Buy or lease a photocopier in Ghana? How to work out the real cost

The purchase price is only the start. Over four or five years an office copier also costs you toner, replacement drums and other wear parts, service visits, and the time lost when it breaks down.

• Purchase price, plus delivery and installation. See current figures in our photocopier price index.
• Toner. This is the biggest running cost. Divide the toner price by the pages it is rated for to get your cost per page, or use the cost-per-page calculator.
• Drums and parts. Drums, fuser units and rollers wear out with use and are replaced every so many thousand pages.
• Service. Either pay per call-out or take a maintenance contract from the vendor.

Buying gives you a machine you own outright, which you can sell later. It also means every repair is your problem unless you have a service contract.

Lease and rental contracts vary a lot between vendors, so read what is in yours. Most combine a fixed monthly fee with some or all of the following:

• A set number of pages each month, with a per-page charge for anything above it. Colour pages are normally charged at a higher rate than black and white.
• Toner, so you never buy cartridges yourself.
• Servicing, parts and labour, often with a promised response time.
• An upgrade or replacement option at the end of the term.

Paper is almost never included. Some contracts also charge for installation or for collecting the machine at the end.

Add up everything you would pay over the same period, for example four years, under each option.

• Buying: purchase price + (toner and parts cost per page × pages per month × months) + service costs for the whole period − what you could sell the machine for at the end.
• Leasing: monthly fee × months + (extra pages × the excess page rate) + any setup or exit fees.

Our buy-vs-lease calculator does this for you. Use real quotes, not brochure prices: the excess page rate and what servicing costs change the answer more than the headline price does.

• You can pay the full price without hurting cash flow.
• Your page volume is steady and predictable.
• You plan to keep the machine for many years.
• A vendor near you can service the model and stocks its toner.
• You print little enough that a lease's monthly page allowance would go to waste.

• You would rather not tie up cash in equipment.
• You want one fixed monthly cost that is easy to budget for.
• Downtime costs you money, so a guaranteed repair time matters. This applies to print shops, schools at exam time and law firms.
• You want newer machines and to upgrade at the end of the term.
• You print a lot, and the per-page rate in the lease is lower than what toner would cost you.

• How long is the minimum term, and what does it cost to end it early?
• Is the monthly fee fixed in cedis for the whole term, or can it change with the exchange rate?
• How many pages are included each month, and what does each extra page cost, in black and in colour?
• How are pages counted, and who reads the meter?
• Are toner, drums, parts and labour all included? What isn't?
• How quickly will a technician come out, and is that written into the contract?
• Who owns the machine at the end, and can you buy it?

Get answers in writing and compare at least three quotes. You can ask us for three quotes from vetted vendors.