How prices per page are computed

The price on the box says little about what printing costs. A cheap cartridge that prints 120 pages is often dearer per page than an XL that prints 400. This site turns every Amazon ink, toner and ink-bottle listing into the price of the same thing — 100 printed pages — and ranks by that.

The price column

Every category is quoted per 100 pages at the page yield the manufacturer states for the cartridge. Yields are measured under ISO standards at a coverage of about five percent per page, roughly a page of plain text:

Ink, toner and bottles are never ranked against each other: they fit different printers. Five percent coverage is the test convention, not a promise or a discount — photos and dense documents use more ink — but every cartridge is measured the same way, so the comparison between two of them holds.

Packs: one colour multiplies, a set of colours adds up

A pack of identical cartridges prints its yield times the pack size: two TN-2420 toners at 3,000 pages each are 6,000 pages. A set of different colours is different. An “HP 305 Black + Tri-colour” two-pack prints 120 pages of black and 100 of colour, so it is priced over 120 + 100 = 220 pages — all cartridges summed, never one cartridge’s yield multiplied. Such sets live in their own multipack categories, so a colour set is never ranked against a single black cartridge. A set filed anywhere else is listed without a price per page.

The Yield column and the highlights

Yield is the ISO page count of one cartridge as the listing states it; more is better. Mixed-colour sets have none (their cartridges differ). Best value marks the lowest price per page among in-stock listings in the selected category that match your filters, across all result pages; Highest yield marks the most pages per cartridge. Tied winners share the highlight, and a lone listing gets no badge.

What is estimated, and what never is

A yield is never invented. When a listing does not state one, the row is listed and sorted by its package price, without a price per page. There is one exception: an original cartridge whose listing names its series and colour (“HP 305XL Black Original”) is priced on the manufacturer’s published yield for that series from our table. Those prices are marked ~, and “Hide estimates” removes them. A pack count that rests on a bare “x2” is marked the same way.

Never estimated:

• the yield of a compatible or remanufactured cartridge — it is the seller’s statement or nothing;
• an XL yield — XL is printed on the box as a number, never assumed to be “double”;
• a yield from millilitres — ml is not pages;
• print speed or duty cycle — “20 ppm” and “5,000 pages per month” describe the printer, not the cartridge;
• the composition of a multipack that does not state its cartridges’ yields.

Where the numbers come from

Pack sizes and yields are read from the listing itself: the title (“2 Toner kompatibel für Brother TN2420 (3.000 Seiten)” → 2 × 3,000 pages), and, where the product page has been read, the description and product information. Every number read from a product page must come with the exact words it was read from, or it is dropped. Prices outside a plausible range for their technology (for ink, half a cent to a dollar a page) are treated as misreads and not ranked. Drums, waste-toner boxes, printheads, refill kits, paper and printers are never listed.

Data freshness & countries

Prices are refreshed weekly for each of ten Amazon storefronts, each a separate catalog in its own currency; the date above the table shows the last update. Prices and availability change at any time — what Amazon shows at checkout is what applies.

Affiliate disclosure

Product links carry an Amazon Associates tag. As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. Rankings are computed from the numbers alone and are never sponsored. Printer makers’ names identify which printers a cartridge fits; no manufacturer is affiliated with this site.

Not compatibility advice

“Compatible” is the seller’s claim. Check the series on your printer’s current cartridge, and ask the printer maker or the seller about chips, firmware updates and warranty before buying a third-party cartridge.

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