The cartridges that came in the box are not the ones you will keep buying what each maker publishes about setup, starter and introductory supplies, and what the first proper refill costs on the printers we track
A printer that arrived three weeks ago is asking for ink, and the obvious conclusion is that something is wrong with it. Usually nothing is. The supplies that ship inside a printer are a different product from the ones on the shelf, the makers say so in their own documentation, and the page yield printed on a replacement box was never measured on the cartridge you have been printing with. Each brand publishes a position on this, quoted below, and then there is the part nobody else puts a number on: what the first real refill costs across the 257 printers in our catalogue.
What a setup cartridge is, in each maker's own words
All four brands ship something in the box, and all four describe it as a distinct product rather than a free sample of the retail one. The wording matters, because it differs more than you would expect.
HP is the most explicit. Its support documentation says SETUP ink cartridges are used only to set up a new HP printer or printhead and to supply ink for the first series of your print jobs, and that they are specially designed to initialize a printer and calibrate ink levels. HP also states they cannot be purchased from retailers and are available only in the box with a new printer or with some replacement printhead kits. On the laser side HP puts it as a caveat on its own yield figures: some HP printers include an introductory cartridge in the printer box, which may print less than HP replacement cartridges, and the packaging indicates when that is the case.
Brother uses the word starter and admits the variation. Its manuals say the toner cartridge that comes with your Brother machine is a Starter toner cartridge, and that the life of the original cartridge may be a starter, standard or high yield cartridge depending on the model and the country you bought the printer in. Where Brother publishes the starter figure it is a real gap: in the user guide for its HL-2140 family the starter is rated at approximately 1,000 pages against 2,600 for the high yield replacement, both declared under ISO/IEC 19752. Do not carry that ratio across to your own model. Brother's own sentence is that it depends on the model and the country.
Canon is the counterpoint, and it is the reason this page does not tell you that every in-box cartridge is half empty. Canon's support article on tanks labelled Setup says the label means the tank is intended for the initial setup of your printer, and then says plainly that Setup tanks have as much or more ink than the standard replacement ink tanks. They are still not for sale separately. You get them with a printer or not at all.
Epson describes the ink rather than the cartridge. Its manuals say the ink in the cartridges supplied with your printer is partly used during initial setup, because the print head has to be fully charged with ink to produce good output, and that this one-off process consumes a quantity of ink while subsequent cartridge sets last for their full rated life. Epson's yield page adds the commercial half: the cartridges, ink packs or bottles included with the printer are designed for printer setup, not for resale.
Why the first set does not go as far, and why the number on the box does not warn you
Two separate things are happening, and they get blamed on each other.
The first is charging. A printer leaves the factory with dry ink lines, and before it can print anything it has to pull ink through the whole delivery path and fill the print head. Epson describes the head as needing to be fully charged with ink, and Epson's yield documentation notes that ink is also collected by the pads inside the machine during initial setup. That ink is gone before your first page. This is a one-time cost on a cartridge machine and it happens whatever brand of cartridge you install.
The second is a measurement gap that catches almost everybody. Rated yields come from ISO/IEC 24711 for ink and ISO/IEC 19752 for toner, and those tests are run on replacement cartridges. HP says it directly: some HP inkjet printers use ink from the first cartridges installed for printer start up, this one-time ink usage is not included in the ISO 24711 test, and it could affect the yield of your very first cartridge. So the number you read when you researched the printer describes a cartridge you have not bought yet. Our page yield guide covers what else that test does and does not promise.
Tank machines are not exempt from the charging cost, only from the price of it. Canon's MegaTank marketing carries the footnote in plain sight: the page yield of the included ink bottles used for initial setup is lower than that of the replacement bottles, because a certain amount of ink is consumed to fill the print head during setup. Epson prints the same caveat under its EcoTank yield claims. The difference is that topping a tank back up costs a few dollars, and the numbers further down show how large that difference gets.
