Article Updated 08\/12\/2022<\/i>![\"pile](\"https:\/\/blog.tonergiant.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/paper-pile1-300x266.jpg\")
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If you do a lot of printing, you might feel as if you\u2019re forever running out of ink cartridges<\/a> and toner, constantly having to sort out ordering new supplies, and asking yourself the question “how many pages will my cartridge print?” or “how many pages per ink cartridge?”.<\/p>\n You might be questioning whether you\u2019re getting value for money, especially if you think your cartridges should have lasted longer than they did.<\/p>\n There are things that you can do to maximise the amount of printing you can do before you run out of ink and toner but many want to know exactly how many pages the ink and toner cartridges<\/a> will print before they purchase one.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So in this post, we\u2019re going to outline the following:<\/p>\n If your wondering how long ink cartridges or toner lasts before they expire or ink dries up<\/strong>, ink cartridges are manufactured with a 2-year expiry date. When you get close to two years, the ink sponge inside the cartridge can start to dry up. More modern printers also recognise when a cartridge has passed 2 years old and will ask you to replace it.<\/p>\n For toner cartridges, there is no expiry date. Toner may degrade over time and the print results may not be as good as they were, but toner does not expire.<\/p>\n If an ink cartridge is unopened or not used, so long as it’s kept away from humid environments, it should last at least 2 years.<\/p>\n If you want to know how many pages your printer cartridge will print – <\/strong>You should be able to find an estimated number of prints listed against the product of the place where you bought the cartridge, but bear in mind:<\/p>\n Each printer is different and so each ink cartridge is different too. There are many factors that affect how many pages one cartridge can print. A simple way of looking at things is if you imagine you and a friend both have a drink of water. You aren’t thirsty, but your friend really needs a drink. How long will that drink last? It would be different for each of you because your friend is likely to drink much faster than you because they are thirsty.<\/p>\n It’s the same for printers. If you take 2 exact same printer models but one printer is old, and another is brand new. The new one will be much more efficient and so the ink will last longer. Also what is being printed can change the result. Photos use more ink and take longer to print than text so we need to take these factors into consideration.<\/p>\n Here’s a quick calculation you can do to get a rough idea of how many pages your cartridge will print. The manufacturer’s capacity is based on 5% of the page being covered in ink or toner, but if you are printing large shaded areas or more than 4 paragraphs of text, we generally print at more like 10 – 15% coverage.<\/p>\n So at 15% coverage, the calculation is, the new coverage value divided by the old coverage value (15 divided by 5). Then divide the stated manufacturer prints number (eg. TN2000 toner is 2500 pages), by the result of the last calculation.<\/p>\n ie.<\/p>\n 15 \/ 5 = 3 This will give you a more accurate value compared to the manufacturer’s stated amount. If you don’t know the manufacturer stated capacity, you can find out and get an even more accurate value using our calculator at the bottom of the page.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The calculator will give you a good guesstimate of how many days your cartridge will last.<\/p>\n In short, page yield or duty cycle is the maximum number of pages your cartridge should be able to print before it runs out of ink or toner.<\/p>\n However, things aren\u2019t actually that straightforward.<\/p>\n For years each major manufacturer had their own internal methods for calculating page yield and duty cycle. This caused problems. For example, how HP worked out that one of their black toner cartridges had a 2500-page yield \/ duty cycle would have been completely different to how Brother worked out that one of their equivalent cartridges had a 3000-page yield \/ duty cycle. This, as you can imagine, made things incredibly confusing for consumers.<\/p>\n There needed to be a standardised way of calculating this\u00a0for all manufacturers. So over the course of two years between 2004 and 2006, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO)<\/a> and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) worked with the major printer manufacturers to come up with a singular way of calculating page yield\/duty cycle. So now it\u2019s consistent across all manufacturers and gives customers a rough guide as to how many pages they can print up to with a printer cartridge.<\/p>\n But it is still a pretty complicated thing.<\/p>\n The exact figure stated next to page yield \/ duty cycle on a cartridge\u2019s product description will be based on \u2018page coverage<\/strong>.\u2019 A measurement enforced by the Office of Fair Trading, this is the amount of ink \/ toner used on a page, based on the type of text, images, borders, etc. Commonly page yield \/ duty cycle is based on 5% page coverage, but what does that look like? Here’s an example of different coverage types from the standard 5%, to a photograph which is more like 80% coverage:<\/p>\n Ink and toner page coverage examples<\/p><\/div>\n So this makes it incredibly difficult to put an exact number on the number of pages you can expect to print from one cartridge and answer the question “How many pages will my cartridge print?” An analogy we love and that we tell our customers to think about when it comes to this is that it\u2019s like the miles per gallon (MPG) figure of the fuel economy<\/a> of your car. The brochure your car came with might state that it can achieve 60 MPG, for example, but factors such as the distance you drive, how safely or erratically you drive, tire pressure, etc., and even how old your car is can all cause that figure to fluctuate widely.<\/p>\n So what things can impact the page yield\/duty cycle of your cartridge?