If you are looking to buy a new printer or trying to decide whether you should use remanufactured/refilled cartridges or manufacturer brand cartridges, you have to read this. There is something very important you need to know.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE COST PER PAGE PRINTED

Does that make sense? Let’s discuss.

You can think for days on end about the type of printer you want to buy, what features it offers, or if it is wireless or not.

You can discuss all the reasons that manufacturer brand cartridges are better than remanufactured (or remanufactured are better than manufacturer brand).

Bottom line is there is an important factor most of us don’t even bother to consider. That is the cost per page printed, or what is it going to cost me to keep this printer going.

I’m going to skip discussing this as it relates to buying a printer because it is a one time decision. More relevant to me is the discussion of remanufactured versus manufacturer brand. As the remanufacturing segment of the printer supplies market continues to grow, this is going to be a decision that everyone is going to have to make. Most of us have already had to make this decision.

It seems that everyone is up in arms about the high cost of manufacturer brand printer cartridges. They are upset that, in many cases, they can buy a brand new printer, with cartridges included, for less than what it would cost to buy a new cartridge for their existing printer. This has opened the door for cartridge remanufacturers to enter the market with their less expensive, but just as good (maybe . . . maybe not) cartridges. It’s opened the door for cartridge refillers (see yesterday’s post) to enter the market with an even less expensive way for you to keep your printer running. For example:

Manufacturer brand HP 56 (C6656AN) cartridge price $23.99
Remanufactured HP 56 (C6656AN) cartridge price $12.99
CostCo machine refilled HP 56 (C6656AN) cartridge $9.99

What do we see? As we move down the list, that HP 56 cartridge just keeps getting cheaper to use.

This brings me back to my point . . . It’s all about the cost per page printed. Being the price sensitive group we are, we all just look and say, “Wow! Only $9.99 for the same thing I paid $23.99 for last time. Count me in.” But, they are not the same thing. Here’s why.

HP publishes the capacity and page yield (see previous post) for each of their inkjet cartridges. The HP 56 inkjet cartridge contains 19ml of ink and yields up to 450 pages (at 5% page yield). Doing some quick math ($23.99/450) we see that your cost per page with this HP cartridge is 5.3 cents.

Note: Back in 2004 PC World tested the manufacturers published cost per page numbers. Manufacturers claimed, on average, that the cost per page for a black cartridge was 3.81 cents per page. For color it was 7.35 cents per page. PC World’s tested cost per page printed was 3.88 cents for black and 13.48 cents for color. The cost per page for black cartridges is fairly close, but for color cartridges there was a large discrepancy. Their conclusion, you can’t depend 100% on the manufacturer’s published cost per page.

Despite PC World’s findings, the manufacturer’s information is all we really have to base our decisions on. We can’t all spend time doing independent testing of multiple machines and cartridges to find out what is best for us!

Does this sound like more than you would like to spend per page you print? If so, you might want to check out another cartridge like the HP 45 (51645A). It’s cost per page is 4.4 cents. Would you like to save a penny per page? Most people would never consider picking an HP 45 over an HP 56 because of its price tag – $36.79. That’s $12.80 more than the HP 56 cartridge. Again, it is all about the price per page printed.

Let’s do the same math on the remanufactured HP 56 cartirdge. Assuming we get the same page yield, our cost per page is 2.9 cents per page. Now you are saving 2.4 cents per page printed. What about the machine refilled cartridge? Take advantage of that service and you are paying 2.2 cents per page.  That’s some savings!

But, for the sake you of you making an informed decision, I do have to share the following. If you’ve read my other posts you know I’ve always talked about the the risk that comes along with using remanufactured/refilled cartridges. This same risks need to be mentioned here because they could severely impact your cost per page printed.

In February 2006 a company named Quality Logic conducted a study that showed that 70% of remanufactured cartridges did not last as long as promised. Meaning that the remanufactured HP 56 cartridge you expected to get 450 pages out of (because that is what the manufactured brand gave you) did not give that many pages. I must mention that HP paid for this study, so that automatically raises some suspicion. But, Consumer Reports stepped in a few months later to try to replicate the study and they were able to report similar findings. They found that remanufactured/refilled cartridges did not yield as many pages as their equivalent manufacturer brand cartridge. One of the main reasons was that with remanufactured cartridges there was a tendency to have to run the print head cleaning utilty more often (running the utility uses ink).

Given this we would be safe to assume that remanufactued cartridges have a lower page yield, meaning a higher cost per page printed. I was not able to find any solid evidence of what that difference is, but let’s look at the following numbers.

If 25% less then your cost per page goes up to 3.8 cents (remanufactured) and 3 cents (machine refilled).

If 50% less then your cost per page goes up to 5.8 cents (remanufactured) and 4.4 cents (machine refilled).

If 75% less then your cost per page goes up to 11.5 cents (remanufactured) and 8.9 cents (machine refilled).

Unfortunately, these levels of decreased yield are not uncommon in remanufactured cartridges. And, they often go unnoticed by printer owners because they are so excited by the low price of the cartridge they forget . . . It’s All About The Cost Per Page Printed.

So, shift your thinking and do some research. Don’t be mesmerized by the cartridge price (be it high or low). Do some quick math and figure out what you are getting. Low cost per page printed can be achieved by using remanufactured/refilled cartridges, but make sure you are buying them from a reputable seller. Ask about failure rates, page yields, ink capacity, and warranties. Once you start thinking in terms of cost per page printed you’ll really start saving some money on your printer cartridges.

What are your thoughts on the idea of cost per page printed? Take a minute and let me know. Thanks!