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One of the most common printer-related complaints? The ink and toner are too expensive. You can pour a lot of money into replacing cartridges, which can deplete quickly—or, for infrequently used inkjets, dry out and clog nozzles, then make you waste a lot of ink in cleaning routines. Generally, the more expensive the printer, the more affordable its ink. The cheapest printers tend to have the highest costs per printed page, following the classic marketing strategy of giving away the razors to sell the blades.
The best way to save money when buying a printer, in a holistic sense, is to look beyond the initial price. You want to consider the total cost of ownership: a printer's purchase price, plus the consumables cost for however many pages you plan to print over its lifetime. As part of that calculation, you'll want to investigate whether any of the printers you're considering offers an ink or toner subscription plan that matches your monthly printing needs for a flat fee, or whether you'll be better off getting a printer that lets you buy supplies in bulk. In this guide, we'll explain everything you need to know about the benefits and drawbacks of ink subscription plans compared with buying in bulk, so you can determine which strategy is right for your printing needs.
Bulk Ink vs. Ink Subscriptions: What You Need to Know
Buying in bulk typically means using a tank-based inkjet that lets you buy ink in bottles to refill the tanks. A few tank-based lasers are available, but they're rare. The idea simply hasn't caught on for lasers. For inkjets, on the other hand, both options—subscriptions and buying in bulk—are increasingly popular. Many printer makers have introduced inkjets offering one or the other for record-low running costs for consumers and businesses. HP, Brother, and Canon all offer ink subscription programs with several monthly levels of allotted pages, which can translate to considerable savings on ink costs. They can be especially advantageous if you print mostly in color.
All three companies plus Epson also offer printers with ink you can buy in volume, while Epson and HP have what amounts to rent-a-printer plans: Epson's ReadyPrint and HP's All-In Plan. These let you choose one of several specific printers as part of the plan with no up-front purchase price. Epson's version even includes unlimited ink in the monthly fee. HP's plan works like its ink subscription plan, with multiple pricing tiers, based on how many printed pages the plan covers per month. Before we get to the details of the various options from HP, Brother, Epson, and Canon, we'll discuss how each type of plan generally works.
The monthly fees for all the ink subscription plans described below are based on the number of pages you print, not how much ink you use. Each page counts the same, whether it's black text, a mix of text and color graphics, a presentation handout with a solid color background, or a photo. So the more you print in color and the more ink coverage on the average page—as with photos and full-page graphics—the more likely you'll actually save money with a subscription plan. Similarly, a subscription will be most cost-effective if you print close to the maximum allowed for the tier you've paid for without going over the limit. If you print mostly black-and-white text pages or print either far fewer or far more pages than are included in the plan you signed up for, you can easily wind up spending more money rather than less. So if you go this route, choose your plan carefully.
A similarly important point to keep in mind about tank-based printers is not to get seduced right away by exceedingly low running costs. For example, Epson claims that its bottled ink cost per page translates to as little as 0.3 cent per black-and-white page and 0.9 cent for color. However, the initial prices for the EcoTank and WorkForce SuperTank printers that use that ink are high compared with cartridge-based printers with similar features and performance. That means you'll pay a substantial premium up front to gain that low running cost. On the plus side, however, you'll get enough ink with the printer for thousands of pages before you have to buy any more.
Unless you take all these factors into account by comparing the total cost of ownership—rather than just the purchase price or just the operating costs—when making your buying decision, you can easily wind up spending more over the printer's lifetime rather than less, for the sake of getting cheap ink.
This holds true for all tank printers, not just the Epson models. Per-page costs for cartridge-based inkjets are far higher than for tank-based models, but if you don't print many pages, the total cost of ownership can still be lower than (or not much above) the total cost of the tank models. And that makes cartridge-based printers fine for most low-volume home or small-office settings. So, before investing in a tank printer, make sure it's the most suitable model for your needs.
If the rent-a-printer approach, with no initial cost, sounds appealing, keep in mind that you are leasing the printer rather than buying it. One benefit of that is that if the printer stops working, the company you're leasing it from will replace it. (Support is included in the monthly cost.) However, you don't own anything at the end of the two-year commitment. With one exception that we'll discuss below, if you want to continue the plan, you must keep paying the same amount, or whatever the current rate is.
How to Save Money on HP Ink
HP introduced its subscription-based Instant Ink program in 2013. Today, the plan is available for a long list of HP inkjets, including nearly all printers with Wi-Fi that are five years old or less, according to HP's website. It's also been expanded to include laser toner plans, which are available for about 25 HP LaserJet Pro 3000 series and 4000 series printers. In short, Instant Ink-eligible printers encompass many printer types.
