Home office, cost per page
Cost per page: ink vs compatible vs toner
Printer ink is one of the few products where the machine is deliberately sold below what it is worth so the consumable can be sold above it. Once the printer is divided across its own lifetime the ranking survives, but the gaps get a lot smaller than the cartridge prices suggest.
Some links on this page are affiliate links, which earn us a commission if you buy. It costs you nothing extra, and it never changes which option comes out cheapest here, because the ranking is arithmetic. How this works.
The ranking, and how far apart it really is
The inkjet, compatible cartridge costs 5.39p a page and the inkjet, original standard cartridge costs 11.7p, a factor of 2.2. Across 600 pages a year that is £38 a year between the top and the bottom of the same table.
| Option | Running | Cost per page | Relative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inkjet, compatible cartridge£6 cartridge, 300 pages | 2.05p | 5.39p | |
| Mono laser, high yield toner£60 toner, 2,600 pages | 2.39p | 5.96p | |
| Inkjet, original XL cartridge£38 cartridge, 600 pages | 6.38p | 9.72p | |
| Inkjet, original standard cartridge£25 cartridge, 300 pages | 8.38p | 11.7p |
Two things in that table surprise people. The laser uses more electricity per page than any inkjet, because a fuser has to physically melt toner onto paper and an inkjet only has to squirt. It is still the cheapest option overall, because electricity is a rounding error next to ink. And the compatible cartridge beats the laser, narrowly, once the cheaper machine is divided in.
Where the money actually goes
The printer is barely visible in either sum. On the inkjet it is 3.3p of a page and on the laser 3.6p, and neither is what decides the answer. The cartridge decides the answer, every time, which is exactly how the pricing is designed to work.
The yield number is doing more work than the price
A cartridge price on its own tells you nothing. A £25 cartridge rated at 300 pages is dearer per page than a £38 cartridge rated at 600, and the second one looks more expensive on the shelf. Page yield is printed on the box and is measured to a standard, ISO/IEC 19752 for toner and 24711 for ink, both at 5% coverage.
Roughly a page of double spaced text. If you print dense tables, dark headers or anything with a background fill, your real yield will be well under the rated one and every figure here rises together. The ranking does not change, because it scales all four options the same way.
Why compatible cartridges are not a free lunch
They are genuinely a quarter of the price and for ordinary text printing most people cannot tell the difference. What you are trading is consistency between batches, occasional chip and firmware fights after a printer update, and the manufacturer's willingness to help you if something goes wrong. Whether that trade is worth 6.33p a page is a judgement rather than a calculation, and this site is only equipped to give you the 6.33p.
The case the arithmetic will not make for you
An inkjet that sits unused clogs, and clearing a blocked head can burn through a significant part of a cartridge. If you print a handful of pages a month, an inkjet's real cost per page is far higher than anything in the table above, because a chunk of every cartridge goes on maintenance cycles rather than paper. A laser has no equivalent failure mode. That, rather than the pence, is the strongest argument for a laser in a house that prints rarely.
The verdict
If you print more than a few hundred pages a year, a mono laser is the cheapest and the least temperamental, and the toner will still be working in three years. If you print in colour occasionally, keep the inkjet and buy XL cartridges rather than standard ones, which takes about 2.05p off every page for no change in behaviour at all. Buying original standard cartridges is the one option with nothing to recommend it.
Put your own numbers in
Prefilled with an inkjet using original ink. Swap in your own cartridge price and page yield and the working updates.
Cost per meal
Set the purchase price to zero for the running cost alone.
Questions
Is a laser printer cheaper than an inkjet?
Per page, yes. A high yield mono toner works out around 2.05p a page against 8.38p for an original inkjet cartridge, and the laser also avoids the clogging that wastes ink in a printer used rarely.
How much does one printed page cost in the UK?
Between 5.39p and 11.7p for black text at 5% coverage, depending entirely on which cartridge you buy. Electricity is under a tenth of a penny either way.
Are compatible ink cartridges worth it?
On cost, clearly. They run around a quarter of the price of the manufacturer's own. You trade some batch to batch consistency and the risk of a firmware update rejecting the chip.
Do XL cartridges save money?
Yes, and it is the easiest saving available if you want to stay with original ink. A £38 XL rated at 600 pages is 6.33p a page against 8.38p for a £25 standard rated at 300.
Does the printer itself matter to the cost per page?
Barely. Divided across its life the machine adds around 3p to 4p a page on these assumptions, and the cartridge choice swings the answer by far more.
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More home office costs, or read how we work these out.
Prices used on this page
- Electricity, 26.11p per kWh. Ofgem price cap, direct debit, average of England, Scotland and Wales, including 5% VAT.. Ofgem energy price cap unit rates and standing charges. Checked 22 August 2026.