Abstract: Disclosed herein is a method and system for determining a billing structure for outputting documents using an image processing apparatus. If image data of the document includes color pixels, a billing structure is determined for each page based on an amount of color coverage. The marked color pixel locations of the image data to be output in the device dependent space are counted. Each color pixel location comprises at least one color plane. In some cases, a ratio of the count of the marked color pixel locations to a maximum number of pixel locations may be used to determine the amount on the page. Processing and determining a billing structure based on image data in the device dependent space, irrespective of the amount of ink/toner or color planes used, avoids charging a customer for color print job when only a small amount of color pixels are printed.