When it comes to business printing, you’re going to come across toner-based printers and inkjet printers. While there are clear differences between the two and quite a few benefits to inkjet printing, I often see businesses sticking to toner because it’s what they’re used to. But, even though it’s familiar, toner-based printing might not be giving you the results you want.
The Cost of Toner-Based Printing
Material costs are much greater with toner than they are with ink. If you compare documents with equal color and coverage, toner printing is going to cost about three times as much per page than inkjet printing does.
Plus, toner-based printing limits the types of material you can run. For example, you’re unable to run inexpensive window envelopes, and the envelopes you do use are more likely to be bent, creased or otherwise damaged by being run through the toner-based printer.
The Speed of Toner-Based Printing
Toner-based printers are not set up to be continuously fed, meaning operators have to either stop or slow production when the machine needs refeeding. Also, just the speed that toner envelopes are printed at is much slower than what you see with inkjet printing.
Inkjet printers can print at speeds up to 3x faster than what you’ll experience with toner-based machines. This allows you to run more envelope print jobs in the same amount of time. And, less time spent running envelopes means more time you’re able to spend on other areas of your business.
The Ease of Inkjet Printing
Unlike with toner-based printing, inkjet printing allows you to use a wide range of envelopes of many sizes – including window envelopes. Inkjet printing does not use heat, and it does not bend or crease the envelopes while they’re being run. Inkjet printing makes it possible to print envelopes with full color, 4-edge bleed. Even with greater color capabilities and full bleed, inkjet printing has a lower consumable cost than toner-based printing.
If you’d like to see the color capabilities of inkjet printing for yourself, request a sample kit.
