HP instant ink

Katykat

At present I have the 15 page a month subscription. It’s generally enough for me but I’m moving house & its generation more print work. If I increase my subscription for the duration of the legal work, is it possible ( or how easy) to go back to my original package?

neilmcl

Easy enough to move plans, however do you really need to. You are aware that every plan has a roll over, your plan for example allows up to 45 pages per month roll over so you may well have pages to spare. 

silvercar

it’s easy to change, I do it every time I’ve used up my rollover free pages and can see I’m hitting the limit. You need to be aware that moving up to a more expensive tariff you can execute immediately, dropping down you can only choose to happen for the following month. Also the free tariff disappears once you have moved to a paid one. The lowest one I have is £1.99 a month.

PaisleyBuddy51

HP INSTANT INK
I signed up for HP Instant Ink in January 2019.  I print vast numbers of pages and their top number of 700 per month is not nearly enough, so I run over every month, sometimes by more than 700 pages.  By September 2020, I began to think that this plan was costing me more than it would if I bought ink when I ran out, so I did the maths.
The 700 pages cost me £17.99. This works out at 2.57p per page, which is less than the cost per page for plans with fewer pages.. The extra pages are £1  for 20, which is 5p each. Between 8 Jan 2019 and 7 Sept 2020 I paid a total of £547.83 for this 'money saving plan'. I should add that my printing decreased greatly between April 2020 and September 2020 due to the pandemic, so I had a large number of roll over pages available. 
My printer uses HP 953XL cartridges. Based on the price of these on the HP website and the number of pages they claim each cartridge will print, the cost per page works out like this. Black ink costs £47.99 and they claim it prints 2000 pages. This works out at 2.3p per page - cheaper than Instant Ink.  My colour cartridges cost £31.99 and they claim they print 1600 pages. This works out at exactly 2p per page - cheaper than Instant Ink. I have to say I am not sure if I should multiply this by 3 to account for the 3 colour cartridges, but read on, if you will.   
As I reached my limit of 700 pages I would receive an email informing me of the situation. On 5 September 2020 this email told me that I could 'easily print all the pages I need at great value. Each additional 20 pages is just £1.' I was told that I was saving 'approximately £915 per year on an average of 1039 pages per month, based on the last 12 months of my personal print history.' This is a lower number of pages than normal because my work situation had been adversely affected by the pandemic. By this time I couldn't believe I was saving anything.
I am self-employed and keep all business receipts. In tax year 2017/18 I spent £149.95 on buy-as-you-go HP ink, albeit different cartridges for a different HP printer. I didn't buy from the HP website because there are cheaper retailers. How could they dare to suggest that I was saving £915 a year by using Instant Ink? 
On two occasions I reported an abridged version of the above to the Advertising Standards Authority, but I have had no response from them. In my opinion HP are telling downright lies.  I feel I have proof of this but it appears that the ASA is not interested.          

CoastingHatbox

> I didn't buy from the HP website because there are cheaper retailers.
Just out of interest, were you using HP original ink/cartridges?

I read that HP are changing the business model, making the printers cheaper with an ink subscription and more expensive without.

I took out HP Instant Ink with a printer I bought my Mum a few years ago. It has actually worked out quite well, because now she regularly uses the because the ink is paid for and she has no worry of it running out. Not once since she has had that printer have I had to deal with issues caused by dried out print heads. I think the extra cost of low volume printing is mitigated by the reduced hassle.

Sorry for the slight thread hijack, can't add anything else relevant to what has already been said.

IvanOpinion

PaisleyBuddy51 said:

HP INSTANT INK
I signed up for HP Instant Ink in January 2019.  I print vast numbers of pages and their top number of 700 per month is not nearly enough, so I run over every month, sometimes by more than 700 pages.  By September 2020, I began to think that this plan was costing me more than it would if I bought ink when I ran out, so I did the maths.
The 700 pages cost me £17.99. This works out at 2.57p per page, which is less than the cost per page for plans with fewer pages.. The extra pages are £1  for 20, which is 5p each. Between 8 Jan 2019 and 7 Sept 2020 I paid a total of £547.83 for this 'money saving plan'. I should add that my printing decreased greatly between April 2020 and September 2020 due to the pandemic, so I had a large number of roll over pages available. 
My printer uses HP 953XL cartridges. Based on the price of these on the HP website and the number of pages they claim each cartridge will print, the cost per page works out like this. Black ink costs £47.99 and they claim it prints 2000 pages. This works out at 2.3p per page - cheaper than Instant Ink.  My colour cartridges cost £31.99 and they claim they print 1600 pages. This works out at exactly 2p per page - cheaper than Instant Ink. I have to say I am not sure if I should multiply this by 3 to account for the 3 colour cartridges, but read on, if you will.   
As I reached my limit of 700 pages I would receive an email informing me of the situation. On 5 September 2020 this email told me that I could 'easily print all the pages I need at great value. Each additional 20 pages is just £1.' I was told that I was saving 'approximately £915 per year on an average of 1039 pages per month, based on the last 12 months of my personal print history.' This is a lower number of pages than normal because my work situation had been adversely affected by the pandemic. By this time I couldn't believe I was saving anything.
I am self-employed and keep all business receipts. In tax year 2017/18 I spent £149.95 on buy-as-you-go HP ink, albeit different cartridges for a different HP printer. I didn't buy from the HP website because there are cheaper retailers. How could they dare to suggest that I was saving £915 a year by using Instant Ink? 
On two occasions I reported an abridged version of the above to the Advertising Standards Authority, but I have had no response from them. In my opinion HP are telling downright lies.  I feel I have proof of this but it appears that the ASA is not interested.          

There are a couple of things worth considering n your calculation above.
- the stated number of pages are a bit like mpg figures - you rarely achieve them.  The figures are usually based on something like 5% page coverage - so it depends on what you are actually printing.
- Do you know how many pages you printed in 2017/2018 in comparison?

Given that you go over by double, this plan possibly isn't the best value for you.  It might even be that the printer is not the best one for you.

missile

I terminated my instant ink contract. I disconnected Wifi to stop HP making my cartridges un-useable. Now every time I print I get a message. It is a bit of a pain. I hope by deleting and reinstalling HP drivers I might eliminate this. Has anyone done this?

neilmcl

If you terminate your HP Ink subscription then why do you think you can still continue to use the supplied cartridges?

I can't see why reinstalling the driver would have any affect, you need to revert to standard HP ink cartridges or just live with the warning message.

missile

neilmcl said:

If you terminate your HP Ink subscription then why do you think you can still continue to use the supplied cartridges?

I can't see why reinstalling the driver would have any affect, you need to revert to standard HP ink cartridges or just live with the warning message.

I suspect this is a software issue. I doubt the cartridges supplied with instant ink are any different to standard. 

neilmcl

missile said:

neilmcl said:

If you terminate your HP Ink subscription then why do you think you can still continue to use the supplied cartridges?

I can't see why reinstalling the driver would have any affect, you need to revert to standard HP ink cartridges or just live with the warning message.

I suspect this is a software issue. I doubt the cartridges supplied with instant ink are any different to standard. 

If that were the case and as simple as a software reset then everyone who wanted a cheap or even free set of HP ink cartridges would simply sign up to HP Instant Ink then cancel as soon as they got their cartridges. Also, how does the printer recognise they are genuine cartridges rather than compatibles, there must be something on the printer head circuit that enables this.

missile

You may be right. I was hoping for a response from someone who knows rather than speculation.