Some of the printer cartridges have printer heads incorporated in them. Leading manufacturer companies like the HP, Dell as well as Lexmark use this process. This requires precision parts and in result the cartridges become more expensive in comparison to others. Higher price of the cartridges are balanced by the inexpensive nature of the printers as they do not require the inclusion of the precision print head. In case of the cartridges that do not incorporate the print head they will cost less but the printer tends to get expensive in result. An example of this type is the Epson printers.
In general the print cartridges are quite expensive. Many of them constitute a substantial part of the overall cost of the printer. Other aspects of costing are that when you use costly printers, the requirements of change of cartridges could be fewer in comparison to the requirements when you use cheaper printers. The overall costing becomes the same or even greater in the later case. The trade off is short term versus long term expenses.
High price of the cartridges often inspire the users to go for the cheaper compatible alternatives that are available in plenty in the market these days. However in such cases you have to be careful about the unscrupulous traders in the market that often dupe the customers by providing false and duplicate products that are of far inferior qualities. These manufacturers claim their product to be exact replica of the original which they are not.
Yet another alternative is modifying the original printer cartridges so that you can use continuous ink systems using the external ink tanks. Some people select the aftermarket inks and they refill their empty ink cartridges using the bulk ink kits. These are comparatively inexpensive alternative but there always is the danger of spillage and dried ink and blocking the ink head in the cartridge.