I’m guessing it was always the long term goal, suck users in and then then charge.

Am I missing something – it was never free, just x amount of free months given away with printers?

When was it free after the initial trial?

Seems they’ve sensibly reduced the minimum plan. Thanks for the heads up I’m going to change to that.

The most basic plan was free up until now. I hardly use mine as anything meaty gets printed off at work.

I think the extra pages have gone up a lot haven’t they? It used to be the same amount as your monthly sub for a smaller amount of cash, didn’t it?

Really? I’ve never seen the free offer the cheapest was the £1.99 offer I’ve just checked and that’s still the cheapest I can get.

I get 10 pages per month for free, which is usually enough.

Well, I used to get that…

Different printers offered different deals – the more expensive / office type printers never offered the free plan

Ah! That’s quite possible but mine is cheap home printer.

All the home printers had a free ten page per a month plan… hoping you’d print more than 10 and pay for extra pages. Was useful for people with two printers… one for B&W and one for occasional colour use. It stopped being offered for new users quite a while back though, at least that’s what I recall when I looked into it and set my mum’s up in the spring.

It must have been awhile back as I’ve had mine for about 4 years, makes no sense.

A quick google… first sponsored “result” is an ad for a 15 page a month free plan…

https://instantink.hpconnected.com/uk/en/l/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0LqS6uO-7AIVCYBQBh05ZQU9EAAYASAAEgI1a_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Perhaps you signed up before they offered that Drac? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t available in the Spring either… perhaps they use it in campaigns, but hide it away when setting the printer up? Or perhaps they only have it when they have a slump in sales? Dunno.

I just bought one of these yesterday and set it up. I can confirm whilst setting it up there was no free 10 pages a month option so signed up for the minimum £1.99 per month.

Its a bit unfair though when they claim 6 months free.

I must have I signed up April 2017 according to my emails.

Kelvin, that free option wasn’t there when I was setting it up yesterday!

Suspicious. There was a free plan when I ordered a printer for my mum, but not when I got around to setting it I for her. I thought I’d just left it too late… wondering now if the free plan is hidden away on set up… with some tiny smallprint link to it, or something.

When I got mine at the start of lockdown I had 5 months free. If I chose one of the lower tiers I could have “free” printing as an option om expiry but if I went for the higher tiers then after the trial was up I had to have a paid sub. I opted for the higher tier as I expected to have to take advantage of a lot of work and home school printing. I can live with the £2 as long as the print quality remains OK.

Ah! I wonder if that’s what I did.

When we bought ours around start of lockdown we got a voucher for credit which we could put towards whichever plan we choose but would have covered 2 years on the 3.49 plan, currently on 50page plan as kids back at school so might end up with more than 2 years worth. considering the printer was 130 with 50 cash back and 2 year warranty I was pretty happy with 40/yr for free printing no hassle

No 99p option on my account. 🙁

I won’t bother updating my payment details until I need to print travel docs again.

I applied a £74 credit to my account in April 2017. I must have printed a whole tree’s worth almost immediately as I got a set of cartridges shipped the same day and haven’t had any since then.
I paid £99 for my printer in the sale and dropped to the cheapest tariff ASAP. I’ve since paid 8 quid.

From joining email June 2019

Congratulations! You have successfully enrolled in HP Instant Ink.

You can now print up to 15 pages a month for free and get ink delivered to your door before you need it.

Are inkjet printers still crap and in need of 3 pages running through before it prints properly if you eave it over a couple of weeks?

I’ve just bought a new printer only today after lasting years without one at home. Gone for a b/w sub £100 laser and will use a £18 after market toner refill in about 18 months when the factory toner runs out.

We’ll only need to use it for letters and address labels so decided against a full colour inkjet on the scheme thing.

Yeah, I have a B&W laser, as I’m done with blocking print heads. My Mum’s cheap HP prints very nicely though, it must be said. Time will tell if it stays that way… good at six months in though.

Can’t say it’s something I’ve noticed ours can go over a month without printing but I’m not after high quality.

Are inkjet printers still crap and in need of 3 pages running through before it prints properly if you eave it over a couple of weeks?

No

Any good deals about on these printers?

Picked up a cheap £40 HP colour inkjet a couple of weeks ago.

Had to jump through hoops but did eventually get 15pg/month free. Had previously registered my email with HP in lockdown but to add the printer to that account seemed like a right pain and no way to do it via Android app from what I recall.

I think I’ signed up to 100 pages/month, but still getting it free as got a year with the printer

Thread hijack…

has anyone ever bought a replacement instant ink printer when already using the service?
We have a very cheap one that cost £20 with a 3 month trial a couple of years ago. Signed up for the 300 page/£7.99 one and effectively got a free printer. But now it’s struggling and generally being cheap and useless.
My plan is to replace it with this one from Argos. 12 months free subsciption, so effectively another free printer.

However, as an existing customer do I qualify for the 12 months free or will they squirm out of it? If so, how do I got about doing it? Or, am I better off cancelling my subsciption and starting a new account in my wife’s name?

Back to free again

We previously notified you that the plan for your Envy 5010 would be changing, but as a valued customer, you can now continue printing up to 15 pages/month at no charge for the life of your printer1.

We understand that printing at home is essential in today’s world, and hope that your HP Instant Ink plan will continue to make life a little easier for you.

Your current plan includes:
Up to 15 pages/month at no charge
Each additional set of 10 pages costs £1
Unused free pages do not roll over

No action is needed to continue with your current plan. If your needs change, you have the option to upgrade2 to any of the plans shown below by logging into your account at hpinstantink.com/signin and clicking Change Plan.

MONTHLY PLANS PLAN FEE EXTRA PAGE SETS UNUSED PAGE ROLLOVER
50 pages £1.99 10 pages for £1 Up to 150 pages
100 pages £3.49 10 pages for £1 Up to 300 pages
300 pages £9.99 10 pages for £1 Up to 900 pages
500 pages £16.49 10 pages for £1 Up to 1500 pages
700 pages £22.49 15 pages for £1 Up to 2100 pages
1500 pages £44.99 15 pages for £1 Up to 4500 pages
Thank you for choosing HP Instant Ink!