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Saving Money When Replacing Your HP Black Ink Cartridge
Most people print quite a bit more black than color, so it's a good thing that most HP printers have a separate black ink cartridge. Even so, it can still get quite expensive when you have to replace them. Fortunately, there are several options when replacing your ink, some of which are considerably less expensive.
HP has a whole range of printer models, and many of them use different cartridges. Some of the black cartridges are better values than others, mainly because of a wide range of sizes of cartridge.
For example, the HP 27 ink cartridge only holds 10ml of ink, the HP c6656an holds 19ml, and the HP 15 holds 28ml. Others go even higher, such as the 45 which holds 42ml.
But comparing some of the prices as an example, the 27 black cartridge costs $19.95, the 15 costs $28.99 and the 45 costs $27.99. So for those people with printers that use the 45 black ink, their printing costs are quite a bit lower than the 15, for example. (These prices are all from 4Inkjets.com, who tend to have the lowest price on ink cartridges of anywhere I've found.)
This is one of the reason some printers are so much cheaper - their cartridges tend to be smaller and therefore cost more per page so HP can make far more on the ink over the life of your printer.
Fortunately, there are several options for replacing your ink that are less expensive.
The most expensive choice - and the one most people use without realizing they have alternatives - is the original cartridges from HP themselves. The original ink is the most expensive, however it will give you the most consistent print quality of any of these alternatives.
The second choice is remanufactured cartridges. These are basically empty cartridges that are cleaned, refreshed and refilled. There are many companies offering these, with mixed results.
If you stick with a reliable company like 4Inkjets.com you will get just as good results from remanufactured ink as you will from the original brand, just for less money.
The third option is ink refill kits, where you refill your own empty cartridges. This is generally the cheapest option but it can also be the least reliable. Because most people don't have the professional refilling equipment that a company like 4Inkjets.com uses, they don't get as good a result.
When refilling your own cartridges, you're also best not to reuse a cartridge more than 2 or maybe 3 times at the most. The cartridges can wear out, and the quality of your printing will get noticeably worse when this happen.
Cost Comparison
Let's compare the cost of the various options, using prices available from 4Inkjets.com. I'll choose one of the newer and more popular black HP ink cartridges - the HP 94, which holds 11ml of ink.
Original HP 94 ink cartridge: $19.99
Remanufactured HP 94 ink cartridge: $15.99
Refill kit for HP 94 cartridge: $11.95
Plus, the refill kit includes enough ink to refill your cartridge 4 times so it's really only about $3 per refill.
Now if we compare those costs over the course of 6 cartridges, we'll get the following amounts:
Original HP cartridges: $119.94
Remanufactured cartridges: $90.00 (bulk price of $15 each)
Original HP cartridges + refill kit: $51.93
Remanufactured cartridges + refill kit: $43.93
As I pointed out earlier, I wouldn't refill a cartridge more than a couple of times, so the cost of the cartridges plus the refill kit takes that into account - it's two cartridges plus one refill kit (4 refills - 2 per cartridge).
So there you have it - you can spend almost $120 on original HP ink or as little as $44 on remanufactured cartridges and refill ink. Which sounds like the better deal?
Go and check out 4Inkjet.com to compare your HP black ink cartridge prices.
