Epson Printer Checklist: What I Learned After $4,600 of Mistakes (ET-2720, SureColor, and A3 vs A4)

If you're about to buy an Epson printer for an office, a print shop, or a home-business side hustle, read this first. I've handled print production orders for seven years. I've personally made and documented eleven significant mistakes, totaling roughly $4,600 in wasted budget. Not small ones either. I'm talking about 200 pieces that went straight into recycling, and a lease that looked cheap until I added up the ink.

Step 1: Match the Epson printer to the actual job

What are you printing? That's the only question that matters at the beginning.

If your daily output is documents, invoices, or basic marketing collateral, an ET-2720 Epson printer is the starting point I recommend most. It uses EcoTank refillable ink bottles. The upfront price is higher than a cheap cartridge printer, but the cost per page is dramatically lower. For a small office, that's the difference between thinking about ink and not thinking about ink.

If your output is posters, banners, or signage, you're in a different product class. An Epson SureColor wide format printer handles roll media, thicker substrates, and larger print sizes. It's built for jobs where a letter-size sheet is not enough. But it brings its own costs: media, floor space, and maintenance. Don't buy one because it sounds impressive. Buy one because your jobs demand it.

And if the phrase 'cricket printer' brought you here because you meant a Cricut-style cutting machine, stop for a second. A cutting machine cuts shapes. It does not print. You still need a printer for the printed design. For smaller print-and-cut work, an ET 2720 Epson printer works. For bigger pieces, move up to a SureColor.

Step 2: Check A3 vs A4 paper before you look at specs

This is the step I skipped in 2019. I bought a perfectly good printer that only took A4/Letter. The client asked for A3 posters three weeks later. The printer was not the problem. My ignorance was the problem.

Here are the numbers you need:

• A4 paper is 210 × 297 mm (8.3 × 11.7 in).
• A3 paper is 297 × 420 mm (11.7 × 16.5 in).
• One A3 sheet is exactly twice the area of an A4 sheet.
• US Letter is 8.5 × 11 inches; US Tabloid is 11 × 17 inches.

According to USPS (usps.com), a standard letter can be up to 6.125 × 11.5 inches, and a large envelope can be up to 12 × 15 inches. If you print mailers, A3 may seem close, but the length of an A3 sheet is 16.5 inches—over the USPS large-envelope limit. That changes postage, which changes your budget.

Paper weight is another hidden trap. Basic copy paper is 20 lb bond, which is about 75 gsm. 24 lb bond is about 90 gsm. Brochure paper is often 80 lb text, which is about 120 gsm. Not every A4/Letter printer handles 120 gsm well. Check the paper path specs before you buy, not after jamming an expensive sheet.

Here's what I do now: I keep a sample of every paper type we use, and I test the printer on the exact paper before ordering in bulk. It has saved me from buying the wrong machine twice.

Step 3: Run a lease calculator—then add the hidden costs

This is where I made my most expensive mistake. In March 2023, I found a lease that looked too good to pass up. The monthly payment was low. The machine was shiny. The sales rep was confident. I signed. Then I ran the numbers through a lease calculator with actual usage.

Here's the math that changed my mind:

Lease payment: $99/month for 36 months = $3,564. That sounds fine. But we print roughly 5,000 pages per month. At $0.04 per page for ink, that's $200/month in ink alone. Over 36 months, that's $7,200. Total: $10,764. And that's before any maintenance kit, printhead replacement, or the time I spent waiting for a service technician.

Now compare that to buying a printer outright. The ET 2720 Epson printer costs a fraction of that. Its ink is also far cheaper. But—and this is the part people miss—it's not built for 5,000 pages per month. You cannot just buy the cheapest upfront printer and ignore the duty cycle. The question isn't 'Can it print?' The question is 'What does a usable page actually cost?'

Something vendors don't usually tell you: lease quotes often exclude the cost of supplies, service labor, and waste. My rule now is to take the lease calculator number and add 20% for things that break, jam, or get misprinted.

Step 4: Don't get hypnotized by resolution specs

The Epson SureColor wide format printer family gets a lot of attention for high resolution. That's fair. But resolution is not the whole story.

Standard commercial print resolution is 300 DPI at final size. That means a 3000 × 2000 pixel image can print at 10 × 6.67 inches at 300 DPI. If the image is going to be seen from across a room, 150 DPI is often acceptable. A 6000-pixel-wide image can become a 40-inch-wide banner at 150 DPI. Check the math before you assume more megapixels means better.

Color accuracy is the second half of the story. In the printing world, brand color tolerance is often measured as Delta E. Pantone's matching guidelines treat a Delta E below 2 as acceptable for brand-critical work. Above 4, anyone with a trained eye will notice. I learned this in 2021 when I approved a large print with the wrong color profile. It looked fine on my screen. The result looked slightly off on the wall. The client noticed immediately. 200 pieces, about $1,200 straight to waste.

What I should have done was print a proof, measure it, and compare it to the official color standard. Now that's Step 4 on the checklist.

Step 5: Plan for consumables and support before you need them

Nobody plans to have a printer die during a deadline. That's why planning is worth it.

Three things to check:

• Ink availability. Can you buy refill bottles locally or have them delivered quickly? With an EcoTank model like the ET-2720, the ink is cheap enough that you can keep a spare set on the shelf without feeling guilty.
• Printhead replacement. On some wide format models, the printhead is a separate service part. Ask your supplier what it costs and how long it takes to swap. If your printer is down for a week, that's a week of missed deadlines.
• Paper path compatibility. If you run thick stock, matte, glossy, or labels, check the printer's supported media types. A printer can be perfect on copy paper and terrible on textured stock.

I once tried to save money with third-party ink that seemed compatible. It saved me about $20 per bottle. Six weeks later, the printhead clogged, and the service technician charged $150 to fix it. The 'savings' turned into a net loss, plus a rushed deadline and an embarrassed phone call to my boss. I'm not saying never use third-party ink. I'm saying calculate the total cost, not just the price per bottle.

That's the value-over-price lesson in practice.

A note on 'cricket printer' searches

Every month, someone searches for 'cricket printer' and lands on a page about cutting machines. If that's you, here's the short version: a Cricut is not a printer. It's a plotter that cuts shapes. To get a printed image onto paper and then cut around it, you need both a printer and a cutting machine.

For small print-and-cut jobs, an Epson EcoTank ET-2720 is a reasonable choice. It's cheap to run, which makes it great for test prints and small batch work. For larger art, posters, or production work, move up to an Epson SureColor wide format printer. The cutting machine handles the outline. The printer handles the color.

The checklist, in one breath: define the job, confirm your paper size, run a real total-cost calculation, verify color and resolution, and build a support plan.

The cheapest printer is not the one with the lowest price tag. It's the one that doesn't fail on the job.

Take it from someone who learned the hard way. Check the details early, and you'll save more than money—you'll save the week after the deadline.