Is There A Way To Spend Less On Printer Ink And Still Get Great Results?
If you've been around computers for any length of time, you've probably noticed how cheap printers are compared to what they used to be. Now, I'm going to be dating myself a bit here but I remember paying almost $1000 for my first printer, a beast of a dot matrix printer whose speed was measured in terms of characters, not pages.
The funny thing is, the ribbons that I had to buy for that $1000 printer were actually pretty cheap. Not like the printer ink cartridges for today's technology.
I used to pay $10-$15 for a ribbon (this is almost 20 years ago, mind you) and that ribbon used to last for hundreds - sometimes thousands - of pages.
Compare that to the ink cartridges you'll need to buy for today's printers. They cost anywhere from $15 to $50 and up and usually only last for a couple of hundred pages (at most - sometimes much less).
But now you can buy a printer that prints well enough to rival many professional printers for under $100. The question is, why have the printer companies given up so much of the profit they used to make on the printers, only to charge more on the lower-cost printer ink?
The fact is, most printer manufacturers actually lose money when they sell you a printer. They're counting on the fact that once you've bought the printer, you're going to continue to buy ink cartridges for it for years to come.
The profit they make on those little cartridges far outweighs (FAR outweighs) anything they lose when they sell you the printer.
Have you ever noticed that you can often buy a new printer that includes the ink cartridges for less than a set of the ink cartridges on their own?
The reason for this is that printers often include smaller versions of the cartridge, with half as much ink (or even less) that you get in the cartridges you buy when you run out of ink. Suddenly that new printer doesn't seem like such a great deal, does it?
If you consider the amount of money you pay for a printer cartridge in comparison to the volume of the ink it holds, that ink is one of the most expensive liquids you could find.
More expensive than Dom Perignon champagne - up to seven times more expensive according to some studies.
More expensive than any expensive perfume.
Yes, even more expensive than a fancy latte at your favorite coffee shop!
So this begs the question, is there anything you can do to save money on your printing costs?
Does Refilling Your Ink Cartridge Save You Money?
Inkjet cartridge refills are one option that may save you money. Refilling your cartridges does depend on a number of things, though.
First, the brand - and model - of your printer is one factor. The printer companies didn't take long to wise up to the money they were losing to people buying cheap ink refills and reusing the same cartridges.
They soon came up with new ways to be sure you couldn't get away with reusing their cartridges. Some brands have a chip in the cartridge that registers when it has printed a certain amount, after which it won't work even if you add more ink.
Other brands seal their cartridges in such a way that there is no easy way to get more ink into the cartridge. Drilling holes or breaking the seal will often ruin the cartridge, because the vaccuum seal will be lost.
Another tactic is to manufacture the cartridge in such a way that it wears out rather quickly. Even if you can add ink to the cartridge, it may or may not last much longer because it's only designed to last long enough to use up the ink it came with. (Sometimes they don't even last that long, but that's a whole different can of worms!)
Another problem with refilling ink cartridges is that it can be messy and could potentially cause problems with your printer.
If the refill isn't done properly, ink could leak into your printer and cause problems. If it has to be sent for repair, the manufacturer usually won't cover any problems that could be due to refilled ink cartridges.
There are companies that specialize in refilling cartridges, some who do it on the spot and others who require you to send your cartridges away to them. These companies usually give better results than refilling the cartridges yourself, but many of the pitfalls can still affect you.
What About Those Discount Ink Brands?
Another solution to the rising cost of printer ink is to buy "generic" brands of ink instead of the original brand of your printer. These discount printer ink cartridges are often half the price (or even less) than the original manufacturer's ink.
These cartridges can be prone to the same problems as refilled ink, however. Some of these discount cartridges are actually just recycled cartridges that have been cleaned up and refilled. Because of this, you may run into the same problems - not working properly or for very long, and causing problems with your printer.
If you are going to use a discount brand of ink in your printer, make sure they offer a guarantee - both that their ink will work and if it causes a problem that voids your warranty, they will cover the cost of repairs.
There are reputable discount ink companies that fully guarantee their product and will work just as well as the original brands.
There are also some third party brands of ink that actually have compatible cartridges made for them. These cartridges are not recycled or refilled, but they're also not made by the original manufacturer.
This often works fine but these companies can sometimes run into problems with trademarks and patents. Most of the printers you buy today have a lot of technology in them, much of which is patented by the manufacturer.
