Printing Invoices for Fulfillment

[Jen4]

Hello community! This may be a weird question to ask, but we print out invoices the old school regular paper/printer way. We have hundreds of skus so it is necessary to see the information for each individual order. I wanted to see how others print invoices? I know lots of places that use Zebra thermal printers. Can you share how you do yours? And cost benefits for the laser/thermal? They are more expensive for the rolls than traditional paper, but with paper- you have ink/drum, printer parts, etc.

If you print with paper/printer, which printers are you using? We need to print hundreds a day.

Just wanted to see how others do it and what they liked/didn't like. Thank you! 

[Kudosi-Carlos · Accepted solution]

Hello @Jen4

• Thermal invoice rolls
  I tried a Zebra ZD410 (4”×6” direct-thermal) for small packing-slip labels. Setup was painless—no ink, no toner, just load a roll and hit print. The prints stay crisp and smudge-free in transit, but you’re limited to black-only labels and a fixed size. A 4”×6” roll costs about $30 for 500 labels, which works out to roughly $0.06 per invoice. The printer itself runs $250–$300. If your invoices fit on a label and you don’t need logos or shading, it’s super low-maintenance.
• Laser on regular paper
  In the end I switched back to letter-size invoices printed on an HP LaserJet Pro (think M404 or M428 series). Toner cartridges (35,000-page yields) cost about $80–$100, so our per-page cost is around $0.02. The machines are faster on large batches (50+ invoices) and handle full headers, color logos, and detailed tables without issue. You do have to replace drums or fusers every 50,000 pages, but our total cost per page remains under $0.03 once you amortize maintenance.

Which to pick?

If your “invoice” is really a concise packing slip or return label, and you only need black text, the Zebra (or even a smaller Dymo LabelWriter) is a great fit—no more ink headaches. But, if you need full-page invoices, logos, terms & conditions, or color, a networked laser with high-yield toner will save you money and time on hundreds of prints each day.

[Jen4]

Thank you sooooo much for the thoughtful reply. I appreciate that so much and it was exactly what I was hoping to hear!