There is a third possibility worth ruling out before you accept any of this. If output has gone faint or patchy rather than the machine simply reporting empty, the ink may be going into cleaning cycles instead of onto paper, and a nozzle check will tell you which you are looking at.
How to tell what you have, and the trap on a second-hand printer
The label is the whole answer. HP and Canon print the word on the cartridge itself, HP in capitals as SETUP and Canon as Setup. Brother names the starter cartridge in the manual and on the box contents list rather than on the cartridge. Epson calls them initial cartridges in its documentation and does not always mark them.
Since none of them are sold separately, two practical consequences follow.
- Do not set up a new HP with cartridges you bought. HP's own support page for the error is unambiguous: HP printers ship with SETUP ink cartridges that are required to initialize and calibrate a new printer, and if normal or non-HP cartridges are used during first time setup, a Use SETUP Cartridges message appears. People hit this by installing the XL cartridges they bought with the printer on day one, which feels sensible and is the one thing the machine will not accept. Fit the SETUP cartridges, let it initialize, then swap.
- Check the box before buying a printer second hand. If a machine has never been initialized and its setup cartridges are missing, you cannot buy replacements for them. HP's instruction in that situation is to contact HP support, which is a slow answer to a problem you can avoid by asking the seller whether the printer has ever printed a page.
The used cartridges themselves are ordinary empties once you are done. They go into the same take-back schemes as any other, and our guide to empty cartridges lists which programs pay and which only accept. Epson states that its included cartridges cannot be used as replacement cartridges or resold, so selling on a setup cartridge is not a plan either.
What the first refill actually costs, across every printer we list
The manufacturers leave this part to you. For each of the 257 printers in our catalogue we priced the cheapest complete refill: one cartridge for every slot the machine has to fill, at the lowest list price that model offers for each colour, with drum units left out. That is the smallest cheque you can write to get a fully working printer once the box supplies are done.
| Machines | Models we list | Median first refill | Range | Cost of one page through every slot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brother cartridge inkjet | 20 | $88.00 | $46.00 to $102.00 | 17.27c |
| Brother laser | 41 | $80.00 | $45.00 to $291.00 | 2.83c |
| Canon cartridge inkjet | 43 | $42.00 | $38.00 to $66.00 | 17.31c |
| Canon MegaTank | 2 | $49.00 | $49.00 to $49.00 | 0.68c |
| Epson EcoTank | 22 | $54.96 | $44.00 to $100.00 | 1.00c |
| Epson cartridge inkjet | 24 | $54.00 | $46.00 to $94.00 | 17.66c |
| HP cartridge inkjet | 67 | $64.00 | $35.00 to $142.00 | 14.99c |
| HP laser | 38 | $94.99 | $55.00 to $390.00 | 4.69c |
52 of the 257 machines we list cannot be refilled for under a hundred dollars at list price. The last column is the cost of pushing a single page through every slot once, which is what tells you whether the set you just bought is expensive or merely large.
Two things sit underneath those medians. The 55 inkjets that take a black and a tri-colour cartridge refill for a median of $40.00, while the 99 that take separate colour tanks come to $71.00, because you are buying four or five items instead of two. And the 51 single-colour lasers we list refill for a median of $70.00, from $45.00 to $95.00, whereas the 28 colour lasers run from $215.00 to $390.00 with a median of $291.00. A colour laser holds four toner cartridges and they tend to reach the end together, which is how a first refill arrives as one large purchase rather than four small ones.
The six most expensive machines to refill
| Printer | Cheapest complete set | Cartridges in it |
|---|---|---|
| HP Color LaserJet Pro M452dw | $390.00 | 4 |
| HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw | $390.00 | 4 |
| HP Color LaserJet Pro M454dw | $375.00 | 4 |
| HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M479fdw | $375.00 | 4 |
| HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color M451dw | $365.00 | 4 |
| HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color MFP M475dw | $365.00 | 4 |
And the six cheapest
| Printer | Cheapest complete set | Cartridges in it |
|---|---|---|
| HP DeskJet F4280 | $35.00 | 2 |
| HP ENVY 110 | $35.00 | 2 |
| HP PhotoSmart C4680 | $35.00 | 2 |
| Canon PIXMA TR7020 | $38.00 | 2 |
| Canon PIXMA TS5320 | $38.00 | 2 |
| Canon PIXMA TS6420 | $38.00 | 2 |
Read that second table carefully, because low is not the same as good. Those machines take two small cartridges rated for very few pages, which is why they also sit near the top of our cost per page ranking at the wrong end.
