Getting the Most For Your Money with Printer Ink

Date: February 22, 2010

New York, NY -- On the surface, it seems simple enough, paying $40 dollars for a cartridge is better than paying $80 for a cartridge, right? Not necessarily. According to M. David Stone of PC Magazine, many times people make faulty assumptions about ink cartridges and their real value.

The answer to the question about value lies in the number of pages a cartridge will print. If your $40 dollar cartridge prints 200 pages and the $80 dollar cartridge prints 400 pages, then the values are the same. However, if the $80 dollar cartridge will print 800 pages, then it’s a better deal, even though it costs more up front, you get more for your money. Stone is quick to point out a “universal rule” with ink is that the cheaper the cartridge, the higher the cost per page.

It is important to realize that what a manufacturer may have on their website may not be the actual printer page yield. If you ever go down to the bottom of their pages, you may see in small print (of course) that page yields will vary by use. It is also true that there always be a difference in page costs between monochrome jobs and color jobs. For laser printers, be sure and factor in the costs of the other consumables like the printer drums.

BY ADAM HAIGH, Editor