Best heavy duty colour printer for 10,000 pages a month

[echelon6]

Hi

I run an education business and we print about a double-sided ream a week - that is about 1000 pages per week, or 4000 pages of colour printing per month.

Currently we're using a Samsung CLP-610ND and it prints high quality, but the replacement toners are very expensive!! Almost 200AUD (or 150 USD) per colour toner cartridge replacement. And a transfer belt costs almost $300 AUD!

Also I tried refilling the toner using other powders but the print quality deteriorates rapidly after that.

Our printing volumes will be expected to increase to anywhere up to 20,000 pages per month in the foreseeable future.

What sort of colour or black and white printer offers me the lowest running costs given our printing volumes? We mainly print learning materials that are in black and white text, but with diagrams that need to be in colour.

I'm after a printer that does not have expensive replaceables that need to be replaced every 3000 or so pages. Ideally a printer that's been around long enough where I can buy gallons of (good quality) toner from other sources for low prices.

Thanks in advance

[cs_steve]

I would say for your volume you should definitely have a dedicated printer for black-and-white printing, you will save a ton of money on toner and supplies as the black-and-white models give you much more print for your money... look at a LaserJet 4250 or LaserJet 8150 machine ...
http://www.printertechs.com/printer/refurbished-hp-laserjet-4250.php

for your color printing, I don't know if it would be worth considering upgrading to a LaserJet 4650, 5550 or similar... you can do a cost-per-page calculation to see if it would save you much on toner cartridges to upgrade ... (add up cost of replacement toners, transfer belts, and maintenance parts, and divide by number of pages you'll get out of those ...)