# Why is printer ink so expensive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 17, 2009, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505 "2009-09-17T21:59:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/21 "2009-09-18T09:24:20Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Ditto what **si\_blakely** said. So it \*\*is \*\*a conspiracy? CECIL!!! ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/22 "2009-09-18T09:57:55Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > It’s a grand old marketing tradition that dates back to the original Kodak cameras and Gillette razors. King Gillette (the person) realized that if he gave away the razor, people would keep coming back to the buy his blades, even if there were less expensive alternatives. Blood glucose meters often have rebates that make them effectively free…but it’s really the test strips that cost a lot. Many doctors will want their patients to test at least twice a day, and prefer to have them test four times a day. The test strips cost from half a dollar to a dollar each, so that can be pretty expensive, pretty fast. ---
**Author:** ![Da\_ICON](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Da\_ICON](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Da_ICON)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/23 "2009-09-19T02:18:16Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Can you give us a clue about how the costs break down per cartridge? > > I’m wondering if it’s like gold or saffron or something. I should clarify I am talking strictly toner here. A kg of magenta pigment initially ran us $89. The cost has dropped since then (by about half…but guaranteed your toner cartridge didn’t 🙂 ). But for whatever nebulous reason the cost didn’t drop when our materials did, we’ll assume the pigment is still $89/kg. The pigment makes up 33% of a kg of finished ‘product’ (from my end). It is then forwarded to a different facility for a slight refinement and packaging (all value added - and I don’t know how much $$$-wise is tacked on). As you can surmise the cost of the packaged good is pretty extensive…hence the reason for the high cost. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/24 "2009-09-19T02:39:26Z")
> [@Da\_ICON](#): > > I should clarify I am talking strictly toner here. > > A kg of magenta pigment initially ran us $89. The cost has dropped since then (by about half…but guaranteed your toner cartridge didn’t 🙂 ). But for whatever nebulous reason the cost didn’t drop when our materials did, we’ll assume the pigment is still $89/kg. > > The pigment makes up 33% of a kg of finished ‘product’ (from my end). It is then forwarded to a different facility for a slight refinement and packaging (all value added - and I don’t know how much $$$-wise is tacked on). > > As you can surmise the cost of the packaged good is pretty extensive…hence the reason for the high cost. Do different colors cost different amounts? So market values on pigment roughly translate to 33% of the cost of a cartridge? How much does the circuit board and other extras affect the price of a cartridge? Thanks for the info. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/25 "2009-09-19T04:22:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Do different colors cost different amounts? They certainly do when buying oil paints. One color will be very cheap, and another color very expensive. If the companies can make one tube of paint with ingredients costing a dollar, but another color of paint will cost them ten dollars for the ingredients, then the first tube of paint will be much cheaper for the consumer than the second. I imagine that the different colors of printer inks also vary, but since they’re usually sold bundled together, the consumer doesn’t really know or care about the different costs. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/26 "2009-09-19T04:37:00Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#): > > I saw a review of printed photos, where the photos were displayed for a year. The manufacturers inks all lasted better than the refills, and the more you payed for the ink, the better the photos lasted (Canon Pixma won, as I recall, comparable to a processing house dye-sub). > > Si I refill my HP cartridges, and it works fine for my purposes, but the color ink does fade really fast. If I leave a printed sheet out in the sun, I’d say it’s very faded within a week, and almost gone in 6 weeks or so. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/27 "2009-09-19T11:44:46Z")
> [@Dog80](#): > > This is not true for all printers. For example, Epson cartridges are just a container for the ink. The piezoelectric injectors are on the printer itself. > > The small circuit board on Epson cartridges is basically just a counter; each time the printer draws ink from the cartridge it decreases the value on that chip so you can have an indication of the ink level. There is no way to measure the ink level directly. Thanks- that may explain a lot. I bought some cheap generic cartridges for my Canon printer and I had to remove the circuit board (chip thing) on the old cartridge and place it on the new generic one. The generic cartridge is always signalled as being empty. If the circuit board is simply counting pages printed- for old and new cartridge- I now see why. ---
**Author:** ![ripopgome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a698b9/32.png) [@ripopgome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ripopgome)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505/28 "2009-09-20T16:43:58Z")
For just this reason (and yes it is a classic razor-and-blades model, plain and simple, but with higher tech being added to help ensure the model stays in place), I now only print ‘fast draft’ and don’t care about getting a nice printer. I used to have a very high end inket, did graphic design comps on it, printed all my own photos, etc. I now find it MUCH more time and cost effective to simply upload all my _photos_ to Costco and pick them up an hour later. They come out damn near perfect, and dirt cheap. They’ll even do very large sizes super cheap. For large graphic design comps, I’m finding PDFs (not even printed out!) are OK for a lot of clients. And often they have nice big printers to print on locally if they want (and are OK with the colors not being perfect, often.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-printer-ink-so-expensive/510505.md?page=1)