Page Yield Calculator
Find the real page yield of a cartridge at your coverage.
What you provide
ISO/IEC 24711 uses 5%. Almost every cartridge is rated this way.
Plain text is about 5%. Text with headers and tables is 10% to 15%. Pages with graphics go far higher.
Result
About 1,000 pages, or $0.060 a page
Every yield figure on a box is measured at 5% page coverage under ISO/IEC 24711, which is roughly a page of double-spaced text with nothing else on it. Real documents with headers, tables or a logo run at 10% to 15%, and anything with a chart or a photograph goes far higher, which is why a cartridge rated for 2,000 pages routinely delivers half that. The standard is not dishonest, it is just measuring something specific. Compare printers on cost per page at your own coverage rather than on cartridge price, since the cheap printer with expensive consumables is the oldest arrangement in the industry.
- Rated yieldAt the standard 5% coverage
- 2,000 pages
- Your coverage
- 10%
- Realistic yield
- 1,000 pages
- Cost per page
- $0.0600
- Cartridge lasts
- 3.3 months
- Cartridges a year
- 3.6
- Annual consumable cost
- $216.00
What this cannot tell you
- Arithmetic on the figures you enter. It cannot read your printer or measure the coverage of your documents.
- Yield also depends on print quality settings, on how often the printer runs cleaning cycles, and on the amount of toner or ink a cartridge is shipped with, none of which are in this calculation.
Take this with you
How this calculation works
Every yield figure printed on a box is measured under ISO/IEC 24711 at 5% page coverage, which is roughly a page of double-spaced text and nothing else. Real documents run higher. The calculation scales the rated yield by the ratio between the standard coverage and yours, which is why a cartridge rated for 2,000 pages delivers about 1,000 at 10% coverage. Cost per page and annual spend follow from there.
What the results mean
- Realistic yield
- The rated figure adjusted for your coverage. This is the number to plan around, and it is often about half what the box says.
- Cost per page
- The only fair way to compare printers. A cheap machine with expensive consumables is the oldest arrangement in the industry.
- Annual consumable cost
- What the printer actually costs to run each year. Compare this against the purchase price, which is usually the smaller number.
Common problems and fixes
- Cartridges run out far sooner than the rating suggests
- Work out your real coverage rather than assuming 5%. Anything with a header, a logo, a table or a chart is well above it, and a single full-page graphic can consume what a hundred pages of text would. Printing in draft quality and using a lighter typeface both reduce coverage meaningfully if the output is for internal use.
- A printer reports low ink while the cartridge still works
- Ink level indicators are estimates from page counts and coverage rather than measurements of what is left, so they are deliberately conservative. It is usually safe to keep printing until quality actually degrades, with one caution: laser cartridges can be shaken to redistribute toner and get a few more pages, while running an inkjet completely dry risks the print head on some designs.
Frequently asked questions
What is 5% page coverage?
About 250 words of plain text on an A4 page with generous spacing and nothing else. It is a laboratory standard for comparing cartridges fairly, not a claim about the documents you print, and almost nothing real is that light.
Are third-party cartridges worth it?
Financially, often. The risks are real but manageable: yields are frequently lower than claimed, quality varies between batches, and a leaking cartridge can damage a printer. Buy from a supplier who will replace a bad one, and avoid them entirely on a machine still under a warranty that excludes them.
Why do starter cartridges run out so quickly?
Because they are partly filled, often at a third to half the capacity of a full replacement. It keeps the printer price down and it is not usually mentioned prominently. Base any cost-per-page comparison on the full-size replacement rather than on what came in the box.
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