What a page yield number actually measures and why your cartridge runs out early
A cartridge rated for 500 pages runs out at 300, which feels like being sold short until you know where the 500 came from. It is the result of a lab test that prints one specific document under conditions with almost nothing in common with the way you print. That makes it a poor prediction of your pages and a good way to compare one cartridge against another, which is what it was designed for.
The number comes from one document, printed the same way every time
Before 2004 every manufacturer measured yield its own way, so the figures on two boxes were not comparable. The ISO and IEC standards fixed that by defining both the test document and the procedure.
- ISO/IEC 19752 covers mono toner and dates from June 2004.
- ISO/IEC 19798 covers colour toner and ISO/IEC 24711 covers colour ink, both approved in December 2006.
- ISO/IEC 24712 is the document itself, described in the specification as a PDF of four typical customer pages plus one diagnostic page.
The procedure is deliberately narrow. HP describes it as a standard suite of five pages printed consecutively until the cartridge reaches end of life, with a minimum of three cartridges of each type tested in each of three printers. Canon runs three identical printers until three sets of inks are exhausted on each. Brother's published method is the same shape: at least three printers and at least nine each of the cyan, magenta, yellow and black cartridges, in a room held at 23 degrees C give or take 2.
What gets published is not the average of those cartridges. Brother states that it calculates a minimum page yield at a 90 percent lower confidence limit and declares a figure no greater than that. Testing house QualityLogic describes the same 90 percent lower confidence bound and notes the published result sits well below the mean of the nine cartridges. The headline number is therefore already a cautious one, which makes the gap between it and your own experience worth explaining properly.
5 percent coverage is a page of plain text and nothing else
Coverage is the share of the sheet that gets ink or toner on it. The mono standard works out at about 5 percent. For colour, the five pages average roughly 5 percent for each of black, cyan, magenta and yellow, so about 20 percent in aggregate across the set.
Five percent is a page of ordinary body text. No bold headings, no logo, no photo, no background fill. The moment your page has any of those, coverage climbs, and yield falls in direct proportion. Half a page of design work is in the region of 25 percent. A photo printed edge to edge approaches 100 percent.
| What you print | Rough coverage | What a 500 page rating turns into |
|---|---|---|
| Plain text letter, the ISO page | 5 percent | 500 pages |
| Text with a header and a logo | 10 percent | around 250 |
| Slides, flyers, heavy graphics | 25 percent | around 100 |
| Full bleed photographs | toward 100 percent | a few dozen |
That arithmetic is the single biggest reason people feel cheated, and it is not a defect in the cartridge. The certification body puts it plainly: if your average printed page has significantly higher coverage than the ISO standard page, expect actual yield to come in lower.
Photos are a category of their own. Canon measures photo yield with a separate procedure, printing on photo paper in borderless mode with the driver defaults for that paper, precisely because the document test says nothing useful about a 6 by 4 print. If photos are most of what you print, the document yield on the box is close to irrelevant to you.
The cartridges in the box are not the cartridges in the test
The first set of supplies is where the number and reality separate hardest, and every manufacturer says so in the small print.
- Startup ink is excluded. The standard has the printer complete its initial setup, then has those cartridges pulled and replaced with fresh ones before measurement begins. HP is explicit that the ISO test does not account for ink used in printer start up, and that this one time usage can affect the yield of your very first cartridge. Epson says the same: the standard excludes the first installed cartridges, and part of that ink goes on printer startup.
- The cartridge in the box may be smaller. HP notes that some of its inkjets ship with an introductory cartridge that may print less than a replacement. So the set that came with the machine can underperform the rating twice over.
- Ink is left behind at the end. Brother is unusually direct: the test cartridge is changed when the Cannot Print prompt appears, and at that point there is still ink in it, held back to protect the print head and the ink delivery system. Epson describes a variable amount of ink remaining after the replace cartridge signal. You paid for that ink and no yield figure counts it.
This matters most on the cheapest machines. Of the 279 ink cartridges in our catalogue, 50 are rated at 200 pages or fewer, so a setup penalty of even a few dozen pages eats a real share of the first one. Our guide to what the ink gauge is actually measuring covers the other end of the same problem.
The test prints without stopping. You do not
Every one of these methods prints continuously. The test printer never sits idle for a fortnight and then wakes up cold with a cleaning cycle to run. Yours does, and that cycle spends ink without producing a page.
Epson states it directly: yields may be lower when printing infrequently, and all colours of ink are used for maintenance during extended monochrome only printing. Read that twice if you print black documents and wonder why the colour levels keep dropping. HP's list of factors that move actual yield includes typical print job size, the environment during operation, and how much colour printing you do relative to mono.
The lab conditions are tighter than any office. QualityLogic notes the standards require temperature held to an operating average of 23 degrees C plus or minus 2, and for toner also humidity at 50 percent plus or minus 10, recorded every 15 minutes. A cold spare room in winter or a humid kitchen is outside that window.
