Why on Earth is printer ink so expensive?

United States
April 21, 2010 4:21pm CST
I have an HP Inkjet printer and even at discount stores, my black ink cartridges are 30 dollars and my color cartridges are 38 dollars. What is going on? Why is printer ink so expensive? You can buy a jar of India ink or whatever for a few bucks, and in terms of quantity, there is more ink in that jar than in a 30 dollar ink cartridge. If you do the math, printer ink ends up being thousands of dollars per gallon. Even in other countries, printer ink is expensive ( http://www.crossprint.de ). Seriously now, what in the world is going on? Is there some crazy complicated refining process that printer ink goes through, or is it just that expensive because people are willing to pay that much?
1 person likes this
2 responses
laydee
@laydee (12798)
• Philippines
22 Apr 10
Whoah, it's that expensive there??? I also use HP and at your black ink cartridges cost ($30) I could already buy both cartridges here. What is happening in your area?? And when I say I buy both cartridges, I mean HP originals. Whew.. I'm not even mentioning the fact that I use refill until the cartridge I bought ceases to work (which is about 2years or more - depending on the use). Which if I compute, the refill is about roughly $2.00 per 60ml.
LeeHolt
@LeeHolt (433)
•
21 Apr 10
Hey, Printing is something that many businesses and single users have come to use, so everynow and then they put a few pennies on the price to make a little bit more money, because they know that so many people use it and rely upon it! At the shop where I buy them from in town, it costs just less than 10 pounds (~20 USD for you) for a black and one of each color. Obviously theese are unbranded ones, but the print quality is exactly the same of the branded and expensive ones! Hope you can find one in your town that sells them at this price! Lee.