warranty terms in the quote, not in an email thread. It makes the comparison between two bids a lot simpler.

Three questions before you buy

1. How many pages a month, really? Check the page count on your current machine rather than guessing.
2. Color or black and white? If fewer than one page in ten needs color, a mono laser plus occasional color from one shared machine is usually cheaper than color everywhere.
3. How many people share it? One person, one desk, one small machine. Eight people, one room, a machine with a real paper tray and an ADF.

Answer those three and the shortlist usually writes itself.

Need a hand with the shortlist

We stock laser, inkjet, and multifunction printers from Lexmark, HP, and Brother, and we can tell you the cost per page on any of them before you order.

If you are buying more than one, or buying for a school, office, or agency, send us the list and we will come back with pricing, availability, and lead times. Request a quote or browse all printers.