Label Printing Cost Comparison - Laser/Label Printer

Printing Labels Cost Comparison A4 Mono Laser or Label Printer

Why use a label printer over a laser printer? Well simply put it is cheaper and more convenient.

Below you will see we have compared printers of approximately the same upfront costs. We haven’t factored in the longer usable lifetime of label printers but even without this it is cheaper to run a label printer with even fairly small quantity label usage.

 Direct thermal label printers have no toners or inks. Only the labels are the consumables. For this reason downtime attributable to toner changes and drum changes do not apply to label printers.

 Label printers are dedicated to their task. The labels are pre-loaded and they are just waiting for a print job. Laser printers are used to print labels only occasionally so often the label paper needs to be loaded and/or other uses may need to hold off printing until the label print job is done so that normal A4 printing can resume.

For the comparison let’s buy a commercial label printer such as a Zebra GC420D. For the laser printer we have picked a mid range printer, often the cheaper the laser printer the more expensive the consumables are.

HP LaserJet Pro M402N Mono Laser $368 inc GST (at 9th January 2019)

Now for the consumables

1.        Let’s buy a genuine toner  - HP 26A Toner 2700 pages,  cost $234

2.       Let’s buy some good quality A4 labels (not the cheap thin ones with the poor adhesive that can come off in the printer) - Avery White Parcel Labels Matte (L7169) 99.1 x 139m,– 100 sheets, 4 per sheet, cost $99.00

So for the Laser printer it costs $216.87 per 1000 labels in consumables (toner and labels) to print 1000 quality labels. This figure assumes that all 4 labels on the sheet are used and there is no wastage.

Did you know that you can void the printer warranty by inserting A4 label sheets with some of the labels removed? If you don’t use all the labels on the sheet then you should NOT put the sheet back thru again!

Zebra GC420D Direct Thermal Label Printer -$577.50 inc GST (at 9th January 2019)

So how much are the labels and consumables to print a slightly larger label (99mm x 148mm) in our Workstation Label Printer? It is simply the label cost which is $34.17 inc GST (based on a box of 2800 @ $95.70 inc GST).

Whats the Difference?

The difference is a staggering $182.57 per 1000 labels. If you use as little as 3150 labels then you have paid completely for the label printer by saving $575.10 and the savings will go on for years.

You can make this saving and have no hassle from the staff!   

Often there are hidden costs with using laser printers. The toner is not obvious as a label consumable. There are also drums (imaging units), fusers and other maintenance requirements for laser printers.  A laser printer repair can be very expensive if a label comes off the backing inside the printer.

So do you want to make these savings now! For the cost of printing 3150 of the labels with the laser printer like we have demonstrated above ($575.10) you can buy a label printer package today which includes:

You can order the workstation printer or this package by clicking here - Zebra printer package