Inkjet printers have long had a certain criteria that governed your buying decision, and that’s how much inkjet the printer will consume. Because of the high cost of the big box inkjet products, buying the right printer can save you money and avoid inkjet headaches.

Many of the cheaper alternatives out there as far as inkjet printers may use inkjet at a rate that’s far higher than others, even with the same features. Cheaper inkjet printers may use the tricolor cartridge, which combines cyan, magenta and yellow in a small form factor.

This combination of colors may prove useful but could end up costing you a lot of money. When one color runs out, you’ll have to replace the entire cartridge that still has ink in it, which leads to waste and increases your waste.

Higher end inkjet printers utilize separate ink cartridges that isolate each color. This way when you run out of ink, you can simply replace the empty cartridge in question. Some inkjet printers also separate the ink from the head which can save you even more money in the long run.

Because of this disparity between inkjet cartridges and prices, many of the best printers to purchase are business models. These machines are geared towards higher capacity and higher yields as far as ink to paper ratios.

This will of course vary with your usage and how many copies you make a day. Business printers that are capable of handling 2000 print jobs between cartridge changes would be overkill if you only print a few pages a day.

Any way you cut it however, ink from your inkjet printer is quite possibly the most expensive liquid you will ever buy. Because most inks can cost upwards of $13 dollars an ounce, it’s no wonder that many people are conscious of the high cost of the big box inkjet products.

Couple this with the fact that some of your ink doesn’t even get used to print onto paper, but instead used to clean heads or other related maintenance steps, and you begin to see the huge drain on your profits.

According to Consumer Reports and their independent testing with inkjet printers, they’ve found that the wrong model could cost you upwards of $200 dollars of wasted ink a year.

When you are looking for a complete inkjet printing solution, make sure to weigh your possible options to see if other printing technologies might not suit your need better.