HP instant ink

Ant555

missile said:

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

We have several printers on instant ink at work and I can confirm that the instant ink cartridges are labelled 'HP Instant Ink' not 'HP Ink Cartridge' and the printer can tell the difference - on the two occasions we terminated an instant ink subscription for a particular printer, the printers were subsequently unable to use the instant ink cartridges.  The chip on the 'instant ink' supplied cartridge must require an internet connection every so often to continue to work.  I can confirm that those instant ink cartridges did work in a different instant ink enabled printer so the cartridges themselves were not disabled, just the printer knew it wasnt on a subscription.  That must mean the chip on the cartridges announces whether its a normal cartridge  or an instant ink cartridge and the software in the printer reacts accordingly
Hope this helps

PaisleyBuddy51

IvanOpinion said:

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.

I understand the points you are making.
  I do not have a page count for the tax year 2017/18, but I do know that after realising that the 700 page plan (the greatest number of pages available) was not sufficient and also realising the financial consequences of going over, I was much more careful about how much printing I did.  My printing is not solid A4 text.  There are many pages with very little on them, so I would say I possibly get more pages to my gallon of ink than the estimates given on the HP website.
In the tax year 2017/18 I bought 3 coloured cartridges and 2 black cartridges, costing me a total of £149.95. Whereas, in the tax year 2019/20 I paid £460.88 for Instant Ink, for 12,888 pages, which, as explained above, might well have been fewer pages than in 2017/18.
In 4 consecutive months of Instant ink I printed 1511 pages, costing £57.99; 1383 pages, costing £51.99; 1700 pages, costing £67.99; and 1540 pages, costing £59.99. This comes to £237.96 for my busiest period, and it cost me 1.5 times the entire printing costs in 2017/18. I do accept that I cannot compare like with like, and no doubt the cost of cartridges will have increased.
The previous printer, used in tax year 2017/18, was the HP OfficeJet Pro 8720. The one I bought in Jan 2019, and simultaneously signed up to the Instant Ink, is the HP OfficeJet Pro 8725. They seem like similar printers, with similar but possibly not identical cartridges, but am no expert on the details of different printers. I need a back to back printer that will hold a large number of sheets in the paper tray, so that is what I buy!

PaisleyBuddy51

neilmcl said:

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.

When you cancel you still have to pay at the end of that billing period.  I cancelled part way through a billing period.  I had been told during a phone call with an HP representative that the cartridges would not work after I cancelled, but was surprised to find that they did.  What I hadn't taken on board was that when I thought I had cancelled, I had really only given them notice that I would be leaving at the end of that billing period. At the end of the billing period they stopped working. 

mksysb

Maybe you should bin the HP printer and get one with refillable tanks, such as an epson, or if you don't need the photo-colour printing of an inkjet then get a laser printer.

RumRat

Laser may be the way to go, apparently I read that the epson tank printers worked out more than the HP instant ink. Or, maybe, even storing the invoices or whatever digitally, instead of wasting valuable planet resources.