Printer Ink Cost Per Page: Ink vs Toner, and Which Cartridges Cost Less

You do not buy ink to own a cartridge. You buy it to print pages. Yet almost every ink listing shouts the sticker price and hides the number that actually decides value: cost per page.

When you divide price by the cartridge's rated page yield, the ranking flips completely. The "expensive" cartridge is often the cheapest, and the bargain-bin cartridge is often the worst deal in the store.

The 40x spread hiding in plain sight

Across the cartridges we track — inkjet and laser toner, genuine and compatible — real cost per page runs from about $0.010 to $0.41 — roughly a 40x difference for what looks, on the shelf, like broadly similar products.

| Cartridge | Type | Rated pages | Price | Cost / page | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Brother LC20EBK Super High Yield | ink | 2,400 | ~$23.99 | ~$0.010 | | TN229XL (compatible for Brother) | toner | 3,000 | ~$69.97 | ~$0.023 | | HP 414X High-Yield | toner | 7,500 | ~$235.89 | ~$0.031 | | HP 962XL Black | ink | 2,000 | ~$63.89 | ~$0.032 | | EPSON 127 DURABrite Ultra Black | ink | 1,000 | ~$33.99 | ~$0.034 | | HP 952XL Black | ink | 2,000 | ~$70.89 | ~$0.035 | | HP 218X High-Yield | toner | 3,200 | ~$114.89 | ~$0.036 | | HP 67XL Black | ink | 240 | ~$35.89 | ~$0.150 |

At the expensive end sit the small standard-yield consumer cartridges: Canon's PG-243 runs about $0.18 per page and the PG-260 XL about $0.41 — the priciest printing we track, from some of the cheapest-looking cartridges on the shelf.

Toner changes the picture

Laser toner looks terrifying at the register — $115 to $236 for a single cartridge — and it is some of the cheapest printing you can buy. High-yield toner rates for 3,200–7,500 pages, which lands it at roughly $0.02–$0.04 per page. If you print a lot, a laser printer fed with high-yield toner beats almost any consumer inkjet on running cost.

The mirror image is the small consumer ink cartridge. The HP 67XL costs a modest ~$36, but at 240 rated pages that is ~$0.15 per page — nearly 5x the per-page cost of the $236 toner cartridge.

And the single cheapest option we track is neither a classic "office" cartridge nor toner: Brother's LC20EBK super-high-yield ink rates for 2,400 pages at about $24, or about a penny a page. High-yield office ink families (HP 962XL, 952XL) follow close behind at $0.032–$0.035.

So the useful rule is: the cartridge's rated yield decides your cost per page far more than the technology, the brand, or the "XL" badge. A machine that takes super-high-yield ink or high-yield toner is positioned for cheap printing; a machine that takes small DeskJet- or PIXMA-class cartridges will cost 5–15x more per page for its whole life — worth remembering before you buy the next printer.

How to actually use this

• Compare per page, not per cartridge. Take the price, divide by the rated page yield printed on the box (or the product page). That single number is your real cost.
• Buy the highest-yield version your printer accepts. Within one cartridge family, the XL or super-high-yield version almost always wins on cost per page.
• Consider toner if you print in volume. High-yield laser toner at $0.02–$0.04 per page beats most ink, despite the three-digit sticker.
• Treat compatible-cartridge yields as claims. They can be genuinely cheap per page, but the yield figures are the seller's, not the printer maker's.
• Factor cost per page into the printer purchase. A cheap printer that only takes tiny, expensive cartridges can cost far more over two years than a pricier one that sips cheap high-yield ink or toner.

We keep the live ranking — every cartridge sorted cheapest-per-page first — on the printer ink category page. Prices move, so confirm the current price on the retailer before buying; the ranking logic (real cost per page) is what stays true.