This article assumes you can read product reviews and sort out the lemons. It also assumes that you can review general features and decide if the printer you’re considering has everything you need or not. Here, we will talk about the bigger game afoot when it comes to the home printer market.
There are three main strategies for getting the most value from a home printer. Some models are worth keeping and buying refills, some are worth buying, using, and tossing when they need a refill, and some are a hybrid where it’s worth buying select refills until the full color needs a refill.
Which one is more conducive to you is really based on your printing needs and habits. Knowing what you’re getting into before committing to a given model will ensure you get the best value for your money.
What Economic Model do Home Printers Use?
Home printers have a funny set of economic models that you may not expect, but as mentioned, they lead to three main strategies for getting the most value out of your purchase. A buy, keep, refill strategy, a buy, deplete, replace strategy, and a hybrid of the two.
As an aside, I’m going to talk strictly about printers rather than including multifunction printers. The same concept applies regardless of which way you go with this. However, it may be influenced by the higher cost of the initial purchase. Multifunction machines typically are sold at a higher price point because of the additional included hardware.
Personally, I tend to frown on the home or small business version of multifunction machines. But, today, you can use your phone to take high-quality document scans, and you can print from your phone.
Combined with a decent home laser printer, you can create better scans and copies than any home or small office multifunction printer on the market. So buying something that can do everything but isn’t very good at any of them isn’t a good compromise anymore.
So by now, you should understand that the economic model for home printers is a mixed bag rather than a single specific model. So, for example, some printers are sold using the razor model, where the printer and the included toner are sold for a low price, and refills are where the company makes its money.
This came from the razor industry, where people quickly understood that the real money in the razor business wasn’t in selling the razor handles but in the disposable blades. So naturally, this led to manufacturers practically giving away the handle and initial blades and inflating the replacement blade prices.
Other printers are sold using a more expected model where consumers purchase a printer and buying the refills is a reasonable best option. The confusing part is that the same manufacturer can use one approach on model A while taking the other approach with model B.
To add to the complexity, because color printers can have individually sold color tones, you can have a hybrid situation.
Depending on prices and your printing habits, it may be less expensive to keep a color printer and purchase black refills until the color needs to be refilled. At which point, it may make more sense to buy a new printer. Depending on the numbers, this may also be valid for a single color tone.
So how does someone decide which way to go when it comes to home printers?
I found that using the common factor of cost per page gives the most consistent results. It gives you an apples-to-apples way of comparing printers so you can make a decision. Without a common mode of comparison, the simple question of “Which printer will give me the best value for my money?” becomes difficult to answer.
You can do these simple calculations yourself by dividing the printer’s price or the refill price by how many pages it will deliver.
Cost per Page = Cost of Printer/Included Page Capacity
OR
Cost per Page = Cost of Refill/Included Page Capacity
Here’s how this plays out. If you can buy a new printer with an included capacity cost per page lower than the cost per page of buying refills, it makes more sense to buy a whole new printer once it has been depleted.
But, if you can buy refills at a comparable or less expensive price than buying a new printer and using up the included print capacity, then refills are the best way to go. Color printers present the possibility of a hybrid of the two.
Color printers often have different tones configured and sold separately. But, if you take a survey of prices, you’ll notice quickly that the black refills are often much less expensive. So, if you consider refilling the entire machine, it may make sense to buy a new printer.
But, people most often print in black & white. That means the situation can be that buying black refills makes sense until you have to refill the color tones—a hybrid.
When Does it Make More Sense to Buy Printer Refills?
Let’s consider the Brother HL-L2370DW as an example. It’s an actively sold model at the moment, so prices and technical information are readily available.
It’s important to note that this is just an example. Each printer needs to be considered individually since every manufacturer includes a different amount of page capacity. Each printer has different refill costs. Each printer is competitively priced, even amongst models put out by the same manufacturer.
This printer model comes with an included 700-page printing capacity. However, the standard capacity refills are good for 1200 pages and are very attractively priced at approximately one-third of a new printer’s cost.
The result is clear when we do the calculations to determine the cost per page of a new printer and compare it to the price per page of the standard refill. Therefore, it’s more optimal to buy this printer, keep it, and buy refills for it.
| Item | Cost | Cost/Page |
| Whole Printer | $129.99 | $0.19/page |
| Standard Refills | $42.99 | $0.036/page |
Based on the data in the table above, you can clearly see that it makes good economic sense to buy this printer and keep it. Refills are inexpensive at 3.6 cents per page, and when compared to the 19 cents per page paid when purchasing the printer, there isn’t much to dispute.
This is a great example of the strategy where it makes more sense to buy a given printer, keep it, and purchase refills as needed.
Let’s consider the high yield refills and see how that impacts the numbers.
| Item | Cost | Cost/Page |
| Whole Printer | $129.99 | $0.19/page |
| Standard Refills | $76.99 | $0.026/page |
As expected, it’s even more cost-effective by a whole cent coming in at 2.6 cents per page. This particular printer has a drum capacity of 12,000 pages. You will likely be ready to buy a new printer due to obsolescence or newer models with better features before considering replacing the drum.
When do you Replace a Printer vs Refilling it?
