New Printer Because of the Price of Ink

beach-mom · ‎03-09-2010

Today we bought a home printer/fax. There is nothing wrong with our older HP one, but it's getting harder to find ink and it's really expensive.

Most of the places I used to buy it, like BJ's, don't carry it anymore.
DH suggested we look at new ones.

The ink cartridges cost $100. We found an HP Office Jet 8015e on sale this weekend for just a little over that. It's faster and has a few extra features that our current one doesn't have. It also comes with a 3 months' ink supply.

I don't know why printer ink is so expensive.

SilleeMee · ‎05-22-2016

Printer ink is expensive b/c the ink itself is highly specialized and technically difficult to make. Plus ink has to be precision-made to be compatible to the printer it's being made for. It's like having different types of paint only on more delicate scale.

BunSnoop · ‎05-22-2010

@beach-mom, I recently retired; however, for the past 7 years I had worked from home and would often have to print documents that were over 130 pages a few times a week. In addition, there were several other items that needed to also be printed.

The company did not reimburse us for this expense, but my thought was at least I did not have to pay for the gas for the car to drive to the office as I had done before working at home.

In my opinion, they know you need ink to use a printer, so they charge the expensive fee for ink just so they can keep making more and more money.

I sometimes watch Shark Tank and "the sharks" always love a product that has "add ons" meaning that once the customer purchases the initial product the customer continues to make purchases as they need "add-ons" to keep using the product and then the company keeps making more money after the initial sale.

MG Chris · ‎09-10-2020

I had to fight for my printer in my divorce🤣 it is the best printer I have ever had and while I don't use it often it is nice to have when I need it. The last time I bought ink I paid $100 at Sam’s. They were the XL cartridges. I priced the smaller ones at Walmart and by buying at Sam’s I got the XL cartridges for $20 more. It kills me to pay that but it is what it is.

Tori3569 · ‎06-27-2010

I have an HP that came with an instant ink option. It's the best thing I've ever enrolled for. I pay $6.99/month and they send me ink before I run out. I have a plan that gives me 100 pages per month but if I go over it's $1.00 for 10 pages. You can go with a higher or lower option whenever you want. I work from home some days and depending on what's going on I go higher or lower on my plan.

drizzellla · ‎03-14-2010

We just went through this problem about a month ago. My husband went to 6 stores before he found the printer ink for our printer.

We used to be able to buy it at Sam's, no problem. But they no longer carry the package we need. He finally found the correct ink and bought 2. He was so happy to find it. I was shocked at the price. But he likes to have a copy of everything for his records. So we go through lots of ink.

SaveTheTurtles · ‎10-09-2023

When I was shopping for a printer a couple years ago I purposely did not buy an HP printer due to the ink cost and their auto ink program. I purchased a Brother unit which I've been very happy with and my cartridges are about $50 on Amazon.

Ronettes · ‎12-13-2022

Let's face it, they've got us -

Can't use the printer without ink, so they can charge what they like.

I used to watch on ebay for the ink cartridge we used at work, sometimes there were very good buys!

rockygems123 · ‎06-04-2012

@SaveTheTurtles wrote:
When I was shopping for a printer a couple years ago I purposely did not buy an HP printer due to the ink cost and their auto ink program. I purchased a Brother unit which I've been very happy with and my cartridges are about $50 on Amazon.

@SaveTheTurtles

I did the same thing switched to Brother and ink is much less.

And @beach-mom if you're willing to try compatible off brand ink you can save quite a bit.

I buy on Amazon with costs about 1/4 of name brand. Am on my 2nd batch and so far all is aok.

SilleeMee · ‎05-22-2016

I have a basic wired HP printer (Deskjet 1010 Series) and the HP brand black ink cartridge cost me $24. Not complaining. I don't print but maybe 20 sheets per year tops.