Do compatible toners cost more than originals?

Reading The Economist recently, I noticed an advert placed by HP stating that compatible toners cost up to twice as much over time than original HP toners, despite a 42% price differential.  At Expense Reduction Analysts, one recommendation we often make to our clients is to try using compatible toners to achieve cost reductions.  The quality of advice I give is important to me, so I thought I should look into this claim further.

I have downloaded and read the study upon which this claim is made and have some concerns over its usefulness for the purposes of making recommendations to my clients.

For a start, it was commissioned by HP which suggests that a degree of bias is possible.

The study has reviewed 8 different brands of compatible toners, 6 sourced in Europe, 2 in the US.  I have only heard of two of them, despite having worked on stationery cost reduction projects for our clients for five years now. Two different printers and associated black cartridges were compared for each of these brands. As the study is not very wide-ranging, it is possible that both the brands and the printers were chosen with a view to producing particular results.

If you take the best two alternative brands, the quality is much closer to HP originals’ than the other six (although still lower). The results published in the study do not specify which brand is which, so we can’t tell which brands performed well.

The print quality grading was done according to a methodology developed by HP, which may not be relevant to how our clients use their printers.

The study provides figures for print quality and reliability, but does not provide any detailed information about how they have reached their conclusion that compatibles cost twice as much as originals. No detailed costings have been provided.

And finally, the study is 18 months old, which to my mind makes it pretty out-of-date considering how quickly things can change.

So, if all of these points make me question the usefulness of this data for our purposes, where does that leave us?  Most of my clients who use compatible cartridges are very happy with the results and associated cost reductions. I have other clients who have had a mixed response. Therefore, I would continue to recommend that clients trial compatible cartridges and see how well they perform in their particular business environment. There will be a small time investment at the trial stages, but no outlay for any sub-standard cartridges – I do not know of any stationery supplier who would not refund against a faulty product. And when the price differential is so huge between original cartridges and compatibles, the potential cost reductions could make this small amount of effort very worthwhile.