Have you ever wondered why printer ink is so expensive? The average price of 1 ounce of black printer ink was about $18.07 in 2010, which comes out to around $1042.86 per gallon! This makes for an expensive household item, since the average home needs two cartridges each year. Getting cheap printer ink has become a dream in this age.
Printer ink is actually one of the most expensive liquids that you can buy, second only to medicines like HIV drugs that cost $24500 per ounce. There are many rumors about printer ink pricing that circulate on the internet. Many websites claim that the costs go up because they are structured like this:
– Manufacturers of printers pay a certain fee to the manufacturer of ink.
– The manufacturers of printers sell their printers for significantly less than they cost to produce so that customers will buy more ink over time, increasing the profits of the printer company and increasing revenue for ink manufacturers.
– Printer companies require you to use only official printer ink in your printer, so that you have no choice but to re-buy the ink after a while.
– In order for printer companies to motivate their customers to use third party inks, they charge extra for the official ink.
These claims are all false! Printer manufacturers do not make much money from printers because it is a cheap piece of technology—a profit margin of 3% is thought to be good. Because the printer itself costs so little, manufacturers actually lose money from each sale and rely on reoccurring ink sales for revenue. The prices even out after a few years because printers are designed to last fewer than six years.
The real reason printer ink is so expensive is because of patents. In the United States, patents last for 20 years from when they are applied for. Patents ensure that a company can have a monopoly on their innovation for a long time and will not have to worry about competitors undercutting them with lower prices. Patents allow companies to set their own price instead of having to compete in the free market, allowing them to set their own prices for printer ink.
These patents are why you can only buy Epson printer ink from an Epson store, HP printer ink from an HP store, or Canon printer ink from a Canon store. The patent laws keep third-party companies out of the market and allow manufacturers to sell higher quantities. You might think that this would increase competition and push consumer prices down, but alas: patents also allow manufacturers to take legal action against competitors who illegally try to undercut them with lower prices. Because of these risks, many companies cannot even afford to make generic versions of popular products like printers and ink cartridges because it is not worth the risk of going into court against major corporations. Therefore, the need of cheap printer ink has become highly crucial and the companies should come forward that provide printer inks at an affordable price.