Should I Take the Free Color Device?

Is a “Free Color Upgrade” the Right Move for Your Business?

Copier companies are always inventing ways to extract more money from your wallet. One method they cooked up is to start selling you a black and white copier, then try to switch you over to a color copier at “no extra charge.”

Why Are The Copier Reps Making You This Offer?

With a color copier, with far more components than a black and white copier, is being sold to you at no extra charge, you need to ask why they’re offering you this tremendous sounding deal.

The copier reps are offering this deal to you for one primary reason: they want to own your color prints. To a copier company, color prints are where they make the real money from you.

Are there any reasons Why You Would Want to Take This “Free Color Upgrade” Deal?

With the aforementioned in mind, there may be some reasons why you might still want to consider taking the free color upgrade. Here are a few examples of why taking such an offer might benefit you.

• You need a color printer anyhow, and this deal would save you money.
• Your company would only use color in particular instances.
• You know the difference between “black ink only” gray and composite gray
• You are using a high-priced color printer to help with marketing

When Is Taking The Free Upgrade Offer a Bad Idea?

You will also encounter some instances where a free color upgrade would be a terrible idea across the board. Here are some of those instances:

• When employees abuse the amount of color they use when they make prints
• When you are running a color printer which costs $0.07 per copy or less
• When you need a more reliable copier – Black and white copiers have three or four replaceable parts, where the average color copier has between ten to fifteen. Because of their more complex designs, color copiers will break down more often.
• When you don’t need color printing in the first place

Only Take The Free Color Upgrade When You Know You’ll Need It.

Keep the costs in mind when you decide on getting a color copier. If you print 500 color pages a month (or 20 or so pages per day) that you’re not expecting, you will lose an extra $2,500 on a four-year copier lease.

You have to do what’s best for your company. Consider the long term impact of taking a “free color upgrade.”