Do Economy sized inks actually save you money?
Recently HP released a new size of ink cartridges to the market in order to make their pricing seem more competitive against remanufactured cartridges and other manufacturers. These cartridges are priced a few dollars less than the normal standard yield cartridges and report a lower yield. This is in contrast to the high-yield, XL cartridges which have been around for as long as the printers. We decided to compare and contrast these cartridges to see how they match up in comparison to HP’s current offering and our own remanufactured products..
We took the current pricing of each cartridge in the HP #60 series and compared their standard cost-per-page (CPP). Note the yields are what HP reports at 5% coverage on a page (see HP’s page on yield for more information).
| Cartridge name | Price | Yield | CPP (USD) |
| HP #60 Economy Black | $12.69 | 190 | $0.0668 |
| HP #60 Economy Tricolor | $16.99 | 155 | $0.1096 |
| HP #60 Standard Black | $14.99 | 200 | $0.0749 |
| HP #60 Standard Tricolor | $19.99 | 165 | $0.1212 |
| HP #60XL Black | $34.99 | 600 | $0.0583 |
| HP #60XL Tricolor | $40.99 | 440 | $0.0931 |
As you can see, the new “economy” cartridges do provide a better cost per print than the standard yield cartridges. It is still far more cost efficient to buy the XL cartridges however, as they provide a average 14% savings over the economy and a whopping 23% over the standard yield. To compare cost wise, our #60XL cartridges are given below:
| HP #60XL Remanufactured Black | $19.99 | 600 | $0.0333 |
| HP #60XL Remanufactured Tricolor | $25.99 | 440 | $0.0590 |
As you can see, you can still save over 50% by using quality remanufactured ink cartridges compared to Staples, even with the economy inks factored in. As a reminder, our inks are precisely engineered to match up in every way to the inks used by the manufacturers in color tone, viscosity and yield to produce the best quality and consistent results.
Do you have a question on how our ink stacks up?
Contact us or stop by at our store in downtown Northampton, MA. We can answer any question you have.
Related articles
Other posts you might like
Can’t find Aftermarket Cartridges For Your New Printer? If you like the idea of using aftermarket or re-manufactured ink or toner […]
Top Quality Service or Low Price? To go on line and find the best possible price for ink and toner or to buy […]
Recycling Toner Powder Into Useful Items! So we all talk about recycling and I like to believe that most of us are […]
How is the Quality of on Line Ink and Toner? I've been in the printer cartridge business now since 2004 and have had the […]
Saving Money on Printing Costs If you own a business then you are well aware of how much printing can cost. […]
2 thoughts on “Do Economy sized inks actually save you money?”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
What you fail to mention is that, if you buy the expensive cartridges (XL) and your printer goes out, you lose whatever ink you have left, as the new printer you buy will use different cartridges.
I did this once (never again), bought 2 sets of ink cartridges, My printer went kaput (which can happen any time).
lost quite a bit of money on cartridges I could not use.
This is true, very good point. But this non-interchangeability has been the unfortunate case since personal printers were first introduced to the market and revised every year or so with new cartridges. That’s sort of its own separate profiteering scheme from OEM’s. To help avoid this somewhat, inkjet printers with printhead-integrated inks make for much more reliable options (Currently only HP and Canon make these, they only take 2 cartridges). With those, you are already replacing the most commonly failed part of a printer every time you put in a new cartridge. It should be noted that those “economy” printhead-integrated inks are even less worth it than the tank type inks, but we do see those printers last a MUCH longer time than the fixed print head models 🙂