I Ordered Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils 36 Count and Found Out What 'Total Cost' Actually Means

Last September, I was sitting in my supply office trying to remember how to add a printer to a computer when a third-grade art teacher sent an email with the subject line: 'PENCILS.'

'I can't do one more class with these,' she wrote. 'Can we order the good ones?'

I've handled supply orders for our district for seven years. I've personally made (and documented) thirteen significant ordering mistakes, totaling roughly $18,000 in wasted budget. That email was mistake #14 waiting to happen.

Why was I struggling with a printer? Because our finance team got a new printer and no one had set it up. I volunteered, because saying 'how to add a printer to a computer' out loud made me feel responsible. It was not my finest moment.

The First Mistake: Cheap Pencils Aren't Cheap

In my first year, 2018, I ordered 100 boxes of the cheapest student-colored pencils I could find. I knew I should have asked the teachers about their sharpening situation, but I thought, 'how bad can a pencil be?' Well, the odds caught up with me. The whole batch had pale pigment, and the cores snapped if you looked at them wrong. By November, every classroom was back to complaining.

That was my introduction to total cost thinking. The unit price was low. The total price was not: reorders, shipping, teacher time, and a real dent in my credibility.

Caran d'Ache Colored Pencils vs Prismacolor: The Quote Stage

This time, the teacher already had a brand in mind. Her exact question was: 'Caran d'Ache colored pencils vs Prismacolor — which one makes more sense for a classroom?'

The teacher specifically wanted the Prismacolor Premier colored pencils 36 count, not the 24-count or the 48-count. Her reason was practical: 36 colors is enough for a third grader to do serious color work without needing a full tower of pencils. We didn't have storage space for more than a few boxes per classroom.

That's a dangerous question for a procurement person, because 'sense' isn't about the box price. It's about total cost.

I called four art supply vendors and asked for pricing on both. I also ran the numbers through a variance calculator to see how much the prices varied by vendor. Let me tell you: the same Prismacolor Premier colored pencils 36 count box varied by almost 40% depending on who quoted it. The Caran d'Ache Luminance sets were consistently beautiful — and consistently 2.5 to 3 times more expensive than Prismacolor.

At the time (September 2024), a 36-count Caran d'Ache Luminance set was quoted at $85–$110 depending on the vendor. The Prismacolor Premier 36 count was $30–$44. Prices change, so verify current pricing before you buy. But the gap was real.

I'm not a data person — I still do math on a calculator watch I've owned since high school — but even I know that when a price spread is that wide, you're not comparing pencils. You're comparing vendors.

One sales rep said their pencils were 'virtually unbreakable.' Per FTC guidelines (ftc.gov), claims need to be substantiated. I asked for the test report. They sent a brochure. That was a red flag.

Total Cost, Not Unit Price

So I built a simple total cost list:

• Unit price (the number that gets the budget approval)
• Shipping and handling (often 8–12% on a school order)
• Breakage and replacement frequency (because a snapped core is still a full pencil you have to replace)
• Teacher time (every pencil complaint costs minutes of class time and a little bit of my sanity)
• Actual usability (does a third grader have a chance of blending with this?)

Shipping is part of this too. According to USPS (usps.com), a First-Class Mail letter cost $0.73 as of January 2025. That's not the rate for a 5-pound box of pencils, but it's still a reminder that every replacement order carries a shipping line item.

When I looked at the list, Prismacolor won for our situation. Caran d'Ache are excellent pencils, and I can see the argument for them in a fine art studio. But in a classroom where a pencil gets dropped, chewed, and jammed into a sharpener, the extra cost didn't buy enough extra outcome.

My time isn't in the budget code, but it's real. Every hour I spend processing a replacement order or answering a teacher's pencil complaint is an hour I'm not researching price lists, verifying product details, or training new staff. I started tracking that time after the 2018 disaster. It added roughly 14 hours to my fall quarter.

Here's where things got messy. I approved the Prismacolor Premier 36 count order with one vendor. I said 'premium art pencils' in the PO notes. They heard 'premium packaging.' The quote came back with a $12 'curated display tin' and a color chart poster I didn't ask for. We didn't need a display tin. We needed pencils in a box that could survive a supply closet. (Note to self: always ask for itemized quotes before the PO, not after.)

The Sharpener Problem

The order arrived in October. The boxes of Prismacolor Premier colored pencils 36 count looked great. I felt proud. Then the sharpener problem surfaced.

I had never specified sharpeners. The school had those cheap plastic sharpeners. Within a week, a teacher sent me a photo of a dozen pencil stubs and one message: 'These are too soft for our sharpeners.'

'These are too soft for our sharpeners.'

The photo showed a pile of yellow shavings and broken points. It looked like a pencil graveyard. The cores were snapping about a third of the way down because the cheap sharpeners were pulling too hard. The pencil tips would hit the blade at an angle, bend, and break.

I knew I should have included hand-crank sharpeners in the order. I thought, 'what are the odds the sharpeners matter?' The odds caught up with me. That's when I remembered that Prismacolor's soft core is great for blending but bad with a $2 sharpener.

I ordered six hand-crank sharpeners and added 'sharpener compatibility' to the checklist. We also told teachers not to let kids force the pencil into the sharpener — turn the pencil, not the crank. That cut breakage by a lot.

It wasn't the pencils' fault. It was my planning.

What I'd Do Differently

Honestly, I'm not sure why Caran d'Ache commands such a premium. My best guess is they're excellent pencils and people are paying for the name plus consistent quality. If you're making art that has to last, I can see the argument. But for a classroom where the tool gets abused, Prismacolor Premier gives us a better balance.

If I were doing it again, I'd order one sample box first and give it to a teacher for a week. A single box would have revealed the sharpener issue before we bought 60 boxes. The sample costs maybe $35. The sharpener fix cost about $60 plus two weeks of bad PR with a teacher whose opinion I value.

This approach worked for us, but our situation is specific: a central warehouse, predictable annual orders, and teachers who are willing to say what they actually need. If you're a single teacher ordering one set on a personal card, the calculus might be different. You might not have the volume to get the same price. You might not need 36 colors.

The real lesson wasn't Prismacolor vs Caran d'Ache. It was that the cheapest quote is rarely the cheapest outcome. The $5 student boxes we bought in 2018 cost more in reorders and complaints than the 'expensive' Prismacolor Premier 36 count did. And the Caran d'Ache set would have been even better quality, but the extra cost wouldn't have improved a third-grade art class enough to justify it.

Now I calculate total cost before every big order. Unit price plus shipping plus replacement rate plus the time it takes to fix the mistake. If a vendor talks about 'best price,' I ask for their total price.

I also keep a procurement checklist with four lines: exact product name, confirmed specs, classroom context, and sharpener compatibility. I use the same checklist for markers, watercolor pencils, and graphite pencil orders. That checklist has caught 47 potential errors in the last 18 months. This article is why I keep it.

The problem wasn't bad pencils. It was lazy thinking. My old calculator watch can't tell you that, but the next budget report can.