Label Cost Comparison

Primera Technology looks back to a thirty-three year history of designing and manufacturing specialty color printers. Over a million printers have been built and sold in more than 167 countries. Primera has successfully developed short to medium-run solutions using both color inkjet and color laser technologies. Which one you choose depends upon your specific label production requirements. Following overview might help you make your decision:

Color Inkjet: for Short-Run Label Printing

Primera’s LX-Series Color Label Printers utilize the latest in thermal inkjet technology to produce full-color product labels at up to 4800 dpi – about 240 times higher resolution than flexo – in up to 16.7 million colors.

Color inkjet is typically better suited to short runs versus medium runs since ink capacities are lower and speeds are slower. However, print quality is not at all sacrificed. In fact, color inkjet printing is among the best available of any competing technology.

Three color inkjet label printers are available from Primera: LX400e, LX810e, LX900e.

Color Laser: for Medium-Length Label Printing

Primera’s CX1200e Digital Color Label Press prints at speeds of up to 5 m (16.25 feet) per minute – the fastest in its class. This allows much higher volumes of labels to be printed in a much shorter period of time as compared to the draft mode of 114.3 mm (4.5”) per second on LX900e.

Cost per print on CX1200e is also advantageous at about half that of inkjet-based label printers. This extends the crossover point at which it is not only more convenient but also less expensive to print with a color laser-based system versus traditional analog processes.

sample label Primera   CX1200e LX900e LX810e LX400e
Cost per Label 4.9 ¢ 17.04 ¢ 17.4 ¢ 18.4 ¢

Prints per Cartridge

 C = 64,270 C = 564 224 – Color 212 – Color
M = 18,329 M = 332 696 – Black  
Y = 24,824 Y = 249    
K = 23,304 K = 3,473    

Sample Labe Primera   CX1200e LX900e LX810e LX400e
Cost per Label 3.3 ¢ 8.28 ¢ 16.5 ¢ 17.1 ¢

Prints per Cartridge

 C = 64,251 C = 4,229 235 – Color 228 – Color
M = 127,990 M = 3,317 1,035 – Black  
Y = 15,014 Y = 282    
K = 67,560 K = 8,733    

Wine Label LX900e   CX1200e LX900e LX810e LX400e
Cost per Label 2.4 ¢ 5.31 ¢ 7.6 ¢ 7.1 ¢

Prints per Cartridge

 C = 128,530 C = 2,063 509 – Color 549 – Color
M = 48,010 M = 1,241 5,771 – Black  
Y = 28,000 Y = 712    
K = 61,437 K = 12,509    

Primera Label Sample   CX1200e LX900e LX810e LX400e
Cost per Label 1 ¢ 2.67 ¢ 2.3 ¢ 2.3 ¢

Prints per Cartridge

 C = 192,710 C = 5,284 1,685 – Color 1,653 – Color
M = 85,306 M = 1,534 6,351 – Black  
Y = 110,295 Y = 2,105    
K = 470,723 K = 14,347    
All data and company names used in sample prints are fictitious. All labels were printed at comparable quality level on 10.16 x 7.62 cm (4” x 3”) label stock. Costs are based on the current MSRPs of cartridges available from Primera Technology Europe in €. Comparison numbers are not intended to compare cost per label to other non-Primera brand printers.