On printers where it's an option, signing up for Instant Ink is integrated into the printer setup process. It steps you through choosing among several Instant Ink tiers, or opting for the traditional model of buying ink at retail stores or online when you run low. Each Instant Ink plan is defined by how many pages it includes each month.
HP Instant Ink Subscription Costs
Your monthly fee, which is subject to change (and has changed in the past), pays for ink or toner, shipping, and recycling used cartridges.
At this writing, the cost tiers for inkjet and laser printers are as follows...
For inkjets, a 15-page-per-month tier used to be free, and according to an HP spokesperson, it still is for customers who are already on it. But it isn't available for new customers. As for lasers, HP used to offer a 1,500-page-per-month tier, as well, but it's no longer available.
For both ink and toner plans, if you run over your allotment, you'll automatically be charged $1 for an additional 10 to 15 pages. (It varies by plan.) If you don't use all your pages, you'll still be charged for each month according to the tier you signed up for, but you can roll over up to two months' worth of pages (for lasers) or three months' worth (for inkjets), effectively saving them to use if you go over the number included in your plan in any later month.
Although HP calls Instant Ink a subscription, none of the plans has a contract. You're free at any time to cancel your plan or change to a different tier that better matches your needs. Note also that the highest-tier plans for both inkjets and lasers include a set of spare cartridges, so you can keep printing even if the next set hasn't arrived yet.
The Best HP Instant Ink Printers
HP points to potentially substantial savings for Instant Ink compared with conventional cartridge buying, saying that customers can save up to 50%. If you use exactly your maximum number of pages in a month, the cost per page for inkjet printers ranges from 4 cents for the 700-page plan to 14.9 cents for the 10-page plan. For lasers, you'll pay from 2.5 cents apiece for 800 pages per month to 4 cents each for 50 pages per month.
As mentioned above, if you print mostly in black and white (and especially if your average monthly output doesn't come close to the maximum for the tier you're paying for), you may come out ahead by sticking to buying cartridges the old-fashioned way.
HP uses "smart" cartridges that monitor your ink or toner use and the number of pages you print, so it can send you replacement cartridges when the currently installed ones are almost empty. Your printer must be connected to the internet for the plan to work, and you may be unable to print if the printer is offline for an extended time. If you cancel your subscription, your Instant Ink cartridges will be disabled; you'll have to buy standard cartridges to use your printer again.
HP Smart Tank Plus Printers Use Bulk Ink
Starting in 2019, HP followed Epson's lead and took another tack in cutting its customers' ink costs with its Smart Tank printers. They come with bottled ink, which you pour into tanks inside the printer. The included ink can print thousands of pages, and additional bottles are much less expensive than the same volume of ink included in cartridges.
The cost per page is tantalizingly low—approximately 0.3 cent per black page and 0.9 cent per color page, in line with similar bulk-ink printers from Epson and Canon discussed below. But remember that bulk-ink printers are much more expensive to buy than cartridge-based models with similar speed and features.
In 2020, HP pioneered the application of bulk-ink technology to laser toner, introducing the Neverstop brand, with models filled from giant plastic syringes that push toner into reservoirs inside the printers. This allows you to refill without spilling powdery black toner on everything. However, the company's Neverstop laser printers have now all been discontinued. At this writing, HP's only laser tank printer is the HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2604sdw, a three-function AIO.
HP All-In: Rent the Printer, Get All the Ink You Need
In early 2024, HP introduced its All-In Plan for select printers, joining Epson as the second manufacturer to let you rent printers as an alternative to buying them. As with Epson's ReadyPrint, the All-In Plan lets you get the printer with no up-front cost, and it charges a single price per month for the printer, ink, and support, including a replacement printer if needed. Unlike ReadyPrint, it doesn't include unlimited ink. Instead, the costs are structured similarly to HP's Instant Ink plans, with a set allotment of pages per month for the price, whether they are color or black and white. The plans also include an automatic extra charge if you print more than that number, and an automatic—but limited—rollover of pages if you print fewer than the allotted amount in a given month.
The three available printer choices for the plan are the HP Envy 6020e, the HP Envy Inspire 7258e, and the HP OfficeJet Pro 9010e. Each printer has several tiers, as with the Instant Ink plans. We've laid them out below.
As with the HP Instant Ink plans, if you run over your allotment for a given month, you'll automatically be charged additional increments of 10 to 15 pages, depending on the plan, for $1. If you don't use all your pages in a given month, you can roll over up to three times as many pages as your plan covers. You can also switch tiers at any time over the two-year commitment. However, except for the 30-trial period, when you can return the printer at no cost, you are committed to staying with the same printer (or a replacement if the original stops working) for two years.
