Compatible or original toner? What pays off and what to watch

What it is about

An original toner is made by or for the printer maker. A compatible (alternative) toner is a new cartridge made by another company to fit the printer. A third category, the remanufactured cartridge, is an original refilled – and that is the one with the bad reputation that compatible toner then carries unfairly.

Price: where the difference comes from

Printer makers sell printers cheaply and earn on supplies; a compatible maker does not subsidise a printer, so its cartridge is 40–70 % cheaper at the same or higher yield. On a home printer with a few hundred pages a year that is a few hundred crowns; on an office printer with thousands of pages a month it is thousands a year.

Yield: read "pages at 5 % coverage"

"2,900 pages" on a toner means pages with 5 % of the area printed – an ordinary text letter. A table with borders or a slide deck with pictures covers 15–30 % and the toner lasts proportionally less. This applies to original and compatible alike; always compare yield at the same coverage and the price per page, not per cartridge.

Quality: what matters

• Powder and drum. A good compatible toner prints text indistinguishably from the original. The difference may show on large grey areas and photographs, where the original keeps finer gradients.
• New cartridge vs remanufactured. A compatible cartridge from an established maker is new, with a new drum and wiper blade. A remanufactured cartridge of unknown origin may have a worn drum and leak.
• Chip. Most printers monitor the cartridge by chip; compatible cartridges have one and report the level correctly. Rarely, after a printer firmware update, a printer rejects a third-party chip – a serious maker then supplies a cartridge with a new chip.

Printer warranty

Using a compatible toner does not by itself void the printer warranty – the maker may only refuse to repair a fault the cartridge demonstrably caused. Compatible toners in our range carry the cartridge maker's own warranty; a faulty cartridge is claimed with us.

When to buy the original

• The printer is under warranty and prints little – the saving is small, the risk of argument nil.
• You print photographs or graphics where exact colours matter.
• The printer maker offers XL cartridges with a very low price per page (common on ink-tank printers).

When compatible pays off

• Black-and-white text in the office or at home – the vast majority of printing.
• An older printer out of warranty whose original is disproportionately expensive.
• High volumes, where the yearly difference runs to thousands of crowns.

How to pick the right cartridge

The most common mistake is not compatible vs original but the wrong cartridge type – printers of one series often take several cartridges that look alike and differ in yield or region. That is why you choose supplies here by printer model: the printer finder shows only cartridges that belong to it, original and compatible side by side with the price per page. Shelves: Compatible toners, Original toners. Still choosing a printer? Read Which printer pays off.