Why are ink cartridges so expensive?

The cost of buying a new printer these days is unbelievably low. You can purchase brand name photo printers for as little as £50 and work horse laser printers for under £100. Colour inkjet printers still remain a bargain starting at around £60. If you are not careful though, what you save in the initial purchase price of the printer, you will rapidly lose when the time comes to buy replacement ink or toner cartridges. The printer manufacturers bring out printers at low prices so that all households have access to them. The problem is that for them to make any money they have to sell the replacement ink cartridges at a very high price. This has been a common business plan for many other products over the years such as cheap razors but expensive razor blades, cheap or free phones with expensive contracts. Although this may be true, printer manufacturers charge so much for their ink cartridges because they can, there is a demand for the product and people do pay the ridiculous prices for original ink cartridges.

When deciding which printer to buy, you should look at the cost per page.  This cost is calculated by the cost of the cartridge you use. For example, you have purchased a Brother laser printer for £100 and a HP colour inkjet printer for £100. A new OEM (original manufacturer equipment) toner cartridge for the brother printer costs around £40 and will print roughly 2500 pages. The black ink cartridge for the HP printer only costs around £20, you might think this is good as it’s half the cost of the Brother Toner cartridge, but the HP cartridge will only print roughly 800 pages. The brother cartridge will give you a cost per page of a little over 1p per page where as the HP cartridge will actually cost you up to 2p per page. This may not sound like a lot but over the course of printing 50,000 pages, you will pay roughly £400 more for the HP ink than you will for the brother.

If you are in the market for a new printer and are churning out page after page with the printer you currently own, chances are you are paying top price for expensive OEM ink cartridges. A great way to bring down your cost per page is to choose a less expensive option when it comes to replacing your ink cartridges. The two cheapest options currently available are compatible ink cartridges and remanufactured ink cartridges.

You have probably heard that using non branded ink cartridges will ruin the printer or produce poor inferior quality print outs. Printer manufacturers have an enormous economic stake in making sure you buy their brand name cartridges, of course they do.

Compatible and remanufactured ink cartridges are made and sold by companies other than printer manufacturers. You can find reputable inkjet and toner cartridge sellers online who take pride in providing products that meet or exceed the specifications set forth by printer manufacturers. Compatible cartridges will work perfectly in your printer and won’t void the warranty. They essentially consist of previously used casing with all new parts and new toner or ink. Remanufactured ink cartridges have been recycled, fully tested, cleaned and refilled with comparable ink.

You must remember that ink cartridges are the hidden cost in any printer purchase. Don’t end up paying for your printer over and over again by paying top prices for OEM cartridges when you can save up to 75% of the cost by purchasing compatible or remanufactured ink cartridges!