Kinko's and color copies

i was putting together a flyer promoting community user groups and i had some color in it — nothing fancy, just red and blue (note: the flyer was ALL text, no photography or anything — picture word doc with some text in color).

so i waited to the last minute and kinko’s would be the only one able to get it done in time (aside from another place about an hour from my house that i wasn’t willing to drive).

color copies: $.89/each — are you friggin kidding me?  for the 1500 copies i needed, that is $1335 for paper.  okay, so they’d give me a bulk discount — $.59 = $885.  i asked for the company discount and it wasn’t much less.  point being that i could have bought 2 color printers for less than it would be to print out these copies (sure paper and toner in the long run, blah blah, but i’m trying to make a point here).  i decided i couldn’t justify it and opted for the b&w copies — how much you ask? = $45.  that’s right, color copies were going to cost me at best 16X more than standard copies (same paper mind you).  unbelievable in this day and age. i remember when kinko’s first started offering color copies and they were roughly $1 — now probably 10 years later, that price has only dropped 11 cents.  unbelievable.

Here you can get 5¢ Color copies- books, post cards, envelopes, newsletters, flyers, bulk mailing DocuCopies

[UPDATE (27-JUL-2010): I thought I'd check in again, here we are 19 months since my last check.  Kinko's still has pricing at $.59/sheet standard color copy and $.39 for bulk (online lists bulk at over 5,000 copies now).  That's still outrageous.  Those same 5,000 copies would cost $1,650 LESS at DocuCopies where they offer .05/copy for the same job.  Amazing.

[UPDATE (27 JAN 2009): Since this post has caused some discussion, etc. I thought I'd do a check up on Kinko's pricing.  I called my local store with the same specifications as my original job 3 years ago.  Updated pricing: $.59/sheet standard color copy and $.39 for a bulk discount of 1500 copies.  So that is still $585 or 13 times the cost of B&W copies.]

i also used their “print online” capability for a different one (that i would get color — there were only 4 of them) — convenient seeing how i live in the boonies and wouldn’t have to drive just to drop it off and have them tell me to wait 45 minutes for 4 copies.  i hate consumer companies that take the cable company appointment approach (you know, “we can be there between 8–12 or 1–5).  i know other customers are waiting — but it seems to me, you’d be able to get the small 4 copy guys out of the way and make them happy so you can get on to the 3000 copy, fold, binding, box jobs that those customers know are going to take a while — needless to say, i put my order in at 8am and as of 3:30pm it still isn’t done — 4 color copies people.

that color printer is making more sense by the minute.