System and method of billing for scanning service costs

A billing system for scanning service costs of an output device adapted to scan documents comprising at least one page, the billing system comprising:

• a computing device electronically coupled with the output device and adapted to process scanned documents, the computing device comprising:
• an examination module configured to examine content of a page, the examination module comprising:
• (i) a detection module configured to electronically detect at least one object in the page and a type of the at least one object, (ii) a file size module configured to electronically determine an approximate page file size of the page and an approximate object file size of the detected object within the page, and (iii) a coverage module configured to electronically determine an approximate area of coverage of a detected object within the page;
• a calculation module configured to calculate a usage profile of each type of detected object;
• a memory for electronically storing the usage profile of each type of detected object;
• and a cost calculation module configured to apply a cost function to approximate a cost of scanning the page using the detected object, the determined approximate page file size of the page and object file size of the object, the determined approximate area of coverage of the detected object, and a weight value, the weight value being associated with the type of the at least one detected object wherein the approximate cost of scanning for each page scanned by the output device is determined by the computing device based on an accounting of the page and object file sizes, how pixels of the object are distributed in the page and the detected object and pixel density of the object.