Did you know the ink for a consumer-grade home printer is more expensive than human blood? (Source, of sorts).  Yes, it’s less expensive to be a vampire than to drink ink. This being the case, a papercrafter can experience some impressive sticker shock.

Back in May of 2016 I learned about the HP Instant Ink subscription service. With a qualifying printer and an account, they send you a set of extra large ink cartridges. You pay per page instead of per cartridge, and the cost per page is about half what it averages out to be for non-subscription ink. Since the service charges per page, regardless of the amount or kind of ink used, it’s particularly useful for printing full pages of full-color photos — or, in my case, tons of full-color papercraft.

I specifically wanted to get a printer that qualified, so I could get the ink subscription service, and get the service so I could do papercraft continuously and inexpensively. Why I fixated on this, I’m not sure. Regardless, here I am, with an ink subscription and a printer, happily papercrafting away for 6 cents per page in ink, regardless of how much color is there.

I am aware that an ink tank printer is even less expensive per page. Since I am still not sure how long my interest this particular hobby will last, a small monthly subscription is currently a better use of my money than dumping a lot of money into a fancier printer and lots of ink. If I’m still interested when this printer starts dying, I’m sure a quality printer with a giant ink tank will be in my future.

I have not been compensated at all for this post. It’s not meant as an advertisement, but as part of my process for papercrafting. If you want to try a month of the HP Instant Ink for free (and give me a free month also), you can sign up using this link: http://try.hpinstantink.com/fZLPM