Should you really go for subscription printing services?

Subscription printing services are impossible to ignore when purchasing a printer. Whether they are called Instant Ink at HP, EcoPro at Brother or Pixma Print Plan at Canon, they are now widely promoted by manufacturers, including by the presence of imposing stickers on the machine!

These services are all based on the same principle: for a lump sum each month, they offer you printing capacity in pages (and not in ink, we will come back to this), without you having to worry about your supply of cartridges. . As soon as the ink runs out, new consumables are sent to you free of charge by post, with enough to return your used cartridges to the manufacturer free of charge.

The lowest subscriptions, which allow you to print around ten pages per month, generally cost less than two euros. It's not much, and receiving ink at home is convenient… But is it really economical? We took out the calculator to try to answer this question. And unfortunately, on closer inspection, you probably have more to lose than to gain, unless you print many pages each month.

Let's take the example of the offer from HP, world leader in the printing market and pioneer of subscription ink delivery services with its Instant Ink offer, which it launched in the mid-2010s. C was smart. Because just like razor manufacturers, who make money not from the sale of handles, but from the sale of new blades, the economic equation of manufacturers of consumer printers is based on the purchase of ink rather than on the equipment, most of the time sold at very low prices. However, this “business” has been particularly disrupted by online sales and the massive arrival of compatible cartridges, much cheaper than the originals. Most printer manufacturers have used and abused hateful DRM to try to curb this competition. Most of the time in vain.

Subscription services solve these problems for printer manufacturers, ensuring your loyalty by becoming your one and only ink supplier, at the prices they choose.

Instant Ink: cheaper than official cartridges, but…

“Save up to 70% with HP Instant Ink” can we read on the company's website. And it's true: a few quick calculations are enough to understand that Instant Ink packages have a lower cost per page than official cartridges. But we come from a very long way away, as you will realize!

Demonstration: we took as an example the price of HP 305 cartridges, the best-selling model on Amazon, which equips certain “cheap” printers of the brand.

An HP 305 black ink cartridge (in XL format) can print, according to HP, up to 240 pages, and is sold for around 27 euros. As for the color cartridge, it has a capacity of 200 pages and costs 25 euros. That is to say a cost per black and white page of €0.11 and €0.13 for color. It's a lot.

In contrast, Instant Ink prices start at €2.99 for ten pages per month, or a cost per page of €0.15. It's still very expensive, but a little less than the combined cost per page of a commercially purchased ink and color cartridge.

As you can see, the cost per page of the Instant Ink subscription logically goes down on the most expensive packages, until reaching a very reasonable price of 4 cents per page for the 700 page package: that's 83 % cheaper than with official cartridges! But you have to pay €27.99 per month for this, and therefore have serious printing needs.

We had fun making another comparison by choosing, again on Amazon, a set of “compatible” (in other words unofficial) HP 305 cartridges well rated by consumers. The lot, sold for 40 euros, promises a yield of 600 pages in black and white and 450 pages in color. That’s a total cost per page of 8 cents.

Result: our “compatible” cartridges are 87% less expensive than the most affordable Instant Ink package… HP's service only becomes interesting from the 100 page plan, billed at €6.99 per month.

Our calculation method necessarily has some biases. For example, HP very often offers six months of free use, which can reduce the cost per page of Instant Ink. Furthermore, a mechanism for carrying over unused pages from one month to the next can also have a positive impact. But one thing is certain: unless you print a lot, purchasing compatible cartridges will always be more interesting than subscribing to Instant Ink.

Pay attention to the small lines…

Especially since there are other constraints, clearly mentioned in the conditions of use of the service. First, Instant Ink requires you to maintain a permanent connection between your printer and HP's servers, in order to monitor pages consumed. If your connection is cut, your printer will no longer work.

Instant Ink also changes the status of your cartridges, which no longer belong to you once you subscribe. Indeed, if for one reason or another you no longer wish to use Instant Ink, these cartridges will no longer work, even if there is still ink inside. You will have to return them to HP and purchase new ones. Another important point: it is impossible to use cartridges other than those supplied by HP as long as you subscribe to Instant Ink. Your printer will not allow this.

Finally, it is better to understand what is hidden behind the term “pages consumed” before giving in. Whether you print an A4 photo or three black and white characters in draft mode, the page will be deducted from your package. A double-sided print also counts as two pages. Furthermore, if you exceed your monthly page quota, you will have to pay full price for additional impressions. Allow €1 for each additional 10 or 20 pages.

Brother, Canon, Epson… Instant Ink has made small

We mentioned HP's service in this article, but its competitors have also embraced the subscription system. Canon, Epson, Brother or Lexmark in fact offer offers that work more or less identically. But like good challengers, they are trying to make an effort on their prices, all of which are generally lower than those of HP.

As we can see in these comparative tables, the cost per page of these services never exceeds €0.10 for the cheapest subscriptions, and can drop to €0.03 on certain packages. As with HP, they can be interesting if you print a lot (especially photos) and regularly.

But you will be subject to the same constraints, in particular the obligation to keep your printer connected to the Internet, and to obtain cartridges from the manufacturer of your equipment. It is therefore advisable to check, before subscribing, the cost per page of official and compatible cartridges, if any exist for your printer.