The same money buys very different amounts of printing
Compare the medians rather than the sticker prices and the shape of the market changes.
The 154 cartridge inkjets we list refill for a median of $53.00. The 24 bottle fed machines, the EcoTanks and MegaTanks, refill for a median of $54.96. Those are close enough to be the same purchase. What they buy is not: the black in that cartridge inkjet set is rated for a median of 256 pages, and the black bottle in that tank set for 4,500, about 18 times as many. Put one page through every slot and the cartridge machines cost a median of 16.52c against 1.00c on the tank machines.
Those two numbers are the case for a tank printer, and you can check both against the table above. The catch is the purchase price of the machine itself, which is where the money moves rather than disappears, and our tank versus cartridge comparison works through when the switch pays for itself.
Lasers sit between the two on ink and behave differently again. Their median first refill is $80.00, which sounds worse than an inkjet until you notice what a toner cartridge is rated for. They also carry a second consumable that no inkjet has, and a drum arriving unexpectedly is the other big first-year bill: our drum unit guide covers which machines separate the two and which build them together.
Standard or high yield for the first replacement
This is the decision the empty starter cartridge forces on you, and it is worth thirty seconds of thought because you are setting the running cost of the machine for the next year.
Our catalogue holds 159 printers that publish both a complete standard set and a complete high yield set. Across those models the standard set has a median list price of $52.00 and the high yield set $84.99. The high yield set costs more on the day and cuts the cost of a page by a median of 33 percent. If you print regularly, that is the buy.
It is not universal, which is why the site checks it per model rather than repeating the rule. On three of those 159 machines the high yield set gives you nothing per page: Expression Premium XP-6100, LaserJet Pro M201dw and LaserJet Pro MFP M127fw. On two of those the standard and the high yield set work out to exactly the same cost per page, and on one the larger cartridges are worse value than the small ones. Your own model's page has both sets priced out, so check it rather than assuming XL wins.
Two things push the other way. Ink dries out, so a household printing a few pages a month can reach the date printed on the cartridge before reaching the end of the ink, and the extra capacity is wasted. And if you are looking at a compatible or remanufactured cartridge for the first refill, the three ways to buy a cartridge sets out the price gap and the risks, while the firmware tracker tells you whether your model will accept one at all.
What to do with all this
Order the first replacement before the machine demands it. Brother's own manual gives the advice for its starter toner: keep a new toner cartridge ready for use when you see the Toner Low warning. That is not upselling. On a laser the warning comes early, and on an inkjet a single empty colour can stop the machine printing black at all on some models, which our guide to that block covers brand by brand.
Do not read an early empty as a fault. A starter cartridge running out in the first month is the machine working as documented. A cartridge the printer refuses to recognise, leaks, or prints with gaps is a different matter entirely, and the blank page runbook separates those cases.
Then price the machine properly. What a printer costs you over its life is one set of its supplies multiplied by how often you buy one, and the purchase price is only the first payment. The table above gives you the first half of that sum for 257 models, and every printer page on this site gives you the second half for a specific machine. Better to find the answer alarming now than a month after the printer arrives.
Common questions
Are the cartridges that come with a new printer full?
It depends on the brand and on the model, and two of them publish opposite answers. HP says some of its printers include an introductory cartridge in the box which may print less than an HP replacement cartridge, and that the packaging says when that applies. Brother says the cartridge that comes with the machine is a Starter toner cartridge whose life depends on the model and the country. Canon says the opposite for its ink tanks: tanks labelled Setup have as much or more ink than the standard replacement tanks. Epson says the ink in the supplied cartridges is partly used during initial setup. Check the label on the cartridge before assuming.
