Overview

the real cost of a printer is not so much the printer itself, but the ink, because you keep on paying for that. so let's analyze that.

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Instructions

put in a 0 to disable that field. you MUST obtain the pages per cartridge yield from the cartridge specs. when it comes to toner, the cartridge yield for cyan, magenta, and yellow, and black for a given printer can be all different, so try not to assume anything unless you have already looked up that cartridge type.

Printer cartridge cost and yeild comparison math

The math for comparing printer cartridges between printers:printer A has the lowest page count per XL color cartridge.

If your budget per month is low, then printer A is for you. but if you can afford the larger carts, then go with the printer B.

printerAcolorXLcost and printerAblackXLcost are the lower cost printer cartridge prices for XL cartridges (well, the best you can get for the printer). $\frac{\mathrm{printerBcolorpages}}{\mathrm{printerAcolorpages}}\times \mathrm{printerAcolorXLcost}+\mathrm{printerAblackXLcost}=\mathrm{printerAcostincartstogetBpages}$

the ratio of printer B's cartridge pages to printer A's cart pages tells you how many catridges you have to buy of A before you get to B's number of pages. again, A's pages should be lower than B. $\frac{\mathrm{printerBcolorpages}}{\mathrm{printerAcolorpages}}=\mathrm{numAcartstomakeaBcart}$ or $\frac{\mathrm{printerAcolorpages}}{\mathrm{printerBcolorpages}}\times \mathrm{100\%}=\mathrm{AcartpagesispercentofBcartpages}$

In color cost per page calculation, you choose the lesser of the set of cartridge's page yield. $\frac{\mathrm{totalprinterAcolorXLcost}+\mathrm{printerAblackXLcost}}{\mathrm{printerAcolorpages}}=\frac{\mathrm{colorcost}}{\mathrm{page}}$

Black cost per page calculation: $\frac{\mathrm{printerAblackXLcost}}{\mathrm{printerAblackpages}}=\frac{\mathrm{blackcost}}{\mathrm{page}}$