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If you've ever bought an inkjet printer you know that over time the cost of your supplies - the replacement cartridges, paper, etc. - will far exceed the cost of the printer itself. If you do even a relatively modest amount of printing you can anticipate spending a significant amount of money on inkjet cartridges.Over the life of a printer the initial cost may account for as little as one tenth of what you will spend on ink.That's why it's so important to do as much research as you can before you purchase your next home or office printer. Luckily there are a huge amount of very affordable printers available today. Since most of them produce beautiful professional looking letters, photographs, and graphics your research will be focused on the actual cost of use.When you compare printers you should try to anticipate the cost per page. Because you have so many viable choices, ultimately the cost of the printers ink cartridge replacements may be the single most important factor that will determine which printer you will end up buying.You may want to keep in mind that often the lower priced printers ironically have higher priced OEM (original equipment manufacturer) cartridges.To help you to figure out which are the most cost effective printers, the American Consumer Institute has recently introduced a calculator that compares seventeen different printers. You input the number of black and white text pages, the number of color pages, and the number of four inch by six inch photographs you print per week and it will show you your best choices. Just look for the consumer calculator on their site and you'll be good to go.Some people try to save money by refilling the cartridges themselves. This has been a very good strategy over the years. However, lately the printing manufacturers have begun to fight back.Some manufacturers warn consumers that there are potential problems involved if they choose to use recycled ink cartridges or generic ink. However, many consumer advocates have pooh-poohed this claim.What's more challenging is that companies such as Canon are now designing printers with cartridges that can be very hard to refill. They're taking this approach because many of the original equipment manufacturers often take substantial losses on the initial sale of their printers.They anticipate the ongoing sales of (very expensive) OEM replacement cartridges. In the inkjet industry the profit is in the cartridges rather than in the printers themselves. So if you don't buy the cartridges from them it defeats this marketing approach.Perhaps you've noticed little circuit boards on the side of many cartridges. That's because the manufacturers are now moving a lot of the printer's "intelligence" to the printers ink cartridge itself. This inherently raises the cost of manufacturing and the ultimate price of the cartridge. It also makes it more challenging to duplicate.