Free tool · nothing is uploaded
What one copy really costs you in ink
How it works
- Input
- your PDF + cartridge prices
- Measured
- CMYK coverage, mm² per channel
- Modelled
- ml per copy
- Output
- cost for 1 / 10 / 100 / 1000
- Compared against
- $200 and $180 / litre
- Privacy
- file never leaves the browser
What you pay for ink today
OEM ink is sold in cartridges, which hides the price per litre. Enter what you actually pay.
- Your black
- $594 / litre
- Your colour
- $647 / litre
- InkBags pigment
- $200 / litre
- InkBags dye
- $180 / litre
The job
Choose the PDF you actually print. It is read in this browser and never uploaded anywhere.
Reading the result honestly
What this means Coverage is measured; millilitres are modelled. If you need the volumes to be exact rather than indicative, enter how many copies of this job you get from one cartridge — the calculator then works backwards to the true ink laydown of your machine, and every number after that is yours rather than a textbook average.
Where this measurement is approximate
Two places, both worth knowing before you quote a customer from it. First, the file is rasterised to sRGB before being measured, so on CMYK-native artwork a flat cyan reads as 100% cyan plus about 27% magenta — the colour channels are an upper bound rather than a separation. Second, millilitres come from a drop-volume model, not from a measurement, until you calibrate them against a cartridge you have run out.
What is exact: the geometry. A shape covering half the sheet measures as half the sheet, which we verify against test files whose coverage is known by construction.
Why we did not just publish a headline saving
Because a headline saving is only true for one job at one coverage on one substrate. Ink cost per copy varies by an order of magnitude between a barcode label and a full-bleed carton, so a single percentage on a marketing page is either useless or misleading. A calculator you can check against your own production data is harder to build and easier to trust.
The same applies to the payback figure: it uses the copy volume you enter, not an optimistic assumption. Enter your real monthly volume and the number is real.
Prices used for comparison are our published ones — $200 per litre pigment and $180 per litre dye — not an internal figure.
Calculator FAQ
Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read and rendered inside your browser by pdf.js, and the pixel analysis runs on your machine. Nothing is sent to us, which is also why there is no size limit beyond what your browser can hold.
How is coverage measured?
The page is rendered to a canvas at your chosen analysis resolution, then every pixel is converted to CMYK with a grey component replacement factor you control. Summing each channel gives coverage as a fraction of the sheet, which becomes square millimetres of ink per channel.
How accurate are the millilitres?
Coverage is measured and accurate. Converting coverage to millilitres is a model: drops per square metre (from the printhead resolution) times the drop volume. HP does not publish the drop volume for the FI-1000 head, so the default is an estimate. Enter how many copies you get from one cartridge and the calculator back-solves the real figure for your machine and substrate.
Why does the total coverage exceed 100%?
Because it is the sum of four channels. A sheet with 60% cyan and 60% magenta has 120% total ink coverage on 60% of its area — that is normal, and it is the number that drives ink consumption.
My artwork is CMYK. Does that change the result?
Slightly, and in a knowable direction. The page is rasterised to sRGB before it is measured, and converting that back to CMYK cannot recover the original separation — a 100% cyan fill measures as 100% cyan plus roughly 27% magenta. So on CMYK-native artwork the two other colours read a little high. Every raster-based coverage tool works this way, APFill included. If your job is mostly flat brand colours, treat the colour channels as an upper bound.
Does it include purges and test prints?
No. It costs the ink that lands on the sheet. Maintenance cycles, start-up waste and test prints are real consumption and on short runs they can exceed the ink in the job itself.
Where does the $200 per litre come from?
That is our published price for pigment ink; dye (water-soluble) is $180 per litre. Both are listed in the shop, so you can check the comparison rather than take it on trust.
Send us the numbers you got
If the saving looks worth acting on, send us the job and your volumes. We confirm the ink against your machine and quote the switch — including the bulk supply modification if it pays for itself.