Tag Archives: inkjet ink

True Printer Costs

Some years ago consumer printer companies realized that people pay more attention to the up-front cost of a printer than to the cost of feeding it ink or toner.  Today you can essentially get a printer for free if you buy a set of ink cartridges.

Predictably, manufacturers have jacked up the price of consumables far beyond their cost of production, and done everything possible to exclude competition for replacement ink and toner.  This is fine if you print infrequently.  But if you use your printer regularly this back-loaded business model costs you handsomely.  Like commercial users, you would much rather pay up front for the machine and then minimize your ongoing cost of using it.

Enter Kodak, with a brilliant Print & Prosper campaign:  Their new ESP line of multi-function inkjet printers are reasonably priced, but the kicker is that their branded replacement ink runs about one-third the cost of their competitors’.  (It is difficult to find the true cost per page of other consumer printers, but Kodak ran extensive tests to produce these data.)  And this is for more durable pigment ink (as opposed to the fade-prone dye ink used by some competitors).

If you intend to use your printer regularly Kodaks will save you quite a bit of money.