The companies that find a way to reverse-engineer this technology and make their own versions of the cartridge often don't stay in business for long once they hit the manufacturer's radar.
These compatible brands of ink are also affected by the fact that almost every new model of printer uses a new ink cartridge. Every time the printer company comes out with a new printer, they have to catch up with them again.
Is One Brand Better Than Another?
There are lots of brands of printers to choose from, but there are a few that are bigger than the rest. Hewlett Packard, Epson, and Canon are probably the three biggest brands, followed by some smaller companies like Lexmark and Brother.
Each of the brands have their own advantages and disadvantages, but they all protect their ink empires quite seriously. None of them want to lose the cash cow they have on their hands with all the people who have to replace their cartridges.
HP printer ink cartridges tend to be one of the more expensive options. One of the reasons for this is that they usually have the printhead built into the cartridge rather than the printer. The printhead is the part of the printer than actually sprays the ink onto the page.
Because the printhead is built into the cartridge on HP printers, they tend to be a bit more expensive than their counterparts. The advantage of this however, is that the printhead gets replaced every time you put in a new cartridge.
Over time the printhead can wear out so when they're built into the printer, the quality can start to deteriorate as the head gets used more and more. Hewlett Packard printers don't have this problem because you get a fresh printhead with every cartridge change.
A printhead for some of the other brands can cost as much (sometimes even more) than a new printer, so it's not insignificant, particularly if you don't subscribe to the "throw it away and buy a new one" mentality of much of the computer industry.
Canon has traditionally been one of the least expensive printers to operate, especially for color printing. One of the problems with many color printers is that all the colors are in a single cartridge.
What this means is when you run out of one color you have to replace them all at once. You will inevitable use more of one color and run out of it while there is still some of the others left in the cartridge. When you replace it, you wind up throwing out that ink.
Canon's advantage has been the fact that they use separate cartridges for each of the colors in the printer. So if you run out of red, for example, you replace the red cartridge only. This lets you use all of each of the colors before you have to replace them, getting the most for your money.
Buying a full set of ink cartridges may be a little more expensive this way, but you get more ink for your money plus you get to use it all.
Having said that, many Epson printers have started to use separate ink cartridges and even HP has gone this route with some of their printers. Canon still has the most choices for printers with this benefit, but the others are catching up.
Epson printers have a long history in the computer industry. They were one of the first printer companies, making a name for themselves with dot matrix printers. Over the last several years, they have come to be considered the best for photo quality printing.
Epson makes a wide range of printers, from small, portable models that only print 4x6 photos to large format printers that can print large poster-sized photos. The Epson printer ink cartridges vary from one model to another, with various sizes and configurations.
Some Epson printers go beyond the standard colors to include different shades of some colors for a wider color range. Some models even have a glossy finishing ink that seals the print and gives it a glossy finish.
Because Epson has these alternative ink cartridges in some of their printers, it makes it a little more difficult to find refills or compatible cartridges. Most of these types of cartridges use standard colors so many Epson printers don't have any alternative other than the original brand of ink.
Is Inkjet or Laser a Better Choice?
In the past, inkjet printers were considerably cheaper than laser printers, especially for color. Over the last couple of years, however, color laser printers have become a lot cheaper to buy, making them more attractive to people who would have passed them by at a higher cost.
Laser printers have a couple of advantages over inkjet, the biggest of which is printing cost. Laser printing uses a printer ink toner cartridge, with a dry powder for ink. These toners last quite a bit longer than the average inkjet cartridge.
A toner cartridge will usually last for somewhere between 1000 and 2500 printed pages - up to ten times the average inkjet. The cost of the toner is usually only three or four times the price of an ink cartridge, however, so the average cost per page is quite a bit lower.
Another advantage of laser printers is that the toner doesn't dry up if it isn't used for a while. Because of the way inkjet cartridges operate, they need to be used on a fairly regular basis or they can dry out and need to be replaced. If this happens with a reasonably full cartridge, you wind up wasting a lot of money on that ink.
While laser printers are more economical than inkjet, they do have one big disadvantage - they are not truly "photo printers".
Laser printers can print photos quite well but they don't measure up to the quality of prints you can get from most current inkjet photo printers. Lasers are more along the lines of what you would get from inkjet printers 5 or 6 years ago.
