Drop for drop, printer ink costs more than vintage port, fine champagne or a top perfume like Chanel No 5 – so that, on average, a family running a heavily used printer can spend up to £200 annually just on ink.
Not only that but, over the past 10 years, some manufacturers have lessened the amount of ink contained in ink cartridges. And while printers themselves are often sold relatively cheaply (a leading supermarket was for example, this year offering one top brand machine for just £30), the refills are anything but cost-effective.
This would seem to fit in with the 21st century business model of initially selling things cheaply and then getting customers to come back for pricy accessories. For that supermarket printer, for example, the two ink cartridges that work with the printer cost £20 minimum. So within weeks, the purchaser could well have forked out double the cost of the printer on the accompanying printer cartridges.
For a typical cartridge from one leading manufacturer, it can cost £13 just for 4ml of ink – that’s over £3,000 for a litre. Compare that with the price of a good 1995 Dom Perignon champagne – £150.
For their part, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the printer ink industry insists that what they charge is fair. Many manufacturers claim that a cartridge is much more than a plastic ink container – it’s a complex self-cleaning device which sprays ink on to the paper.
The amount of ink inside cartridges has dropped over the last 10 years, even if the cartridges still appear to be the same size. In 2004, for example, one of the most popular brands of cartridge had 42ml of ink and cost £20, with the website claiming it could print 930 pages. The same product today contains just 5ml of ink, is on the market at £13 – and prints just a couple of hundred sheets of paper.
Another product, launched even earlier on 2002, used to have 16 ml of ink, six years later it has only 3.5ml. Print manufacturers have hit back by saying this is because their printers are now “more efficient.”
Marketing tricks to encourage to encourage consumers to pay more include Extra Large refills which are standard sized cartridges with more ink, at £10 more per unit.
Equally, some printers run on arguably unnecessary ‘”cleaning cycles” which uses up more ink if the printer is turned on and off frequently.
So it’s important to check the price of refills and toner cartridges before buying your printer. One thing to steer clear of is a printer with “three in one” colour cartridges – buying the three colours as separate refills (magenta, yellow and cyan) tends to work out cheaper.
Consumers can hit back by buying second-hand cartridges which have been processed and cleaned and then refilled. These cost half the price of the branded ink produced direct by manufacturers. And, contrary to popular belief, using non-branded cartridges does not have to mean compromising on quality, or potentially reducing the life of your printer.
Shop around for refurbished, second-hand refills online.
