When it comes to purchasing the right type of ID card or badge printer for your office, small business, or university campus, one of the most important factors to take into account is your budget. Depending on your organization’s needs you may desire more advanced features such as secure data encryption, forgery proofing, or dual-sided printing options. 

 

Although these features may sound expensive, Bodno offers a variety of budget-friendly ID card printers in your price range. Next, let’s quickly go over some essential features you may want to consider when choosing the best budget friendly ID printer. If you’re interested in a more thorough guide for choosing a printer for ID cards, check out our guide here. 

 

Choosing the best Budget-Friendly ID Card Printer

Here are some good questions to consider when looking for the best ID printer for your needs: 

 

What is the yearly average amount of cards you will print? 

• Considering this is important when looking into a printer's capacity. Getting a more expensive and budget breaking printer that overestimates the amount of cards needed, can be just as bad as purchasing one that cannot handle the influx of cards needed.  

 

Will you be printing on one side or two sides? 

• Some printers are only capable of single-sided printing, others can do dual-sided printing as well, and some may come with single-sided capabilities and an option to upgrade at a later time to dual sided. While single-sided can be a big money-saver, dual-sided may be a necessity, and there are some fantastic models at a cheaper price and with cost-effective supplies. 

 

What types of security features do you need? 

• In today's world, there are so many ways that people try to steal data. Consider your security needs such as data encryption, data stripping for reuse, forgery-proof holographic watermarks and more. This is an especially important question if you’re in an industry where you need to keep data private, are dealing with confidential information, or need to ensure each card is legitimate. 

 

Each of these factors will help guide you towards the best budget-friendly ID card printer for your business or organization while finding the right quality, performance, and features. So, with this in mind, let's go over some of the best budget-friendly ID Card Models of 2023.

 

Magicard 300

 

Price: $1695.00

Print Type: Dual-sided

Cost Per Card: $0.32 single-sided color | $0.60 dual-sided color | $0.08 black and white

Print Speed: 23s/card color | 6s/card black and white

 

The Magicard 300 is one of our top-selling ID card printers on Bodno, and for good reason! One of Magicard’s newest models, the Magicard 300 ID card printer is a reliable mid-size printer for those looking to get fast, high-quality, and secure IDs or badges for educational institutes or medium-sized businesses. If you're unsure if you will need dual-sided printing, purchase worry free with the knowledge that Magicard 300 Dual Sided Upgrade Kit is available.

 

You’ll receive sharp and crystal clear photos every time with its 300dpi printing resolution. Additionally, each card can be printed with a holographic watermark that comes standard with each printer. Need magnetic stripe or smart card encoding? The Magicard 300 also offers encoding features as well as digital shredding technology so that personal information left over from your print jobs is irrecoverable.

 

Magicard 600

 

Price: $2473.50

Print Type: Dual-Sided

Cost Per Card: $0.38 single-sided color | $0.68 dual-sided color | $0.10 black and white

Print Speed: 18s/card color | 5s/card black and white

 

The Magicard 600 is the premium upgrade from the Magicard 300 and offers many of the same features, now with faster print speeds, high-volume printing capacity, and superior print quality. With 600x300dpi printing resolution, you can print crystal clear images in under 20 seconds. 

 

Like the 300, the 600 also comes with customizable holographic watermark technology as standard. With the ability to print 200 cards in a single hour, the Magicard 300 is great for more mid-sized businesses and universities. Need to upgrade to dual-sided printing later on? The 600 models can easily upgrade to dual-sided printing with the Magicard Dual-Sided Upgrade Kit.

 

Magicard Pronto

Price: $899

Print Type: Single-Sided

Cost Per Card: $0.58 single-sided color | $0.10 black and white

Print Speed: 35s/card color | 7s/card black and white

 

The Magicard pronto made our list as one of the cheapest models available. At this price point, most other printers do not offer the range of features that this one does. It offers direct-to-card printing in either full color or black and white, a built-in erase and rewrite function for reuse of temporary cards, and HoloKote watermarking capabilities.

 

In addition to this, it’s user-friendly with an LED display and USB connection. It’s ideal for low-volume printing, as one of the only downsides is that it has a single-card feed, so each card is manually inserted one at a time. Despite this, it's a fantastic low-end pick if ID cards are a necessity, but not at a high volume. 

Evolis Zenius 

 

Price: $1199

Print Type: Single-Sided

Cost Per Card: $0.37 single-sided color | $0.09 black and white

Print Speed: 30s/card color | 11s/card black and white

 

One of the higher-end printers on our list, the Evolis Zenius single-sided photo ID system is our pick for high-quality ID card and badge printing for larger businesses, organizations, and university campuses with lower security needs. If you need to print up to 5,000 ID cards a year, the Evolis Zenius offers durable and quality prints with cost-effective consumable supplies. 

 

It’s perfect for smaller settings, as its 50 card input hopper is directly located by the output, resulting in a space-saving design. Additionally, it's one of the quietest printers you can get at only 46 decibels. This model from Evolis features an LED screen to inform you of print status and software which allows you to view cleaning, card, and ribbon alerts as well as printer status on your computer. 

Badgy100

Price: $699

Print Type: Single-Sided, upgrade available

Cost Per Card: $0.58 single-sided color | $0.13 black and white

Print Speed: 45s/card color | 16s/card black and white

 

If your organization doesn't need to print in a high volume capacity and is looking to create single-sided ID cards or badges with minimal security features, then we recommend the Badgy100. The Badgy100 ID card printer has been specially designed with small businesses and organizations in mind and its compact size makes it simple to store and transport. Considered to be one of the most inexpensive printers on the market, the Badgy100 is reasonably priced and perfect for personal use or for smaller businesses and establishments.

 

Badgy200 

Price: $899.00

Print Type: Single-sided

Cost Per Card: $0.58 single-sided color | $0.13 black and white

Print Speed: 38s/card color | 11s/card black and white

 

The Badgy200 is the next step up from the Badgy100 and is capable of handling a higher print demand for both small businesses and organizations. Similar in both size and weight to its predecessor, the Badgy200 is perfect for those looking to get quality edge-to-edge printing at 200dpi with faster print speeds while still maintaining an affordable price point. Your cards can look high-quality even at a lower price point. 

 

 Zebra ZC100

Price: $1395.00

Print Type: Single-Sided

Cost Per Card: $0.58 single-sided color | $0.13 black and white

Print Speed: 24s/card color | 5s/card black and white

 

The Zebra ZC100 offers some of the fastest print speeds at its price point while also featuring a wide number of applications such as advanced encryption security features, slim design, USB, ethernet, and Wi-Fi connectivity, and more. ZC100 is popular for use in printing student IDs, employee access badges, visitor badges, and membership IDs. With plug and play deployment, easy user interface, and simple ribbon changing, the Zebra ZC100 is also a great option for those who are looking for an ID card printer that is friendly for users of all experiences.

 

Zebra ZC350

Price: $2595.00

Print Type: Dual-Sided

Cost Per Card: $0.58 single-sided color | $1.08 dual-sided color | $0.15 black and white

Print Speed: 16s/card color | 3s/card black and white

 

A worthwhile step up from the ZC100 model, the Zebra ZC350 offers even faster print speeds at an affordable price that surpasses all others in its class. With its simple visual interface and easy to install system the ZC350 offers all the things you love about the ZC100 now with even more features like customizable encoding for magnetic strip, proximity, and contact encoding as well as outstanding 300dpi print resolution. If you’re looking to invest in a powerful ID card printer with encoding and security features while still meeting your budget then the Zebra ZC350 is for you.