How to Save Money on Brother Ink
In August 2021, Brother put its own spin on the ink subscription idea with its Refresh EZ Print Subscription service (not to be confused with Brother's Refresh EZ Auto Reordering plan, which is limited to automated ordering with a 5% discount on cartridges). Like the HP plan, Refresh EZ Print offers multiple tiers based on printing a given number of pages per month, and it's designed to automatically send new cartridges before you need them.
At its introduction, the plan was available for a baker's dozen Brother monochrome laser printers. The company has since added coverage for inkjet printers like the Brother MFC-J5340DW and color lasers like the Brother MFC-L3780CDW. Brother maintains a list of supported mono laser printers and says it plans to update the list to include inkjet and color laser printers. Until it does, you can check whether your printer, or a printer you're considering buying, is covered, as well as sign up for a free two-month trial, by searching for the model name on the EZ Print Subscription page. If you choose to continue after the trial, you'll pay a monthly fee, based on your chosen plan, to cover the toner or ink and shipping.
Brother Refresh EZ Print Subscription Costs
At this writing, the Refresh EZ Print plan offers five tiers for monochrome lasers, four tiers for inkjets, and three tiers for color lasers. We've laid them out below, current as of the date we published this story.
If you print exactly the number of pages in the plan you pick, the cost ranges from just 1.7 cents per page for the 1,500-page mono laser tier to 13.3 cents per page for the 75-page color laser tier. If you print more than your maximum, you'll be charged automatically for additional sets of 10 to 60 pages (depending on the tier you signed up for) at $1 per set for mono lasers and inkjets and $2 per set for color lasers.
The Best Brother Refresh EZ Print Printers
If you don't use your monthly maximum, you can roll over up to two months' worth of pages. Since you can change your tier whenever you like, you can easily adjust it up or down to take advantage of your rolled-over pages without risking going over your limit and raising your average cost per page.
As with ink subscription plans from HP and Canon, the printer must be connected to the internet for automatic ink shipments to work. New cartridges should arrive before you need them, and cartridges will be disabled if you cancel your subscription.
Note also that Brother adds a one-year extension to your printer's warranty if you maintain your subscription, with some conditions. For example, when you start your subscription, the printer needs to have at least three months of its original warranty remaining.
Brother's INKvestment Tank: High-Yield Cartridges
Exclusively on the inkjet side, Brother also saves businesses (including home offices) a pretty penny with its INKvestment Tank all-in-one printers. These models rely on low-cost, high-yield cartridges. The company has produced a string of excellent INKvestment Tank printers, including the Editors' Choice-award-winning Brother MFC-J6955DW. Thanks to a claimed yield of 3,000 pages for black and 1,500 pages for each color cartridge, the device offers a running cost of less than a penny a page for black text and just under a nickel each for color pages. However, note that different printers use different cartridges, which affects your precise cost. Looking at individual reviews of INKvestment Tank printers is the best way to gauge relative value here.
How to Save Money on Epson Ink
Epson launched its first EcoTank printers in 2015 and has since expanded its tank printers, which also include WorkForce Supertank models, to encompass the range from basic home and small-office units to more expensive, feature-packed options for business. Even some six-color, photo-centric AIOs suitable for semipro photographers are in on the game. All use bottled ink that you pour into tanks built into the printer. (Some discontinued models used bags of ink attached to clips in a bay.)
Note that you don't need to worry about spillage when pouring ink from bottles into tanks. In reviewing numerous EcoTank printers, the worst we've experienced is a drop or two of ink getting on our hands. Epson's newest printers use a keyed EcoFit bottle design that the company says avoids spillage entirely, and it certainly seems to in our experience.
As mentioned earlier, Epson's bottled ink offers exceedingly low costs per page—according to the company, as little as 0.3 cent per black page and 0.9 cent per color page, depending on the printer model, your print volume, and other variables. As always, you'll need to determine whether the savings in running costs will pay for the extra initial cost over the life of the printer compared with an otherwise-equivalent printer that has a lower initial price and a higher cost per page.
Per-page costs for Epson's standard inkjets are far higher than for the EcoTank and SuperTank models, but if you don't print many pages, the total cost of ownership can still be lower (or at least not much higher) than the total cost of the EcoTank models, making the cartridge-based printers fine for low-volume home or small-office settings.
Epson ReadyPrint Subscription Costs
Epson's ReadyPrint Subscription Service is basically a rent-a-printer-and-get-free-ink plan. It's similar to HP's All-In Plan but introduced four years earlier, starting in Europe in early 2020 and the US in July 2020. Epson says it's available throughout the 48 contiguous states (sorry, Hawaii and Alaska). The plan lets you pay a single price per month for a printer and all the ink you need, automatically shipped as you need it, much as with ink subscription plans. Support is also wrapped into the monthly fee, including a replacement printer if the one you have stops working.
