Ok im sorry if this has come up before but i never considered getting an edible printer before, since my birthday is coming up my husband wants to get me one, so what im wondering is how do you guys know what to charge for your edible photos and stuff, i mean how do you know how much ink are you using when you print a picture or some letter how do you base your prices. I hope somebody can help me since i have to let my hubby know if i really want this since i dont want it to be a waist of money.

Thank you for your answers

I would like to know how people charge for them. I know we only have one local grocery store that does them and they charge an extra $10 per sheet. I don't think it matters how small the image is.

I don't own a printer myself, but maybe this will help anyway...On the occasions I need to purchase an edible image from somewhere, they charge me $8-10 per 8 x 10 page.

Ok, I just want to tell/warn you. My husband ordered me one of those bundle packages (printer, edible ink and frosting sheets) he paid about $400 for it, which after research seems like the average price. I had no idea what to expect -i am new to cake decorating. Anyway, when it got here I priced the stuff out. The same printer I could get from Walmart for $80. The edible ink I could get for about $80 and the frosting sheets I found on amazon for about $75. That was a total of $235. Needless to say I sent the box back and paid their RIDICULOUS restock fee ($80-$100) and it will still cheaper to buy it all separate.
I have had mine for about 6 months and used it for the first time this weekend to make my nephews "sonic the hedgehog" cake. Love it! As for pricing I don't know, never thought about it - I am just a hobby baker (for family, friends and charity). My husbands aunt asked me to print her an image one day and from memory she said she has been paying Walmart about $5 a sheet

I paid 35.00 for a close out printer at Staples. I paid 75.00 for the edible ink cartridge kit and I get the frosting sheets from Amazon.com for a price that isn't at the forefront of my memory right now. Gosh it was pulling teeth to get my sister (also in the cake business) to realize that the printer wasn't the special part, its the ink and frosting sheets which make the printer an "edible" printer.

Prior to making this "huge investment" LOL... we would pay 8.00 a sheet at the local grocery store chain.

Now when we use it, we don't readily advertise that we have an edible ink printer. It is just incorporated into the design when appropriate. As in the past, if people just want a plain sheet cake, with a picture of dad over the years, we might encourage them to go to Walmart to get it done if we have some large order to fulfill at the same time. We charge more for scanning of photos to make the edible ink page as that takes us out of the kitchen. We prefer not to let the public at large know we have one, as that isn't our specialty, if that makes any sense. We don't want all of our orders to be those types of orders.

Our grocery store charges $6 a sheet if you are adding it to one of their cakes, $10 a sheet if you are getting just that. Their quality is FAR below what I can get with my printer so I charge $15 if someone wants just the sheet and $10 if it's added to a cake - but no charge if that's all the decoration they are getting as that is really fast and easy.

I highly recommend icingimages.com for all your needs. As the OP stated, you can get similar supplies from a range of places for perhaps lower prices (though ii ones are perfectly reasonable) but you definitely get what you pay for! (and don't we all complain about that when people compare us to WalMart cakes?)

The warranties on the printers you buy elsewhere will be void once you stick the edible ink cartridges in them. Icingimages has a warranty on theirs.

No voided warranty from Staples. Checked on that before purchase. It is designed for either print head, just not advertised as such from the office store.

Thank you all for your answers well the ones that i was looking at the ones from inkedlebles i figured it was gonna cost me $237 shipping included and even dough i can get it for a few dlls less it still sounds like a good price to me. Well i guess i have a lot of thinking to do, and thank you all again.