If you're making quick photo prints and aren't really concerned with true photo quality, a color laser will work fine but for true photo output you still really need to stick with inkjet for the best results.
Now, if you're mainly printing black and white a laser printer is really the way to go. The cost of printing is much lower and the results are as good or better than any inkjet printer. Plus, laser prints won't smear or run if they get wet which some inkjet prints will.
How You Can Save Money When Printing
Regardless of what kind of printer you have, there are ways to save money on your printing. Most of the printer companies don't make these tricks easy to find, however. After all, if you spend less on your ink cartridges that means they're getting less of your money!
One of the easiest ways to save money on your printing is by avoiding color when you don't need it.
Even if you're printing a page that has some color in it, a lot of times you really don't need to see it in color. You might just want to keep a hard copy for later reference. When you print it, open the printer options window and set it to black and white (or grayscale) only.
This will print everything in black and white, avoiding the cost of using the color ink when you don't really need to.
Another simple way to use less ink is to lower the resolution of what you print. The latest printers have extremely high resolutions, like 4800 dpi (dots per inch) or higher.
While these high resolutions make for extremely detailed, high quality photos, they also tend to use a lot more ink. By lowering the resolution through the printer options windows when you print something, you can save quite a bit of ink. And even at a lower resolution, the quality of the printing will be very good.
The resolution setting has another factor as well. If you're just using plain printer paper, there is absolutely no advantage to printing at the top resolution of your printer. Any extra detail will be lost due to the fact that regular paper absorbs the ink and smudges the detail to a certain degree.
The highest resolutions are really only effective if you're using a high-quality photo paper of some sort so don't waste ink by printing at a setting that doesn't actually help.
On the topic of paper, this is something else that can greatly affect the quality of your prints. While it isn't exactly related to the ink cartridge, using the right paper can make a big difference in the quality of your printing.
Ultimately, your best choice is to use paper from the manufacturer of your printer. Most of the printer companies also make various types of paper - glossy, matte, semi-gloss, etc. These papers are designed to interact properly with their brand of ink, so you will usually get the best results with the same brand of paper.
If you are looking at other brands of paper, make sure you get one that is designed to work with your brand of printer. Third party brands usually list the recommended brands on the package, and you'll find that paper that is made for an HP printer won't work well on a Canon or Epson (and vice versa).
Since you'll be getting better quality prints, you won't need to print as many proofs to get a good one, so ultimately the right paper can help you save ink as well.
Finally, we come full circle back to the refills and discount ink cartridges. If you keep the factors that are outlined earlier in this report in mind when buying these less expensive inks, you can get cartridges that will work just fine.
Another option for using these cheaper versions of ink is to have a set of original inks on hand as well as the cheap ones. When you want to get the absolute best quality from a print, swap the original brand of ink into the printer. Otherwise, use the cheaper cartridges when the quality isn't as critical.
There is one thing to keep in mind if you plan to swap cartridges, however. Some printers keep track of how much has been printed with the cartridge, and by swapping them out you can throw off the counter. This can result in your printer telling you it's out of ink when there is in fact lots of ink left in the cartridge.
There are also a few printers that won't easily let you change cartridges unless the ink is empty. If this is the case, swapping ink may not be an option.
Tips for Buying Ink Cartridges
If you buy your ink cartridges at your local office supply or computer store, there are some things you can do to save some money.
Ink cartridges are one of the most profitable items in the computer section. A computer company I used to manage made more on ink cartridges than any other category in the store - especially the computer equipment and other hardware.
Keep that in mind when you're buying your ink. If you buy in bulk (say 3 or 4 ink cartridges at once) they should be able to give you a discount of some sort. It may not be a lot, but every little bit can help. This is something that can help with Dell printer ink in particular, because it's only available from Dell themselves.
It also pays to shop around for the best price. Most stores will meet or beat their competitors' prices, so knowing the best price before you go shopping will help you to avoid paying too much. The internet is a great way to comparison shop without a lot of time or driving all over town.
One other thing to keep in mind is that the profit on printers and computer equipment is extremely low, no matter where you buy them. While it may seem like nothing to throw in a $30 ink cartridge when you're spending $1500 or more on a new computer, that $30 can make a big difference in the bottom line for the company selling the equipment.
Don't expect them to give you an extra cartridge or two when you buy a new printer or computer. A discount is reasonable, but it's rare that you'll be able to get a free ink cartridge with the low profit margins on today's computer equipment.