One big difference from ink subscription plans is that ReadyPrint doesn't limit the number of pages you can print. You'll need to pick a printer from the four available EcoTank models with both a paper capacity and print capability that can handle the maximum monthly duty cycle you need.
Two of the four printers (the first two in the chart below) are meant for light duty, and neither has any up-front cost. The other two are meant for heavier-duty office printing. Both give you a choice between having no up-front cost or paying an activation fee to get a lower monthly rate.
Epson says the EcoTank ET-5850U is similar to the EcoTank ET-5850 (which earned an Editors' Choice designation) but with some differences, so it's not clear how much of our ET-5850 review would apply to the ET-5850U. The same is true for the EcoTank ET-16650U and EcoTank ET-16650, another Editors' Choice pick. (We have not reviewed the EcoTank ET-2850 or ET-3850.)
ReadyPrint requires a two-year commitment, and canceling the lease during that time comes with an early termination fee, which varies depending on the plan. Note also that if you pay the activation fee for either Business plan, you are saving only $10 per month, so it actually costs $10 more over the two-year lease. However, at the end of the lease, you can keep the same printer and pay on a month-by-month basis at the lower price. If you change to a different-tier printer, however (going from a letter-size to a wide carriage model, for example), that would require a new lease and a new activation fee to get the monthly savings again.
Also note that the printers must be internet-connected, which is required for Epson to know when to send more ink. A FAQ on Epson's site says that if you lose your internet connection for any reason, the printer will still print unless you turn it off and on again, in which case it will need to check in with the ReadyPrint service before it will print. However, ReadyPrint tech support says the printer will finish the current job only and will not print again until the internet connection is available.
How to Save Money on Canon Ink
Canon is still a relative newcomer to the ink subscription party, having introduced the Canon Pixma Print plan in March 2021. Although similar to the HP and Brother plans in some ways, it's considerably more limited and offers less dramatic savings. At this writing, the plan covers 14 printers. The company offers three cost tiers that allow rolling over unused pages:
Each plan lets you roll over up to a month's worth of unused pages and charges 10 cents per page if you exceed your allotted count. Even if you print exactly the number of pages in the tier you pick, the cost per page is still relatively high at 4.9 to 13.3 cents, depending on the plan. All three tiers offer 100 free pages for signing up, but these expire six months after enrollment if you haven't used them.
The Best Canon Pixma Print Plan Printers
Canon also has a Pay Per Print plan for 20 cents per page, which could save money compared with the $3.99-per-month plan if you consistently print fewer than 20 pages per month. Even better, if you print that little, the 100 free pages for signing up would mean not having to pay anything for at least the first five months.
Canon Pixma Print covers replacement cartridges and shipping, and it gives you the flexibility to cancel or change tiers at any time. The Pixma Print cartridges monitor your ink level to automatically order more when you run low, so you must keep the printer connected to the internet. The cartridges will be disabled if you cancel your subscription.
Canon MegaTank Bottled-Ink Printers
Canon's MegaTank printers include all Pixma G models, some of which lack "MegaTank" as part of the name. They are very similar in concept and cost savings to Epson's EcoTanks. These inkjets, designed for home or home office use, have modest feature sets considering their list prices; their real draw is their ultra-low running costs (0.14 to 0.3 cent for each black page and 0.8 to 1.25 cents for each color page).
This low running cost, combined with excellent print quality—including the fabulous photo prints that Canon Pixmas are known for—makes the MegaTank models a welcome addition to the ranks of penny-pinching printers. Over the past few years, Canon has steadily expanded its MegaTank lineup, most recently with the Maxify GX1020 and Maxify GX2020. The Maxify GX4020, Maxify GX5020, Pixma G5020, Pixma G6020, and Pixma G7020 have all earned our Editors' Choice designation.
The Best Canon MegaTank Printers
The Bottom Line: Low-Cost Ink May (or May Not!) Save You Money
Readers of our printer reviews still complain about the high cost of printing, but the clamor has quieted over the past few years thanks to these bulk-ink and subscription-ink approaches. Market pressure should continue to keep ink costs down, and companies are still coming up with new offerings. In the rent-a-printer category, for example, Epson's ReadyPrint has been around since 2020, but HP just announced its All-In Plan in 2024.
No single approach will give the lowest cost of ownership to everyone. But with the variety of choices already available—ink subscription, rent a printer, expensive tank printers with cheap ink, and inexpensive cartridge printers with expensive ink—it's becoming easier and easier to match your printer and ink choices to your individual needs, and pick the approach that works best for how often and how many pages you print.
Be sure to check out the several bulk-ink models on our list of the best inkjet printers, but don't overlook the potential savings overall for the cartridge-based models if you don't print much. And if you're still debating whether to get an inkjet or a laser, be sure to consider the lasers in our lab-tested picks of the best printers, as well.
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