When you purchased your laser or ink jet printer, you probably marveled over how inexpensive the technology has become. Today, an all-in-one “does everything” machine can fax, copy, print, and scan for less than the price of a fine dining experience. Your enthusiasm was probably dampened when the native ink or toner that came with your printer only lasted for a few hundred sheets. (Most folks don’t realize that the starter packs carry a reduced supply in their reservoirs.) A quick trip to your local office supply store made evident that printer companies are not just in the business of selling hardware. They’re in the business of selling ink.
The low cost of printers these days is how printer companies capture their market share. Printers are available at near-disposable prices. Ink and toner, however, is the ongoing consumable expense that drives profits for such companies. Averaging from $20 to upwards of $40 for a color ink cartridge replacement (or $140 to $180 per color for laser toner) means big money flowing out the door along with the ink. Some printers require a different cartridge for each color, while others group colors together in a single cartridge. In the latter case, a three-color cartridge that runs out of one particular color (say “yellow”) requires the entire cartridge to be replaced. You must consider this arrangement before you commit to the make and model you purchase.
Many printer companies produce ink cartridges that combine the print nozzles with the ink reservoirs. Other printer manufacturers use a combination of ink cartridges and print head cartridges. In such cases, color ink cartridges may be organized in individual Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black units, but each cartridge has a corresponding print head unit that is almost equally disposable. This effectively doubles the cost of replacing the ink. If you do a lot of printing, replacing all four colors at once can be a $200 expense (or more). In laser printers, the price can easily exceed $400 (laser toner tends to be more expensive). Be careful, though. If you find a great sale on ink and decide to stock up, some printer cartridges are equipped with a microchip that is pre-programmed to disable the cartridge when the inks published expiration date is reached, whether or not the ink could otherwise be used. You could easily have an entire shelf full of junk overnight, literally, if you don’t use your stockpile of ink in a timely manner. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) try to maximize their revenues on ink sales.
You may be thinking, “There must be a more economical way to manage my printer expenses.” There is!
Printer cartridge refills, remanufactured cartridges, and generic compatibles are on the increase in the marketplace. In the early days of these types of cartridges (which I will refer to categorically as “compatibles”), the quality was suspect and using such cartridges put your hardware in jeopardy. However, with an increasing demand and improvements in technology, compatibles have taken on a completely new position in the market with little to no risk. In fact, some compatibles even boast higher output capacities than the genuine (OEM) cartridges. A market of bulk ink systems is also emerging that supplies 20 to 30 times the native ink capacity of various ink jet printers. For example, a particular printer like the Epson Stylus Photo R300 uses native cartridges of 18 ml of ink each, and has six individual colors. A bulk ink system for the six colors provides 60 ml of ink per color. Compatible cartridges may each cost an average of 2/3 the price of the OEM product, whereas the bulk ink system for all colors can cost the price of a single OEM color cartridge. If you use a lot of ink, the savings is worth investigating.
Be sure that any compatibles you purchase are backed by a 100% compatibility guarantee. If a remanufactured, refilled, or otherwise generic cartridge does not perform correctly, the likelihood of damaging the printer is very low. Your only issue may be the inconvenience of getting a defective cartridge replaced. That said, most compatible manufacturers are aware that they are competing against the Original Equipment Manufacturers, so they are eager to provide excellent levels of service.
Assuming that you only may come across 1 bad cartridge in a group of 50 to 100, any inconvenience is well worth the cost savings. In fact, if you think about it, you could buy several new printers for the cost savings that you make over time by using compatible cartridges versus OEM genuine products. Compatible toner cartridges come with comparable savings, and bulk toner refill kits are available as well.
Compatibles used to only be available through online stores, but with their increasing popularity, some of the major office supply stores have started stocking them. The downside to purchasing through the brick and mortar retail stores is that the prices are somewhat inflated due to overhead. With free delivery or overnight shipping being affordable options today, online stores are the preferred way to go.