If you don't know the true cost of printing with brand name printer ink, you could be losing money. First, how often do you use your printer? Do you print 20 documents a month or is the figure closer to 200? If you're like most, you haven't been keeping track. You might want to give it a try. It can help you figure out how much you'll typically spend on printer ink and paper. To calculate the average cost per page, you can use the ISO standardized test.
When you're getting a replacement cartridge of ink, you need to look at cartridge size, yield, and cost. For example, a cartridge of ink from company A may offer 21 milliliters of black ink that has a "yield" of 800 pages at 5% coverage for $27.99. To put it simply, if your pages use a small amount of printer ink, you'll get around 800 pages of printer ink. That's actually a good deal at only three and a half cents per page. The calculation is number of pages divided by price per cartridge. Unfortunately, you'll have to do the same analysis with the color ink cartridge. Color ink will likely cover more than 5% of each page on the average print, particularly if you are printing photos or other images.
There are a few ways you can lower cost per page. Ink refill kits and remanufactured cartridges are a pretty good option, but they come with a risk. Refill kits are a bit messy. One wrong move and you'll be left with ink all over you and none in the cartridge. Ink refill kits are pretty cheap and are guaranteed to fit your printer. The only thing you have to worry about with this option is that you have no way of telling what quality ink it's been refilled with. Really, your best bet is generic. The ink and the cartridge are just as good as brand.
To cut back on competition, brand name ink manufacturers put microchips on the cartridge. If the printer does not recognize the cartridge as OEM, features such as ink monitoring may be limited. If the chip is not brand, the printer may reject the cartridge. In North Carolina, it is now a crime to sell a printer that uses microchips to stop generic cartridges from being used. That basically means brand companies can't force you into buying their ink.
Besides buying generic ink, there's one more way to lower the cost per page: buy higher volume cartridges. Also, instead of using a printer that uses one cartridge for all three colors, find a printer that uses multiple cartridges. Combined cartridges work on the assumption that you'll be using all the colors equally every time you make a color print. What really happens is that you will run out of one color before the others.
Peachtree INK specialize in helping consumers to find high-quality printer ink cartridges at the most affordable rates. To find out more about inexpensive printer ink visit us at peachtreeink.com or email us at info@peachtreeink.com
No comments:
Post a Comment