Cheapest color laser for printing a ton of color brochures

[DougoMan]

I'm looking for a color laser printer that will be as cheap to operate as possible for printing a large quantity of color brochures.

The cheapest I have found so far is the Dell 3030cn.

It costs about $300 and 9,000 page yield color toner is only $50. That's only about 2 cents a page for full color.

Is there anything cheaper? I would not mind paying more for the printer if I can get per page prices down.

 

[Phynaz]

If I were going to be printing brochures I would be more concerned about print quality.

That said, that 9,000 page yield is probably stated for 5% page coverage. Your per page cost just went up 20x.

Now include the rest of the maintenance items - fusers, drum kits, etc. You're printing two sided, right? So now you are approaching a buck each for those brochures.

Hire a print shop.

 

[DougoMan]

If I were going to be printing brochures I would be more concerned about print quality.

That said, that 9,000 page yield is probably stated for 5% page coverage. Your per page cost just went up 20x.

Now include the rest of the maintenance items - fusers, drum kits, etc. You're printing two sided, right? So now you are approaching a buck each for those brochures.

Hire a print shop.

Well I only need around 100 at a time and the info changes constantly. You need to order at least 2000 from a print shop to get the price under $1 per brochure.

I try to use designs that use as much white space as possible, so the coverage is more like 35-40%. So for that Dell printer, for example, it works out to about 40 cents per page.