HP instant Ink Price increase

Llanelli66

Has anyone else had their Instant Ink plan increased?

I am on the £1.99 plan and I have never gone over my plan and paid each month. I have just received an email saying my plan is going up from £1.99 to £2.99.

I am still on the first set of inks from HP. Looking on the HP site there is no mention of a price increase. So, I guess this is what they do after so many months.

It will be interesting if anyone else has had a price increase.

  - This message is on HP's own forum, is there anything we can do to make HP know we are not happy. 

flaneurs_lobster

Yep. It's a chunky increase right enough but it's the first increase I've had since I enrolled in 2016. 

If you are not happy then cancel but cost the alternatives first. I'm sure that HP are aware that their customers are not thrilled at this increase.

neilmcl

I've not had an email for my 99p subscription.

EssexExile

I had the email so I downsized to the 99p level, there was no 99p version offered when I joined. Thanks HP for saving me money!

grumpycrab

Its not surprising.  Hook as many people as possible into a plan when its good value, keep it good value for a couple of years then increase charges.  HP will be hoping/expecting most people to stay on a plan.  (It works very well and is super convenient in my experience).

wildroverandy

Yes, got hit by this myself this week too. The HP forum is rife with complaints.

Of course this is all in your agreement, but a 50% increase for, I would guess, the most popular plan (50 pages/mth at £1.99), is nasty.

I’ve done some working out, based on the info that shows the instant ink cartridges have the same part number as the XL cartridges. My usage did work out quite economical under the old price, but falls short with the new price.

The worst part though, is that they’re still selling products and plans based on the old price, only advising of the new price once you’ve bought a printer and subscribed.

For sure we’re not talking about megabucks here, but the principle of it is so wrong. They’re clearly (I’d assume) not breaking any rules, but it’s very unsportsmanlike.

For me it’s not cheaper on the plan, so I have now cancelled, and will go back to buying cartridges as needed.

IvanOpinion

I got the email.  Disappointed at the size of the increase (50%) and think it will be hard for HP to justify it.

However, in the wider scheme of things £1pm is a small amount compared to the increase in my weekly shopping.

grumpycrab

wildroverandy said:... the principle of it is so wrong. They’re clearly (I’d assume) not breaking any rules, but it’s very unsportsmanlike.

But they are a mega-corporation whose goal is to maximise shareholder profit. Sure, they'll lose customers but they'll still make ... mega-bucks from it.

tonygold

i'm on the old £1.99pm plan. i rarely use 50 pages a month but the 99p for 10 pages pm would not be enough. i suppose £36 a year for the ink is ok. it would cost me more to buy 1 of each genuine XL cartridges for this printer which i think at the time cost me around £35 in total.

just-a-consumer

 My concerns are regarding the HP Instant Ink Scheme, a 50% price hike and ONLY advising new printer owners of the increase AFTER their purchase and AFTER registration of their InstantInk service at advertised rates.  While I accept that HP can charge what they like, to be told of an unconscionable 50% price hike in such circumstances is unpalatable.  

On 12 January 2022, I purchased a Hewlett Packard printer from a high street retailer (Currys) after making a careful survey of printer capabilities and features.  I selected an HP 4130 which came supplied with a 9 free month trial of Instant Ink, a scheme whereby my printer would automatically be supplied with ink when running low.  The scheme restricts the user to a monthly page allowance for a monthly fee.  I opted for the £1.99/ 50pages monthly plan.

On 15 Jan 2022 I received an email from HP stating that wef 12 Jan, the cost of my 50page plan would rise from £1.99 to £2.99, a 50% increase.  I queried this with an online HP agent but was not satisfied with the non-response. 

I checked the HP online forum to find that 7 days prior to my purchasing the printer, existing Instant Ink subscribers were receiving price increase emails.  More posts from dissatisfied customers were added in the following days.

I reviewed the HP marketing website and found that HP were still quoting £1.99 per month, as indeed they are today 31 Jan 2022.  No doubt new subscribers would then, after purchase and registration would receive an email re the 50% price increase for the 50 page plan.  

lohr500

In real terms, the extra £1 per month on my £1.99/50 page monthly plan wouldn't break the bank.
But I was very annoyed when I received the email telling me about the price increase which equates to 50%. So I decided to cancel my subscription.

Yesterday I removed the HP Instant Ink cartridges from my Officejet Pro 8620 printer and replaced them with a cheap set of cartridges from Amazon which cost the grand total of £10.99. This price also included a second black cartridge as a spare.

I printed off a test demo page using the genuine HP cartridges before removing them and then printed five test demo pages with the new cartridges in place. To my eyes, there is no difference in quality. 

The cheap cartridges claim to be XL capacity and only time will tell how long they last and if they work OK or clog the print head.

We print on average around 35 pages per month, mostly b/w but with some colour. If the new cartridges last for four months, then they will work out cheaper than the new £2.99 monthly subscription price from HP.

I have a dedicated Canon A3 6 colour photo printer for quality output anyway, so even if the HP print performance deteriorates with the cheap ink, it is no big deal for me.