Cartridge to cartridge variation adds a little more noise. QualityLogic's own testing puts the spread across a set of nine cartridges at about 9 percent either side of average, so two cartridges of the same model can differ by nearly a fifth. That is normal manufacturing variation rather than anything going wrong, and it is one reason the declared figure is a confidence bound rather than an average.
Heavy head cleaning belongs on the same list. Cleaning cycles push ink through the nozzles, so a machine you rescue from a clog every few weeks is spending yield on maintenance. Keeping the head from drying out saves ink as well as trouble.
What XL is actually worth, measured across our catalogue
XL has no defined meaning. It is not a size in the standard, and nothing obliges two manufacturers to use it for the same jump. We can put a number on it because our catalogue holds both the standard and the XL black cartridge from the same OEM family in 36 cases, every yield measured by the same test.
| Family | Standard | XL | Yield multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smallest jump: PG-240 | 180 pages | 300 pages | 1.7 times |
| Median across all 36 families | the XL is rated 2.5 times the standard | 2.5 times | |
| Biggest jump: Epson 822 | 350 pages | 2,400 pages | 6.9 times |
A spread from 1.7 times to 6.9 times under one label tells you the word is worth nothing on its own. The PG-240 fitted to a Canon PIXMA MG3620 goes from 180 pages to 300 for its XL, at 18 against 25 dollars. The Epson 822 in an Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 goes from 350 to 2,400 for 22 against 42. The same two letters, and a completely different purchase: 10.0c against 8.3c a page in the first case, 6.3c against 1.8c in the second.
The high yield version still usually wins. Across the 36 families where we hold both prices, the XL works out cheaper per page in 33, by a median of 28 percent. The reason is that the yield multiple outruns the price multiple: you pay somewhat more for a lot more pages. Check it rather than assume it, because the exceptions are real, and the check is two divisions.
The same check works past XL. Compare cost per page rather than sticker price, and only between yields measured by the same standard. Our cost per page ranking does that sum for every model we track.
Turning the rating into a number you can budget with
Start with the catalogue as a sense of scale. Our 279 ink cartridges are rated at a median 470 pages and run from 100 to 7,700. The 109 toner cartridges sit an order of magnitude higher, a median 2,400 pages across a 950 to 12,000 range. That gap is the honest reason a laser suits anyone printing volume, and it is covered in ink or toner.
Then measure your own, which takes a minute and beats any estimate:
- Note the page count on your printer's own status or configuration page today.
- Note it again when the cartridge asks to be replaced.
- The difference is your yield, on your documents, in your house. Divide the cartridge price by it for your real cost per page.
Compare that against the catalogue baseline. The median black ink cartridge we list is rated 490 pages at 23.49 dollars, which is 5.8c a page at the rated figure. Black toner comes out at a median 3.7c. If your measured cost is double the rated one, that is coverage, and no cartridge or supplier will fix it. If it is far worse than double, look at cleaning cycles and at how often the machine sits unused between jobs.
If the real number horrifies you, the refillable option is measured on the same scale, so the comparison is a fair one. The GI-21C bottle for Canon's tank printers is rated 7,700 pages at 12 dollars, or 0.2c a page, on the same ISO basis as a cartridge rated in the hundreds. Ink tank versus cartridge works through when that difference pays back the higher price of the printer.
Which yield claims are comparable, and which are not
The standard only helps when both numbers come from it. Brother makes the point about its rivals in the compatible market: third party cartridges sold as compatible or for use with Brother printers may not use the ISO standard to determine their advertised page yields, in which case the stated yields will likely not be comparable to Brother's own.
That is a fair warning rather than a reason to pay OEM prices for everything. A compatible cartridge with a genuinely equal yield at half the price is a good buy, and plenty exist. But a listing that claims a much higher yield than the OEM cartridge it replaces is either using a different coverage assumption or holding more ink in a bigger shell, and the listing should say which. When it does not, treat the number as marketing. Our notes on choosing a third party cartridge cover the rest of the checks, and OEM versus compatible versus remanufactured covers what the price difference buys.
Two more things worth knowing when you compare. Yields are stated per cartridge, so a printer using one tri-colour cartridge and one using separate colours cannot be compared cartridge to cartridge, only page to page. And a drum is not a toner: on the lasers we track the drum is rated for tens of thousands of pages and outlives several toner cartridges, so the two figures answer different questions.
Common questions
What does page yield mean on an ink cartridge?
It is the number of pages the cartridge printed in a standardised lab test, not a promise about your pages. For ink the test is ISO/IEC 24711, which prints the five page ISO/IEC 24712 document continuously until the cartridge reaches end of life, at roughly 5 percent coverage per colour. Toner uses ISO/IEC 19752 for mono and 19798 for colour. Because every manufacturer runs the same test, the numbers are comparable to each other even though none of them predicts what you will get.
What is 5 percent page coverage?
