The overall expense of inkjet printer cartridges over a long term is much higher than the original device cost, HP’s 2023 financial statements show, its entry-level DeskJet 2755 printer costs only $49, but consumers pay an average of $216 in three years to buy original cartridges, accounting for 81% of the expense. And a single color cartridge (such as HP 304) prints just 150 pages, as ISO/IEC 24711 standard estimates, the cost of a single page of 0.18 US dollars, the same rate of laser printer toner single page cost 2.3 times. When compatibility problems of third-party cartridges are included, International Data Corporation (IDC) studies show that the failure rate of inkjet printers on non-certified inks rises to 32%, the average maintenance cost rises by $87 annually, and the print head lifespan falls by 40% (from a mean of 3 years to 1.8 years).
According to efficiency in the use of ink, Canon laboratory testing states that inkjet printer consumes 2.3ml of ink per month in automatic cleaning processes in standby condition, which equals 21% of normal capacity of the cartridge (11ml), if only 10 pages are printed each week, then the actual utilization rate is lower than 35%. The Ecotank product line launched by Epson has doubled the capacity of a single ink to 70ml (can print up to 7,500 pages), but the initial machine cost is $299, and it would require over 12,000 pages to recover the cost difference between it and regular ink cartridges, and the payback period can be as long as 18 months. Statista data show that in 2022, the market size of the world-compatible ink cartridge was 4.8 billion US dollars, but its color accuracy deviation (ΔE value) is typically over 5.0, much larger than the original ink cartridge’s ΔE≤2.0 standard, and this results in a 19% photo printing reprint rate.
The influence of environmental factors on the life of the ink cartridge is also astonishing: Lexmark tests found that when the ambient humidity is higher than 70%, the expansion rate of moisture absorption of the dye ink can reach 3.7%, which increases the possibility of blockage of the printing head by 28%, and the hot environment (>30℃) will accelerate the precipitation rate of the pigment ink to 0.25mm/day, and the capacity utilization rate will decrease by 15%. In the corporate world, 500 companies were tracked by Xerox and the total cost of three-year use of high-load inkjet printers (3,000 pages per month) was $1,842, of which 62% consisted of the cost of ink cartridges, and the yearly downtime and maintenance capacity loss was $214. The inkjet printer’s INKvestment technology reduces the per-page cost to $0.008 through the design of ink bins, but its 50ml high-capacity cartridge requires coupling with a special device model and the initial hardware investment is 120% greater than mainstream models.
The final cost saving has to balance technology and usage model: HP Instant Ink subscription service offers 100 pages of printing for $2.99 per month, which can reduce the cost per page to $0.03, but the excess is charged at $0.01 per page, which is not economical for customers printing over 300 pages per month. According to the J.D. Power 2023 Consumer survey found that 72% of consumers overestimated inkjet printer’s long-term cost of consumables, while its actual total costs (equipment + ink + service) after five years stood at a median level of $589, which was 41% above that for laser equipment. These facts uncover that it is the essential tactic to contain “hidden” cost by selecting the right solutions appropriate for print quantity, environmental robustness and supply chain for consumables.