<\/p>\n As mentioned, it\u00a0is determined by page coverage. You might buy a cartridge that is capable of lasting 2000 pages at 5% page coverage but, if your average page coverage is higher than that, then you\u2019re not going to achieve that amount.<\/p>\n Things such as the amount of text on the page, colour, images, etc. will all impact page coverage and, ultimately, the overall yield\/cycle of the cartridge, too. But what else might prevent you from getting the stated page yield\/duty cycle?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We covered this in a post in May 2014 about how the humidity in your office can affect the performance of your printer<\/a>. It might cause ink and toner to not print onto the page properly, meaning that you could be wasting a significant\u00a0amount each time you print.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Older printers are generally less efficient. Advancements in printing technology mean that modern printers will need to use less ink and toner<\/a> per job than older machines. So if you\u2019ve got a 10-year-old printer, it might be worth considering investing in a new printer.<\/p>\n If you leave your printer idle for long periods, it may have to use small amounts of ink to clean and clear print heads. Frequent printing means that this shouldn\u2019t be an issue.<\/p>\n Are you printing in draft mode or best quality? Draft mode will use roughly half the amount of ink and toner compared to the best quality. Changing mode depending on the type of printing you’re doing can help you to save a bit more ink and toner.<\/p>\n Also, it is worth remembering that many printers have calibration devices in place that will use small amounts of ink and toner for routine maintenance, often whilst in sleep mode.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve got a five-page document, printing all of the pages in separate print jobs, rather than in one singular job, will use more ink and toner, also your printer may heat up too much if it isn’t meant for large jobs, and print very inefficiently.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u2019re being alerted that your toner cartridge is running low, don\u2019t replace it straight away. Giving the cartridge a shake will help spread the toner more evenly inside. It means that you can maximise the amount of toner you use before you throw the cartridge away. Your printer manual should outline the shaking process for you.<\/p>\n Image courtesy of http:\/\/www.hackworth.co\/is-it-safe-to-extend-toner-cartridge-life-by-shaking-and-replacing\/<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As the printer is preparing for a print, some ink is used in the process. Ink is also used during cleaning processes, and to service the print head and keep it in tip-top condition. Ink can even evaporate over time so if you leave a printer unused for long periods of time, you’re unlikely to get full use of the cartridge.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Here is a handy tool to help you work out approximately how many pages your ink or toner cartridge should print based on what you are currently printing. It will also give you an idea of how many days your cartridge should last. All you have to do is enter your ink or toner cartridge reference in the first box (eg. Q6000A<\/a>), enter on average how many pages your print each day <\/a> (this is optional and also doesn’t have to be exact), and finally from the examples decide what your page coverage is (how much print is covering the A4 page) and type its number in the last box depending on what you think your particular page coverage will be.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To use the calculator and to find out how many pages will my cartridge print, follow these simple instructions:<\/p>\n Here are examples of pages coverage to choose from:<\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.13.1″ width=”80%” max_width=”1080px”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ background_color=”#f2f2f2″ custom_padding__hover=”|||” custom_padding=”|||”][et_pb_code _builder_version=”4.27.2″ custom_padding=”|40px||40px” text_orientation=”center” z_index_tablet=”500″]<\/p>\nHere’s what you’ll learn from this post:<\/span><\/h3>\n
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How long do printer ink cartridges or toner last?<\/span><\/h2>\n
How many pages can be printed with one cartridge?<\/span><\/h3>\n
How many pages per ink \/ toner – Quick calculation<\/span><\/h3>\n
2500 \/ 3 = 833.33 pages.<\/p>\nWhat is page yield\/duty cycle?<\/span><\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/blog.tonergiant.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Page-capacity.jpg\")
<\/p>\nExamples of page coverage:<\/h4>\n
![\"examples](\"https:\/\/blog.tonergiant.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/ink-and-toner-page-coverage-examples.jpg\")
<\/a>What can affect your page yield\/duty cycle<\/span><\/h2>\n
Humidity<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n
Age of your printer<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/blog.tonergiant.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Old-New-Printer-Comparison.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFrequency of printing<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n
The mode your printer is set to<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n
The size of your print job<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n
Shaking toner cartridges as they begin to run low<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n
![\"diagram](\"https:\/\/blog.tonergiant.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/shake_toner_cartridge1.jpg\")
<\/a>Natural usage of the printer \/ ink cartridge<\/h4>\n
How many pages will my cartridge\u00a0print – Handy tool<\/span><\/h2>\n
How to use the page prints calculator:<\/span><\/h3>\n
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![\"toner-coverage-examples\"](\"https:\/\/blog.tonergiant.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/toner-Coverage-examples.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPage prints calculator<\/span><\/h3>\n