5 Simple Tips to Cut the Cost of Printing

Printing costs money. You might not have noticed quite how much before when you were living at home and buying ink cartridges was a job for dad.

Ink actually costs so much money now that it’s more expensive than a decent bottle of Champagne or designer perfume.

The reality is that the technology companies that make printers hardly make any profit on the printer itself, so make their money with the cartridges. It’s a catch 22 situation – the printer is a ‘bargain’ but the ink soon adds up to more than you paid in the first place.

Some cunning companies even give you a half-full set of cartridges when you buy the printer, a cheeky tactic but it’s not illegal so they can get away with it.



To try and cut down your printing costs as a student so you have more cash to spend on other things (like a new iPhone), we’ve listed our top tips below.


#1) If you haven’t bought the printer yet, try and void buying one with tri-colour cartridges. If you do, you’ll have to replace the whole cartridge even if two out of the three colours still have plenty of ink.

#2) Check your current printer settings (the default printing option) and make sure it’s always set to ‘draft mode’. You’ll use half as much ink and the time it takes to print a page will also be reduced drastically (perfect if you’re printing out an essay)

#3) Print in Grayscale where you can. Colour cartridges usually cost about 30% more than the standard blank ink cartridges. Unless you’re printing out photos from last night’s antics, black and white should do in most cases (and usually looks more professional on documents)

#4) Don’t buy the official manufacturer’s cartridges if you have avoid it. You can buy what are known as ‘compatible’ ink cartridges for about a third of the price from companies like Cartridge Monkey or Cartridge People.

#5) Check for a voucher code before you order the cartridges. Most of the resellers regularly run promotions for 10% off your first order or a set amount of based on a minimum amount spent. Just search ‘ink’ in our Search Box and you’ll find all of the promotions currently available across the site.