Let’s consider the Brother HL-L3210CW as an example since it’s an actively sold printer at the moment.
It’s important to note that this is just an example. Each printer needs to be considered individually since every manufacturer includes a different amount of page capacity. Each printer has different refill costs. Each printer is competitively priced, even amongst models put out by the same manufacturer.
This model of the printer comes with 1000 page capacity cartridges included. The standard capacity refills have 1300 pages but cost more than the printer does new.
So if you do a rough calculation of printer cost divided by the number of pages, at least at this point, and if the prices stay the same, it can be cheaper per page to buy a new printer when the toner runs out than buy a full set of toner refills.
| Item | Cost | Cost/Page |
| Whole Printer | $199.99 | $0.20/page |
| Standard Yield Refills | $274.96 | $0.21/page |
| High Yield Refills | $364.46 | $0.16/page |
Based on this table, you can see for yourself that it’s technically cheaper per page to buy a whole new printer than it is to buy a complete standard yield toner refill for it. You might be like me, where the difference between $0.20 and $0.21 is negligible but don’t forget that an entire printer is included in the lower price.
This is a good example of the razor blade model in action.
If you had to refill the entire printer, buying high-yield refills at 16 cents per page would be better. However, $364.46 is pretty significant. You could print between 2300 and 3000 pages, but you have to lay down over $350 to do it. This may or may not be a factor for you.
Taking this further, let’s look at this relatively to understand where the discrepancy on the standard yield refills is. The cost of the color printer with the included toner is approximately 70% of a standard capacity toner replacement.
But you get 77% of the total number of pages of a complete standard capacity refill with the included toner. So even though you only get 1000 pages of printing with the included cartridges, it’s still a better deal than buying refills.
This model also has four different cartridges. Three for color and one for black. This can be advantageous since it allows you to replace a single, less expensive cartridge based on your printing habits. However, if we look at the data from a hybrid perspective where the user prints mostly in black and white, what do the numbers look like?
Is it worth it to buy the black refills?
| Item | Cost | Cost/Page |
| Whole Printer | $199.99 | $0.20/page |
| Standard Yield Black Refill | $57.49 | $0.04/page |
| High Yield Black Refill | $74.99 | $0.025/page |
Based on this simple analysis, if you print primarily black and white, this printer’s optimal economic strategy appears to be a hybrid. The prices of 4 cents per page for standard yield and 2.5 cents per page for high yield are quite good.
Therefore, it makes sense to use it and buy black toner refills until the color toner cartridges become depleted. My next move would depend on toner refills’ price compared to a new comparable printer when it’s time to refill it.
Where things may differ is if you need to print a significant amount of color pages. If that is the case, then the hybrid model may not be available to you, and you may find yourself buying a new printer more often.
It may seem funny, but it makes the most sense from an economic context. But where is that threshold, and how do you determine what’s the best course of action?
Let’s say that with your printing habits, you end up using a lot of blacks but that there is a single specific color that you end up using quicker than the others. Is it worth it to buy the refill for that tone? First, let’s look at the numbers.
| Item | Cost | Cost/Page |
| Whole Printer | $199.99 | $0.20/page |
| Standard Yield Color Refill | $72.49 | $0.056/page |
| High Yield Color Refill | $96.49 | $0.04/page |
Based on these numbers, it’s pretty clear that if you had one or even two colors that you used up fairly quickly in this printer, it would be worth replacing them. Even with standard yield refills at 5.6 cents per page, you can justify that.
But, ultimately, it depends on the frequency, how much of each is being used, and when you do the change-outs. This is especially true if you stick to the high yield refills at 4 cents per page instead of the standard yield refills.
But this also kind of changes the game a little. If we consider the standard yield refills individually, as long as you didn’t buy them all simultaneously, 5.6 cents per page isn’t too bad. It’s even better if you consider the high yield refills at 4 cents per page aligned with the wholesale refill numbers.
It’s easy to see how it can get messy really fast. The key is to get a feel for using the printer and do some basic number crunching based on that. Once you know what your needs are, the right answer will come fairly easily.
Making Sense of it All
So now that we’ve covered all of that, how do we bring it all together?
First, we need a common way to compare the cost of printing across different usage scenarios. We’ve established that as cost per page to print.
Second, we need to understand what our usage scenarios or printing habits will be. For most people, it will be black and white printing. But, perhaps, you have a small business that prints in color quite often. Number one, you may want to figure out a way to stop doing that to reduce your costs over time.
But, you may have a scenario where one or more colors will get used more often. So, don’t forget to consider color usage.
Third, we need to understand our budget and what we’re willing to pay at any given time to keep printing. For example, if you have the color printer and it needs to be refilled, can you afford the $364.46 to refill it with high yield refills? Can you afford the $274.96?
At that point, given the economics, you might as well buy the new printer at $199.99 for a slightly lower cost per page. That’s where the value in understanding these numbers comes in.
And finally, once we understand all of that for a given printer, we can repeat the process on other printers we’re considering. Comparing the cost per page across multiple different printers can determine the most cost-effective model.
It may take a little time to calculate all of these numbers, but once you’ve organized it, the clear winners will rise above the rest. If that seems too much like work, you can check out my pick on my recommended gear pages. Happy printing!