Coverage is how much of the sheet gets ink or toner. Five percent is about what a page of plain body text uses, with no bold headings, images or background. A page with a logo and a header is nearer 10 percent, a graphics heavy flyer around 25, and a full bleed photo approaches 100. Yield falls roughly in proportion, so a cartridge rated 500 pages at 5 percent gives around 250 at 10 percent.
Why does my cartridge run out before the rated number of pages?
Usually coverage: your pages carry more ink than the ISO test page. After that come the things the test never sees. Your printer runs maintenance and cleaning cycles that use ink without printing anything, and Epson notes that all colours are used for maintenance even during long stretches of mono printing. Infrequent printing makes it worse. If it is your very first cartridge, some of it also went on printer startup, which the standard excludes.
Does the cartridge that comes with the printer have less ink?
Sometimes yes. HP says some of its inkjets ship with an introductory cartridge that may print less than a replacement cartridge, and both HP and Epson exclude the first installed cartridges from the ISO figure because part of that ink is spent priming the printer. So the first set can come up short for two separate reasons, and the rated yield only starts applying to the cartridge you buy yourself.
Is there ink left in a cartridge when the printer says it is empty?
Yes, by design. Brother says the ISO test cartridge is changed when the Cannot Print prompt appears, and that ink remains at that point to protect the print head and ink delivery system. Epson describes a variable amount of ink left after the replace cartridge signal. It is a protection measure rather than a trick, but it does mean the yield figure never covers every drop you paid for.
Is an XL cartridge always better value?
Usually, not always. Across the 36 OEM families where our catalogue holds both the standard and the XL black cartridge, the XL is rated a median 2.5 times the standard yield, but the multiple ranges from 1.7 to 6.9, so the label guarantees nothing. On price it works out cheaper per page in 33 of the 36 families we can price, by a median 28 percent. Divide price by rated yield for both and compare, since the answer takes seconds and is occasionally the opposite of what you expect.
How do I work out my own real page yield?
Print your printer's status, configuration or settings page and note the lifetime page count. When the cartridge asks to be replaced, print it again and subtract. The difference is your yield on your own documents, and the cartridge price divided by it is your real cost per page. Comparing that against the rated figure tells you whether the gap is coverage, which you control, or maintenance from infrequent printing, which you can reduce by printing something small every week.
Can I compare a compatible cartridge yield with the OEM one?
Only if both were measured the same way. Brother warns that third party cartridges sold as compatible may not use the ISO standard for their advertised yields, in which case the figures are not comparable. A seller that states the standard and the coverage is giving you a usable number. One that quotes a yield far above the OEM cartridge it replaces, with no method attached, is quoting marketing.
Keep reading
- Which printers are cheapest to run the same yields turned into cost per page and ranked.
- Ink low but the cartridge is not empty what the gauge measures, and the ink held back at the end.
- Ink tank vs cartridge printers where a bottle rated in the thousands changes the maths.
- OEM vs compatible vs remanufactured what you give up, and what you do not, at each price.
- Ink or toner? why the two yield scales are an order of magnitude apart.
- Drum unit vs toner a drum yield is counted in rotations, not by the ISO page test.
- Is the print head in your cartridge or your printer why a cartridge that carries its own nozzles costs more per rated page.
- Setup cartridges and what the first refill costs the cartridge in the box sits outside the test that produced the rated number.
- Your cartridge is being discontinued: what to do about it rated yield is the input to the payback maths on an old printer.
- Is the XL cartridge actually cheaper? the rated yield put next to the price, for both sizes of nine families.
Sources
- HP, How HP measures inkjet page yields, on ISO/IEC 24711, the five page suite, three cartridges in each of three printers, startup ink and introductory cartridges. hp.com
- HP, LaserJet page yields, on ISO/IEC 19752 for mono and 19798 for colour, and on what moves actual yield. hp.com
- Brother, Testing Method for Determining Stated Page Yield Based on the ISO/IEC 24711 Standard, on printer and cartridge counts, 23 degrees C plus or minus 2, the 90 percent confidence limit, the Cannot Print change point, and third party yield claims. brother.com
- Epson, Ink yields and cartridge information, on the exclusion of first installed cartridges, ink left after the replace cartridge signal, and maintenance ink during mono only printing. epson.com
- Canon, How page yields are measured, on three printers run to exhaustion and the separate photo yield method. canon.com
- Lexmark, ISO page yields, on the standards, their dates, and the ISO/IEC 24712 suite of four customer pages plus a diagnostic page at about 5 percent per colour. lexmark.com
- QualityLogic, The Value of Certified Consumables Yield Numbers, on the 90 percent lower confidence bound, the 9 percent spread across a set of nine cartridges, and the temperature and humidity controls. qualitylogic.com
- Rated yields, prices and cost per page computed from this site's own catalogue of printers and genuine supplies. mycartridgefinder.com
Last updated . This guide is general information, not a repair warranty. Printer menus and HP's model lists change, so confirm the exact steps for your model on the manufacturer's support site before you make changes.