Printer ink could cost far more when compared to the finest wine (drop-for-drop) you have ever tasted. It is probably the most expensive liquid you buy on a regular basis. In fact, if you have an entry-level inkjet printer, cost of buying a couple of cartridges can easily go past the actual price of the machine. If you have an inkjet printer at home or office and spend a lot of money on printer ink every year, you should understand why they are expensive and how you can save ink and buy cartridges for cheap price.
- Why is Printer Ink Expensive?
If you think your ink cartridges don’t last as they used to a few years back, you are most certainly correct. In the past several years printer manufacturers have considerably reduced the amount of ink inside a cartridge so that you keep going back to buy ink.
According to Thom Brown from HP, “Ink is expensive because they are expensive to develop. HP has spent more than a billion U.S. dollar in printer ink development and research.” He further adds that, to create ink that can withstand heat up to 300 degrees, which can be sprayed through a nozzle with a diameter smaller than a human hair at a rate of 35,000 DPS (drops/sec) is quite a challenge and needs a lot of money to produce. Sure, printer ink has all the great properties to get the job done, but is it still worth the hefty price tag?
- How much Ink do you Get?
None of the printer manufacturers disclose the volume of ink present in each cartridge. When you buy a bottle of ketchup or pasta sauce, you can actually take a look at the volume and figure out the cost per unit and then compare the cost per unit of other similar products and figure out the cheaper one in the market. However, you can’t do the same with ink. Apparently the only way to figure out how long a particular ink cartridge can cost is by actually buying and using one. We speculate that, the main reason for not disclosing the volume of ink in a cartridge is simply because of the teeny-weeny amount of ink present in it.
- How to Buy Buy Cheap Cartridges?
You need to be shrewd when the manufacturers are not willing to justify the expensive price tag. There are several ways one can reduce the ink cost. One way to find the best price of a particular cartridge is to compare its price on the Internet. There are several websites on the Internet that sell the same product — by taking a look at some of these websites; you will be able to find the best price among various retailers. One more thing you can do is buy non-OEM cartridges or remanufactured ink on the Internet. The cost of such cartridges could be sometimes up to 60 – 70% less when compared to their OEM counter-part.
You can also buy XL cartridges that can last 2 or 3 times when compared to standard ones if you don’t like buying cartridges often. It is also wise not to buy single tri-color cartridges since the whole unit becomes useless when one particular color runs out. You might as well replace your ink jet printer if you print a lot of black and white documents with a laser printer, which uses ink toner instead of ink which is more cost effective.
Most of the canon print cartridges can be bought for some $20 in most of the shops, some cartridges and toners can be cheaper, it all depends on printer. So, it would is advisable to check those prices before we purchase printers.
Here you can find 11 ways to save on ink.