The prices completely depend on what I am having printed at the time. I have them print box toppers, door hangers, and post cards. The # of colors, size…
I am not sure why this is even an issue. Pick up the phone and call your local Kinko’s. If they cost more than your printer, hang up the phone and ignore this advice completely. If you haven’t been in one in a quarter century, it is probably about time you checked them out. The worst thing that can happen to you for listening to me is you waisted a dime.
If you have the same experience I did, then you have a new supplier of your printed material, and you lower your marketing costs. You won’t be making millions off this advice either way, but over the course of a year that adds up. Throw in the free design work, (of course not from scratch), but changing a few numbers here and there like expiration dates from one print run to the next, and you are saving even more cash.
Who said it was issue? I haven’t been arguing with you. You keep saying how cheap they are but you haven’t shared any examples of prices. I was asking out of curiosity. You’re right, I could just pick up the phone and call Kinkos. On the other hand, why do you have to be rude about it? I wasn’t being a jerk. I figured that since you have ordered from them that you would share some prices with everyone.
I currently get my door hangers from http://www.gotprint.com (full color-both sides, 100# glossy):
5,000 for $298
10,000 for $598
I will try…Copier uses an electrically charged drum (needs to be replaced from time to time) to pickp any lay down toner…The toner is then fused(also needs to be replaced from time to time) to the paper…Toner is usually black but some places do offer a couple other colours…Of course, there are also full colour copies which uses 4 colours of toner CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black)…Toner is pricey and this also makes the copies pricey on large runs…There are no plates…
Digital printing uses some sort of electric charge to make an actual printing plate…Plate runs through the printer, picks up ink which is then “offset” on to the paper…On the older machines the plate maker was separate but on the new machines it is built in and artwork comes from a digital file (Publisher, Illustrator, etc.)…Some even have 2 colours…And ink is very cheap compared to toner…Maybe 1/10 cent versus 1 1/4 cents per pages…On some machines the plates and can be saved and reused…
So over time a digital duplicator (as they are often called) has a far lower cost per page…Riso and Ricoh make them…The newer machines have come a long way since the old Gestetner…Some even do full colour…Not sure how the quality compares to real offet printing but it is a machine most “civilians” can own and operate…Do a Google search for digital duplicator and you will find lots of information…
Our Duplo digital duplicator operates just like Royce described. We have a document tray on the top that feeds the original into a scanner, which starts the ‘master making’. Ours ore a thing, onion paper sort of thing that are disposable. Once the master is made, it is automatically fed onto a rolling drum. That drum inks the master with actual, liquid (gelled) ink. The paper rolls under the drum and gets ink pressed onto it . . . and comes out the other end.
My cost for running a 5000 run of a flyer is the cost of paper, plus 25 cents for master, plus maybe a buck for ink. Takes me a half hour. I do get a smudge here and there, or malfunctions like the odd paper jam and such. With a clean master, the copies are great. They are not as crisp and clean as a photocopy or laser printed document. However, they are good and quasi-professional looking. The print shop offset printers are better engineered for cleaner printing, compared to my economy line machine.
I just got some new DH in the other day…about .10 ea (4/4 cardstock)…quite happy w/result…used them b4 2 do some work when I 1st opened…called “express color” out of south Fla…