The true cost per page — the number nobody tells you

You pay for the printer once. You pay for ink for the life of the device. That's why manufacturers sometimes sell cheap printers at a loss — the real money is in the cartridges.

The calculation in two lines

Divide the price of the cartridge or ink bottle by the pages it yields. That's your cost per page. Multiply it by your monthly pages × 24 months and add the device price — that's the true two-year cost.

A real example: 1,000 pages a month

• Cheap cartridge printer: a cartridge yields ~200 pages — five cartridges a month. MegaTank printer: a black bottle yields up to 6,000 pages — one bottle every six months. The cumulative two-year gap runs to several times the difference in device price.

Costs people forget

• Electricity: laser draws far more while printing because of the fuser. Paper: duplex printing halves your paper bill. Downtime: a single day's outage in an invoicing office costs more than a year's maintenance contract. Counterfeit cartridges: they save money at first and cost you a new device later…