Printing cost calculator
I decided to create a small tool to calculate the exact cost to print
user-entered text onto a standard sheet of paper, so, here it is.
Steps to create + assumptions:
- 1) Tally up # of pixels used in each letter,
modifying code I found from a post
covering which letters take up the most space.
I am using the super aesthetic new kid on the block, Times New Roman, and 12pt font for this tool.
- 2) Add cost of ink (black) - about $0.03/page
- 3) Add cost of paper (standard, 8.5"x11" white) - about $0.02/page
- 4) Add cost of electricity - negligable
- 5) Add cost of the printer, smoothed over its expected life - about 5% of total printing cost, so gave costs mentioned above a 5% uplift
- 6) Determine the # of pixels per page - about 8.5 million
- 7) Bring it all home, add up total costs per page in 2,3,5 (about $0.05)
and divide by total pixels in page to get the cost per pixel printed - an astounding $0.000000006738 per pixel
Now, of course the assumptions above are pretty ballpark (I'm excluding non-letter characters here, for example),
but hopefully you find some amusement from the tool I created below nonetheless.
You can type or paste your text in
and hit 'get costs' to see the total cost to print the text.