How cost-competitive is a printing press for a small printer?

Does much negotiation need to be done to get stock and ink cost-effectively enough to compete with the high-volume operations, or is a press (once you afford the press itself) inherently cheaper to print with than digital color and bw laser equipment for example?

As far as I know, offset press production will cost lower with longer press runs. Short print runs are more cost effective with digital.

Thanks ibler.

At first I thought the reason short runs were prohibitively expensive on an offset press was the actual plate cost. But looking at prices in detail it appears the cost per plate is only a few dollars - around $10-15 for four 14 x 20 plates. With a computer to plate system the time spent producing each plate isn't that great. So then you have the time actually mounting the plates assuming you don't have plate loaders, but that's only 10-20 minutes or so, right?

The remaining item seems to be waste ink and paper getting the press up to color. A friend said it might take 200 - 500 sheets to get the ink keys set perfectly on their heidelberg.

The cost is definitely more on the consumables than on the plate and the mounting. Your friend is right in saying that offset process needs about that much amount of paper before you attain the desired color and stabilizing it. So if you plan on running less than a thousand units, it is practical to run it on digital.