Why did the ink in my new printer run out so fast?
Usually because two costs land on that first set at once. The printer uses ink to charge the print head and fill the delivery lines before it prints anything, which Epson describes as a one-off process that consumes a quantity of ink, and the cartridge itself may be a lower capacity introductory one. The rated yield you read before buying does not cover either effect, because those tests are run on replacement cartridges.
Can I buy setup cartridges?
No. HP states that SETUP cartridges cannot be purchased from retailers and are available only in the box with a new printer or with some replacement printhead kits. Canon says its Setup ink tanks are not available for purchase and come only with a printer. Epson says the cartridges included with the printer are designed for printer setup and not for resale. When the setup supply is done you buy the ordinary retail cartridge with the same number.
My HP says use SETUP cartridges. What now?
Fit the SETUP cartridges that came in the box and let the printer initialize before you install anything you bought. HP's support page states that its printers ship with SETUP ink cartridges required to initialize and calibrate a new printer, and that the error appears when normal or non-HP cartridges are used during first time setup. Check the printer box again, since the SETUP cartridges are sometimes packed in a separate white box rather than fitted. If they were never supplied, HP's instruction is to contact HP support, because you cannot buy them.
How much does the first proper refill cost?
Across the 257 printers in our catalogue, the cheapest complete set of cartridges has a median list price of $53.00 on cartridge inkjets, $80.00 on lasers and $54.96 for a set of bottles on a tank machine. 52 of the 257 models cannot be refilled for under a hundred dollars. The spread inside those groups is wide, so the table above breaks it down by brand and machine type and your own printer's page prices its exact supplies.
Is a tank printer really cheaper to refill?
On our figures the refill costs about the same and buys far more printing. The median cheapest set is $53.00 on the 154 cartridge inkjets we list and $54.96 on the 24 bottle fed machines. The black in the cartridge set is rated for a median of 256 pages and the black bottle for 4,500. One page through every slot costs a median of 16.52c against 1.00c. The tank machine costs more to buy, which is the trade you are actually making.
Should my first replacement be standard or XL?
XL for most people who print regularly. Of the 159 models that publish both a complete standard set and a complete high yield set, the standard set has a median list price of $52.00 and the high yield set $84.99, and the larger set cuts the cost per page by a median of 33 percent. Standard is the better buy if you print rarely, since ink can dry out or pass its printed date before a large cartridge is used up, and on 3 models in our catalogue the high yield set gives no per page saving at all.
Does an EcoTank or MegaTank come with full bottles?
It comes with bottles rather than cartridges, and part of that ink still goes into charging the print head. Canon's own footnote says the page yield of the included bottles used for initial setup is lower than that of replacement bottles because a certain amount of ink is consumed to fill the print head during setup, and Epson prints the same caveat. The difference from a cartridge machine is what the replacement costs, not whether setup consumes ink.
Can I recycle a setup cartridge?
Yes. Once it is empty it behaves like any other empty cartridge and goes into the same take-back schemes. What you cannot do is resell it as a replacement: Epson states that its included initial cartridges cannot be used as replacement cartridges or resold.
Is a starter cartridge a sign the printer is faulty?
No, and neither is it a sign that anything was taken out of the box. It is a documented product with its own capacity, and every one of the four brands describes it in its own support material. Treat an early empty as the end of a short first tank. Treat a cartridge the printer will not recognise, or output with gaps and streaks in it, as a separate problem with its own diagnosis.
Keep reading
- Page yield explained the test that produced the number on the box, and what it leaves out.
- Which printers are cheapest to run the second half of the sum: how often you buy that set.
- Ink tank vs cartridge printers where the money moves when the refill gets cheap.
- OEM vs compatible vs remanufactured the other lever on what a first refill costs.
