Good news, the very latest Epson 603, 603XL starfish series cartridges are on their way to us and should be here within a couple of weeks. This is good news for those that want the choice to use alternative types of ink in their Epson printer that uses these series cartridges.
The issue is of course that they are newly released and as you would expect, they are therefore quite costly or are they? Let’s quickly explore that.
We currently supply Epson branded cartridges and a compatible brand of cartridges and using the XL capacity cartridges, we have done a comparison on the cartridge capacities and the price that we sell these cartridges for below. Also included in the comparison, are a set of refillable cartridges supplied with 400ml of archival ink.
Epson branded cartridges.
Price per set £67.00 for 20.9ml of ink
Capacities: Cyan 4ml, Magenta 4ml, Yellow 4ml, Black = 8.9ml.
Cost per ml of ink: £67 / 20.9ml = £3.21
Compatible Cartridges Supplied by HobbyPrint.
Price per set £29.00 for 40ml of ink
Capacities: Cyan 9ml, Magenta 9ml, Yellow 9ml, Black = 13ml.
Cost per ml of ink: £29 / 40ml = £0.73
Refillable Cartridges with 400ml of Archival Supplied by HobbyPrint.
Price per set £77.00 for 400ml of ink
Capacities: Cyan 100ml, Magenta 100ml, Yellow 100ml, Black = 100ml.
Cost per ml of ink: £75/ 400ml = £0.19
This refillable cartridge costing is priced for the first use of the inks. Please bear in mind that when you order the next 400ml of ink to use with the cartridges, the cost changes significantly. The refillable cartridges are already paid for in the first cost. The cost of 400ml of archival ink is £20.00, therefore the cost per ml of ink in this “second phase of use” is:
Cost per ml of ink: £20 / 400ml = £0.05.
We have done the comparison based on a good quality archival ink which is more representative of the ink quality used by Epson. For those that choose to use universal dye ink, which is half the price of archival ink, the costs would change to:
Cartridges and Ink: Cost per ml of ink: £65/ 400ml = £0.16
Ink only: Cost per ml of ink: £10/ 400ml = £0.03
Bearing in mind the savings that you are already making by using Refillable Cartridges with a good quality archival ink, we would recommend that the quality along with the benefits of using archival ink outweigh the cost saving of using a lower cost universal dye ink.
A note on the environment.
Using “single-use” cartridges has an environmental impact in terms of wasted plastic in landfill sites all over the world. Using a refillable cartridge which is designed to and which can be re-filled 20 times or more, reduces the landfill waste by the number of times that you refill. – Worth thinking about!
Savings for all – We save, You Save and the environment saves! Corney but very true.
We hope that this article helps you make the right choice of cartridge and ink that suits your needs and your purse or wallet.