Why is printer ink so expensive? And 9 ways to save on the cost

Home printers can be fantastically affordable – our top choices start at just £70, and if you shop around you’ll find fully functional colour inkjets for as little as £30.

There’s a catch, though: once you’ve worked your way through the bundled ink cartridges, the price of refills can be steep. If you print regularly, the cost can quickly mount up, and if you only use your printer occasionally you may find the cartridges get gummed up with dried-out ink, and you have to replace them anyway.

But why is printer ink is so expensive? And what steps can you take to reduce the cost?

Where does the money go?

One reason why printer ink is so expensive is that you’re not just paying for the ink. As HP openly admits on its website: “When companies sell printers at a very low price, they recover their losses in the cost of more expensive ink.” This is why the cheapest printer models often come with the most expensive cartridges – a nasty shock for customers who haven’t done their homework.

That’s not to say that the cartridges themselves are cheap to manufacture. Both the print heads and the ink mixture require precision engineering. Epson product manager, Alice Ramsden De Gómez tells us: “We’re very proud of the technology that goes into our print heads. They use variable ink-drop sizes to create different effects on the page, and the ink is designed very carefully and specifically to allow that print head to work at its best. A lot of work has gone into each and every single one of those little tiny drops that comes out.”

And the price covers not only the cost of manufacturing the cartridge, but also that of recycling it afterwards. In many countries, major manufacturers including Canon and HP will let you return used cartridges by post for free, so they can properly dispose of the potentially hazardous materials used in their manufacture – although the cost of this is partly offset by reusing empty cartridges where possible.

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How to make your printer ink last longer

1. Use ink saver options

Many inkjet printers include an “ink saver” mode, which – guess what? – uses less ink to print. The trade-off is print quality: areas of black may look grey, and text might not be as sharp as it is in high-quality mode. Unless you’re printing wedding invitations or artistic portraits, however, draft mode is perfectly fine for almost all purposes.

2. Embrace the grey

Printing out a colour image uses four (or more) separate ink cartridges at once. This can produce rich, vibrant results, but it’s hardly efficient – especially if you just want a copy of a simple diagram or map. Switch to greyscale mode in the printer driver software and you might use a bit more black ink, but you’ll be saving your cyan, magenta and yellow for the images that really need them.

3. Don’t let your ink dry up

Lee Grant, director of specialist retailer, Inspiration Computers, has been selling and supporting printers for more than 20 years. He points out that one of the most common issues he sees is when ink cartridges are left unused for too long and simply dry up – forcing you to buy a replacement.

“The thing with inkjet printers is you’ve got to keep them printing,” he explained. “Although it sounds absolutely backwards to say it, if you just print one sheet every three weeks, just something basic in draft mode, it will prolong the life of the cartridge and save you money.”

4. Print less

It’s tempting to print out a whole email when you just need one paragraph, or to print an entire web page when all you need is a QR code. But you can slash your ink usage if you only cu t out and print exactly what you need. Indeed, in these days of smartphones and cloud storage, it’s always worth questioning whether you need a hard copy at all. “Be thoughtful about how you print,” recommends Alice Ramsden De Gómez. “Just print what you need, when you need it.”

How to reduce long-term printer ink costs

5. Choose your printer carefully

In the words of Alice Ramsden De Gómez, “there’s a step that goes before buying your ink, and that’s choosing the right printer for what you’re doing”. If you’re considering which model to buy, be sure to check the cost of cartridges and work out how this will affect the total lifetime cost of owning and using the printer (our printer reviews detail this for you, so you don’t have to get out the calculator). More often than not, it’s cheaper in the long run to buy a more expensive printer, as the consumables are likely to be more economical.

6. Buy the biggest cartridges you can

All the major printer manufacturers sell cartridges in two sizes – regular ones for occasional printing and “XL” versions that contain more ink. The latter are always better value: after all, the manufacturing and shipping costs are the same, and you’re only paying a modest premium for the additional ink inside. Just as with the printer itself, you save money in the long run by paying more up front.

7. Look into subscription options

Canon, Epson and HP all offer subscription services that let you pay a fixed monthly cost for ink, based on the number of pages you want to print. Your usage and ink levels are automatically monitored, and fresh supplies are sent out by post whenever you’re getting low, so you never need to worry about running out of ink at an awkward time.

Such plans aren’t right for everyone, though. As Lee Grant warns, “for some people, it works very well. For other people, it quickly gets really expensive.” That’s because you’ll be charged a premium if you print more pages in a month than your subscription tier allows for. But if your needs are consistent, a subscription can be both cheaper and more convenient than buying new cartridges as and when they’re needed. Just remember that you’ll need a reliable internet connection, so the service provider can keep track of your usage.

8. Consider an ink-tank printer

If you’re fed up of buying and returning cartridges, why not choose a printer where the print machinery is all built in? Both Epson and HP offer ink-tank printers, where instead of replacing a physical cartridge when the ink runs out, you can just squirt more ink directly into internal reservoirs.

Ink-tank printers are more cost-effective to run than cartridge models, but again the initial purchase price can be high – our recommended Epson EcoTank ET-2830 costs around £200 from Amazon. However, with Epson including enough ink in the box to print 6,600 monochrome pages and 5,900 in colour and pages costing 0.2p for mono and 0.4p per colour page thereafter, you’ll see that it quickly pays for itself, and a set of new inks can be quite cheap at £34 a set, too.

9. Switch to a laser

Inkjets can be cheap, and they can produce brilliant photographic output. However, laser printers don’t tend to gum up when left not doing anything and, typically a single toner cartridge beats standard inkjet cartridges for longevity.

As Lee Grant advises, “for a household that’s full of school kids who are always printing off artwork, an inkjet is probably the way to go. But for people who only do occasional stuff, I always steer them towards lasers. There’s huge value in the fact that it can sit and do nothing for six months, and then work brilliantly – and you’ll get 10,000 sheets out of a toner cartridge.”

Laser printers can also show inkjets a clean pair of heels when it comes to print speed, with even cheap models capable of turning out 30 pages per minute or more.

Should you use unbranded ink?

One of the biggest ways to save money is by buying third-party ink cartridges rather than the manufacturer’s official ones. After all, these suppliers aren’t looking to recoup the cost of the printer, or maintain a brand image: their whole business is built on competitive pricing.

“Some people get on really well with third party ink, and they probably buy it from a really reputable place,” admits Epson’s Alice Ramsden De Gómez. But she adds a note of warning: “We haven’t tested that third party ink, we don’t know what’s gone into it, and so there’s that slight risk factor. You just don’t know where that’s been manufactured and how good a quality it is.”

Retailer Lee Grant agrees that unbranded ink isn’t always up to the standard of the official stuff: “I do believe that if you want – for example – to print a nice glossy photo, then branded cartridges with the right paper will give you exceptional results. And if you change the paper or the cartridge to a lesser brand, it won’t be as good.”

That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, though. Grant adds: “For the majority of people who just want to print out a boarding pass twice a year, it doesn’t matter in the slightest.”

If you’re interested in trying compatible cartridges it’s best to play it safe and buy from an established retailer with a money-back guarantee. If possible it’s also worth doing some research before choosing a printer as some models – particularly ones made by HP – will recognise and block unofficial cartridges. Your printer won’t be harmed, but you won’t be able to print until you replace them with approved ink supplies.