As I have said before, I’m convinced a penny saved is more valuable than a penny earned because when you save a penny, it’s one less penny you need to earn. With that being said I am frequently on a mission to cut costs without compromising quality. So today we are going to find out how to get the absolute best price on decent quality printer paper.

Let me quickly define what I mean by “decent quality”; we want paper that isn’t going to jam in the printer because it’s so low quality that it isn’t usable without frustration. Equally we don’t need to print invoices on premium cardstock. Kapish?

The places we scoured to try to find the absolute best deal of all time included OfficeMax.com, Staples.com, Office Depot, Uline.com, Amazon and more. We even conducted internet searches for keywords like “Wholesale Computer Paper” which gave us search results for companies like Quill.com, OnTimeSupplies.com, WebstaurantStore.com and PaperIndex.com.

We compared all results for 1 case of printer paper and looked at the price per sheet, INCLUDING shipping (inside the USA) and MINUS commonly available promo codes (on sites like RetailMeNot.com that are available on a daily basis). We then compared the price per sheet, with the adjustments for the shipping cost and the adjustment for the coupon code to determine the absolute lowest price. Here’s our findings:

Almost all of the companies, including the search results for “Wholesale Printer Paper” gave us results just like OfficeMax.com, which immediately offers a 20% off coupon code in exchange for your email address. After factoring in shipping and coupons, OfficeMax came to a little over a penny per sheet:

Which means NOTHING COMES CLOSE to the low cost of Amazon Basics Paper. The normal price for this paper is 4,000 sheets for $27.99:

Which equals $0.0069 cents per sheet. As you can see from the image above, I have purchased this paper many times and I can honestly say it’s perfect for invoices, packing slips and other tasks of that nature.

Although Amazon does not offer coupons, shipping is free and even with the OfficeMax 20% off coupon, the OfficeMax price is still higher… over double, to be exact.   

If you don't have an Amazon account and you are debating if you want to pay for one because there is indeed a monthly cost of about $12.99, if you look at just the savings on this single case of paper; OfficeMax is $70 versus Amazon which is $28; that is a difference of $42!!!  And $42 is equal to 3 FREE months of Amazon.  

Additionally, Amazon always has awesome promotions for new Prime members.  For example, the current promo is 30 days FOR FREE. That means if you need to order paper right now you can join Prime for free, order your paper and cancel.  However, if you are an online seller, I encourage you to first read What Every Online Seller Needs to Buy on Amazon Prime, then make yourself a "stock up list" so you can score a bunch of mega-deal business supplies during those 30 free days.   

TIP:  If you're always worried about signing up for Free Trials and forgetting to cancel; what I do is set a reminder in my phone as soon as I sign up.  My reminder is scheduled for the day BEFORE my account trial ends so I can make sure I cancel with plenty of time.  When I set my reminder in my phone I also include notes regarding which email address and password I used to sign up so canceling is a breeze.  However I genuinely encourage you to stick with Amazon because the $12.99/month will pay for itself many times over because almost everything ships free.  Score your 30 day free, no catch, Amazon Prime trial here.

Want to learn more ways to save money?  Check out our blog posts, How to Save Money on EVERYTHING.