Am I asking the impossible, my HP Photosmart printer is working fine, but the ink costs are going through the roof. Are there any other options or recommendations?

Can’t go to laser, my wife uses it to print on cloth.

HP with instant ink subscription (or whatever it’s called).

I’m planning on switching over to it once our current ink runs out.

HP instant ink here. Cheaper, and dramatically so if you want to print photos. We don’t notice the cost at all, less than the price of a coffee, and we print all we want without ever having to worry about ink. Superb idea, and I’ve no idea how HP make money from it but I’m guessing they do.

another plus for instant ink.
think ours is 500 pages/month for about £12.99
normally my older cartridges would be lucky to do 300 pages and cost more

I will investigate, thanks.

Superb idea, and I’ve no idea how HP make money from it but I’m guessing they do.

I assume it’s because there’s a reliable income stream from subscribers?

not relevant but Oh so relevant

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-technology/science-less-than-a-decade-away-from-fully-operational-printer-20190601186215

I assume it’s because there’s a reliable income stream from subscribers?

Of course, yes. What I should have said was that I’d be interested to see the economics of it. Traditionally, printers are loss leaders so they sell the printer at a loss and recoup the money through cartridges. But I’m wondering if this business model is failing because people now think ‘well sod buying cartridges for £45 I’ll get a new printer for £50’. This would eat into your profits a lot – better to have people keep the printer for years and just pay you £3/mo. I should add the Instant Ink compatible printer was a bit more expensive than the cheapest HP one.

I’ve seen people say they print photos with these instant ink subs but the printers I looked at all seemed limited to 6×4 inch photos , am I missing something?

You can buy A4 glossy photo paper, it just won’t be edge to edge print like you can with 6×4.

I don’t know of a reason I can’t print A4 photos. I’ll try it out later.

I tried printing an a4 on a hp machine.

Printed fine… Well… It put ink on the page just fine it did not however dry in any way and the picture sort of slid down the page getting blurrier and browner as it travelled south.

I just refill my Canon cartridges with ink from https://www.octopus-office.de/shop/en/

Either the Epson or Canon mega or supertank printers. I’m partial to Canon because I’ve always found them reliable with very good print quality

So it’s a no to bigger photos then It appears

HP Instant ink, the cartridges last ages which shows what a rip of the normal nearly empty ones you buy are.

Either the Epson or Canon mega or supertank printers. I’m partial to Canon because I’ve always found them reliable with very good print quality

We have one of the Epson printers that takes bottled ink. Not sure it’s any cheaper than alternatives (and it probably isn’t cheaper than the laser we had that went through three cartridges in ten years) but bottles seem greener than cartridges.

I’d had Canon printers for years before this and would’ve bought theirs again if the ink tank printers had been available at the time.

I’d always go Canon over Epson.

My Canon will warn you that the ink is running out but will happily chug away for a considerable time before it actually needs replacing.

The previous Epson flat out refused to print anything once the cartridge was down to a third full. And when I say refused, it wouldn’t print a bloody black and white letter if the cyan catridge was flaged up. No ifs, buts or any other persuading. Always fun, that was.

HP Instant ink, the cartridges last ages which shows what a rip of the normal nearly empty ones you buy are.

So much this – they even say on the pack ‘these are bigger to save the environment ‘ so WTF don’t they (and others) do that normally – because it isn’t economical to do it. However the instant ink deal is great and we use it.

HP and instant ink here. Gave up after years and years of trying to use copy cartridges and refills.

We pay something stupid like £1.99 a month as we don’t do that much printing. But it’s really worth it to have a printer that just works when you need it. If you print a bit more they just charge you a bit more that month.

And the cartridges that come with the machine are about half the size of the ones they subsequently send out!

We have one of the Epson printers that takes bottled ink. Not sure it’s any cheaper than alternatives (

They are significantly more expensive to buy in the first place but at the moment tend to be be the higher end models, so that’s a bit of a wash. The ink cost about .03c b & w and .9c colour (source was US). Someone (arstechnica maybe?) Figured out the average user would start saving money after about 20 months, given the higher up front costs.