The $70 printer is rarely the product — the ink aisle is. Canadian households that print report cards, CRA PDFs, and occasional boarding passes face a choice: cartridge roulette at Staples, a monthly ink subscription, or a bulk-tank printer that costs more up front and less per page.
Subscriptions can be sane if you print steadily. They are expensive loyalty programs if you print twice a year and forget to pause the plan.
How the big subscription plans work
HP Instant Ink / HP+ typically bills monthly for a page allowance, ships cartridges before you run dry, and may require always-on connectivity plus genuine HP supplies. HP+ enrolment can be sticky — read whether the device remains usable with third-party ink if you leave the program.
Epson ReadyPrint and similar plans follow the same logic: predictable monthly cost, automatic replenishment, and tighter coupling to OEM cartridges. Brother and Canon ecosystems vary by model; some favour tanks over subscriptions.
All of these assume you are comfortable with a printer that \"phones home.\" If that bothers you, tank or classic cartridge models without mandatory accounts are cleaner.
Do the cost-per-page math
Ignore the shelf price of the printer. Estimate pages per month (be honest — photo-heavy families differ from invoice-only freelancers). Include tax and shipping. Then compare:
Illustrative monthly cost for ~100 pages (CAD, ballpark)
Numbers move with plan tier and colour use. Photo printing destroys \"page\" economics — subscriptions that count a photo as many pages can surprise you. Keep a one-month print log before you commit.
When subscriptions win
- You print most months and hate emergency Best Buy runs before a Monday deadline.
- Your household is fine with OEM-only ink and an online account.
- You will actually pause or resize the plan during July cottage season when the printer sleeps.
When they lose
- You print rarely — annual plans or tank bottles beat idle subscriptions.
- You need offline reliability (rural connectivity, privacy preferences).
- You already own a working tank printer — do not \"upgrade\" into DRM for marketing reasons.
Tank printers: the boring Canadian favourite
Epson EcoTank-class and Brother inkvestment-style machines cost more on day one at Canada Computers or Best Buy, then sip bottled ink. For households printing school packs and club newsletters, tanks often win over three years. Watch for mess during bottle fills, and store ink away from heat vents and curious kids.
Practical tips before you enrol
- Read cancellation and cartridge-return rules for Canada specifically.
- Confirm the plan ships to your postal code without brokerage surprises.
- Disable junk features you will not use (fax nostalgia, cloud scan-to-who-knows-where).
- Keep a small stash of plain paper that is not humidity-warped from the basement.
- Recycle cartridges via retailer programs — do not landfill them.
Buy printing as a utility: pages per dollar, annoyance per month. The brand mascot on the box is not part of the equation.