- Drum unit vs toner the laser consumable that turns up after the toner does.
- Waste ink pads and maintenance boxes the other consumable nobody mentions when you buy the printer.
- Is your cartridge number being discontinued? worth knowing before the first refill whether the number has a future.
- Is the XL cartridge actually cheaper? which size to buy when the setup cartridge finally runs out.
Sources
- HP Support, HP Ink Cartridges, What are SETUP ink cartridges, document ish_12393863-12393925-16, for the statement that SETUP ink cartridges are used only to set up a new HP printer or printhead and supply ink for the first series of print jobs, and are specially designed to initialize a printer and calibrate ink levels. hp.com
- HP Support, HP Printers, A Use SETUP Cartridges Error Displays, document ish_1721824-1419961-16, for the statement that HP printers ship with SETUP ink cartridges required to initialize and calibrate a new printer, that the error appears if normal or non-HP cartridges are used during first time setup, that SETUP cartridges cannot be purchased from retailers and come only with a new printer or some replacement printhead kits, and for the instruction to check the printer box for a white box of SETUP cartridges or to contact HP support if none shipped. hp.com
- HP, Learn about supplies, Measuring ink yield, for the statement that some HP inkjet printers use ink from the first cartridges installed for printer start up, that this one-time ink usage is not included in the ISO 24711 test and could impact the yield of the very first cartridge, and that some HP inkjet printers include an introductory cartridge in the box which may print less than an HP replacement cartridge. hp.com
- HP, Learn about supplies, Toner cartridge yield for HP LaserJet printers, for the statement that some HP printers include an introductory cartridge in the printer box which may print less than HP replacement cartridges, that HP printer packaging indicates when introductory cartridges are included, and for the use of ISO/IEC 19752 for monochrome declared yields. hp.com
- Brother Support, Replace the Toner Cartridge, online user guide for the HL-L2325DW, HL-L2350DW and related models, for the statement that the toner cartridge that comes with your Brother machine is a Starter toner cartridge and the advice to keep a new toner cartridge ready for use when you see the Toner Low warning. brother.com
- Brother user guide, HL-2140 series, Toner cartridge section, for the statement that the original toner cartridge that came with the printer may be a starter, standard or high yield cartridge depending on the model and country of purchase, and for the declared figures of approximately 1,000 pages for the starter cartridge and approximately 2,600 for the high yield cartridge under ISO/IEC 19752. brother.com
- Canon Support, Why are Ink Tanks Labeled Setup, article ART170032, for the statement that a tank labelled Setup is intended for the initial setup of the printer, that Setup tanks have as much or more ink than the standard replacement ink tanks, and that Setup ink tanks are not available for purchase and come only with a printer. canon.com
- Canon USA, MegaTank product page footnotes, for the statement that the page yield of the included ink bottles used for initial setup is lower than that of the replacement ink bottles because a certain amount of ink is consumed to fill the print head during setup. canon.com
- Epson, Ink Cartridge Handling Precautions and equivalent setup documentation, for the statement that the ink in the cartridges supplied with the printer is partly used during initial setup, that the print head will be fully charged with ink to produce high quality printouts, and that this one-off process consumes a quantity of ink while subsequent cartridge sets last for their full rated life. epson.biz
- Epson US, Ink Yields, for the statement under Initial Ink that the cartridges, ink packs or bottles included with the printer are designed for printer setup and not for resale and that after some ink is used for priming the rest is available for printing, and for the note that ink is collected by the maintenance pads during the initial setup of the product. epson.com
- Epson, Ink Cartridge Specifications for the WorkForce Pro WF-C8690, for the statement that the included initial cartridges are designed for reliable printer setup and cannot be used as replacement cartridges or resold, and that after setup the remaining ink is available for printing. epson.com
- Prices and rated yields for every set costed on this page come from our own catalogue of OEM cartridges and the printers that take them, at manufacturer list prices. A first refill is the cheapest cartridge in each colour slot the model has to fill, with drum units excluded. 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.