Price increase of HP Instant Ink

[saiwong]

I just think this price hike has been a bad decision on HP. 

All the negativity we have seen on this forum is a reflection of how this action has hurt the HP brand name.
I suspect many of you will think twice (or just blacklist) buying any new HP product and choose a rival product instead in the future.
The price hike may give HP a profit increase in the short term, but customers will unsubscribe and in the long term, with a damaged brand name will hurt future profits & sales.

So HP, please read the customer comments and look into your pricing plan and adjust to restore customer loyalty to your brand.

thank you

[MikeSanf1]

Well said.. I totally agree with you. Hopefully HP will take notice. There has been  a lot of adverse comments on this forum. Keep your fingers crossed that they will take note. Thanks for your feedback.

[lohr500]

The cheapo £10.99 Chinese cartridge set I ordered from Amazon yesterday for my OfficeJet Pro 8620 has been delivered today. I have removed the genuine Instant Ink ones and replaced with the Chinese ones. The printer displayed a message advising that they were non genuine, but it still functions as normal. I have rattled off a few test pages in colour and b/w and they look fine to me. The estimated ink level display is also showing full levels for all four cartridges.

Only time will tell if they prove reliable or give a reasonable yield, but we are only printing around 40 pages per month. So if I can get 4 months out of them, then they will be cheaper than the new £2.99 HP pricing. The cheapo cartridges can be bought individually as well, so if one colour gets low, I will just replace as needed.

It will be interesting to see if anything changes next week once my cancellation is complete. I never signed up for the HP+ service so it doesn't look like my printer is "locked" to genuine HP cartridges only.

Even if HP do a U turn on the pricing (unlikely) or bring out another price band, I won't be moving back to a subscription. The way they announced the increase to loyal customers was deplorable in my opinion and they won't be getting any more of my custom in the future. As/when the 8620 packs up, I will look at other brands and possibly printers with ink tanks for lower ongoing running costs.

[MikeSanf1]

I tried this on an older printer a while back but it was locked to HP ge urine cartridges. I believe there is a workaround but not tried it. Well done I hope it continues to work okay for you. 

[Llanelliguy]

Totally agree with Saiwong. This subject has now been viewed nearly 10K times. This just proves there might be a lot of unhappy HP customers. 

This increase must have damaged their name, well I hope so anyway. 50% is way over the top for anything being increase.

This subject is now being picked up on other tech sites so I am happy with that, the more pressure this gives the better. 

[UnhappyPH]

Yes, I see it's hit some of the larger tech publications now.

I've fed back to Which? too. Their article hasn't been updated with the latest price increases (although neither have HP's website  - or the HP Smart app if you want to change price plan, which is bizarre.) If I want to change price plan, I need to select the old rate, which isn't the rate I would pay - even if I have received an email with the updated prices and paper limits.

I see some of the tech sites are recommending alternative ink options, which almost certainly will hit HP's massive profits a little. HP is an ink and toner service now. They make far more profit from ink than printers, and a lot of that is from instant ink.

[choddo]

@BFJames - you won't be able to use up your existing stock once you cancel.

[MikeSanf1]

Yes that is correct. As soon as you cancel - no more ink! 

[AlanG2]

Agreed.  I cancelled mine a couple of days ago and have just had the email stating that the Instant Ink cartridges will no longer work and I should buy HP OE cartridges.   No chance, the printer is a useless brick anyway and will go to the tip and I will buy a new one, probably an Epson.

[PeteC22]

I got this email as well.  Come March 2022, at 1 year since I bought my printer, my subscription rate goes up by $1 per month.  Being as that is roughly a 20% jump in cost, I'm not too happy - some increase in cost does not particularly bother me, but 20% is a mite steep.  

Having said that, it comes out to $12 a year...about 1 low-cost lunch during this upcoming year.  Besides, I don't just get the ink cartridges, this includes shipping and disposing of the spent cartridges.  Not enough to get cranky about for me.

BTW, please, I did not post this to denigrate any other Instant Ink user's feelings on the subject!  But since seeing the email HP sent me on the price hike, after an initial bit of unhappiness, I just decided that a $12 increase in the cost of printing this year wasn't sufficient for me to get upset about.  For what HP ink carts for the HP OfficeJet Pro 9015e cost retail, combined with the overall convenience of having my ink usage monitored and replacement carts shipped automatically as I need them, for me, Instant Ink is still a good deal.