If you're printing a lot, this kind of calculation makes sense. If you only print a couple of times a month, it gets swamped by uncertainty: will the ink dry up

If you're printing a lot, this kind of calculation makes sense. If you only print a couple of times a month, it gets swamped by uncertainty: will the ink dry up before I use it? will they still sell those cartridges in 5 years time? will it have broken anyway? Under these conditions, it's not that illogical to spend less on the printer. It's also not always easy to compare. Maybe I can see that a HP cartridge holds more ink than the Epson one - but do they use ink at the same rate? How much do they use for cleaning the nozzles when you're not printing? Will I be able to get unofficial cartridges, and will they affect print quality? It's getting easier to compare, because they're getting on the subscription bandwagon, based on pages per month. But the smallest plan I see is HP's 15 pages/month, which is probably at least 3x what I actually print.