Help me find a good, inexpensive place to buy HP toner cartridges

October 7, 2012 10:17 AM

Best place to buy replacement toner cartridges for home HP Laser printer? Buying the HP toner costs arm and/or leg at your typical big box stores. Would like to find a cheaper, reputable place to buy toner. Can't find one among all the sketchy places that look like cheaptoner.biz and buy-toner-from-us.com. Please help
posted by unceman to Technology (7 answers total)

I always buy re-manufactured/off-brand toner cartridges from Amazon, or from a third party selling from Amazon. I just look for mostly positive reviews.

I've never had a problem with this approach to saving on toner.

Alternatively, if you want a company that will stand behind what they sell, try Cartridge World. They have lots of local franchises, but also sell online. They're a bit more expensive, but are still far cheaper than HP branded stuff, and will repair or replace your equipment if for some reason one of their cartridges screws it up.
posted by BrandonW at 10:24 AM on October 7, 2012

I also came in to suggest amazon.
posted by royalsong at 10:33 AM on October 7, 2012

I buy mine on eBay. Just look at the feedback rating before you buy.
posted by brownrd at 10:43 AM on October 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Seconding Cartridge World. The company started in Australia and spread worldwide with franchises. Bring your used cartridge for a few bucks off the replacement. The ones I know of, at least, refill the carts right in the back, so it's not like they're just a storefront for a mail-in-refill operation.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:01 AM on October 7, 2012

Cartridge World, most definitely. I took in an empty color cartridge and got a replacement for $20. Target only sold the color cartridge as a bundle with a black cartridge for $80.
posted by sacrifix at 11:40 AM on October 7, 2012

I recently bought a full set of HP toners for a high-end colour laser from NCIX that were about 15% less expensive than from big box stores at the time.

It's in town so we just picked it up in person, but their shipping rates are generally reasonable.
posted by porpoise at 9:20 PM on October 7, 2012

I would bet a drink that anyone that claims to sell identical to HP toner cartridges at a rate substantially lower than Amazon is in someway a liar. I would make the same bet for anyone that claims that refilled HP cartridges are equal to new ones. Now, you may not care about the quality difference. Or you may not use the printer enough to observe the differences.

I have not found a consistent way to identify "good" refilled toner cartridges. Even when paying the "premium" re-filling companies I see wildly inconsistent quality. Not helpful now, but in the future buy better quality printers[1].

[1] Better quality printers generally meaning more expensive. More expensive often means cheaper per page costs. While it used to be easy to work out which printers were the best bang for the buck depending on expected print volume, marketing and drastically falling base printer prices have made this less clear.
posted by fief at 11:16 AM on October 8, 2012