Compatible ink and toner (also called consumables) is manufactured by third party manufacturers and are designed to work in designated printers without infringing on patents of printer manufacturers. These toners may come in a variety of packaging including sealed plastic wraps or taped plastic wraps. Regardless of packaging, compatible products are generally priced lower than original equipment manufacturer

Original Equipment Manufacturer

An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...

 (OEM) brand consumable products. While there has been considerable debate and litigation involving the ink and toner

Toner

Toner is a powder used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the printed text and images on the paper. In its early form it was simply carbon powder. Then, to improve the quality of the printout, the carbon was melt-mixed with a polymer...

 patents of printer manufacturers, third party manufacturers continue to thrive. Manufacturers of compatible ink and toner products currently control about 25% the ink and toner market well over $8 Billion annually.

Types

Compatible ink is manufactured for several types of machines including fax machines, laser printer

Laser printer

A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a xerographic printing process, but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced...

s, inkjet printer

Inkjet printer

An inkjet printer is a type of computer printer that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer and range from small inexpensive consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost up to thousands of...

s, multifunction printer

Multifunction printer

An MFP , multifunctional, all-in-one , or Multifunction Device , is an office machine which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in one, so as to have a smaller footprint in a home or small business setting , or to provide centralized document...

s, and copiers. Aside from compatible products, three other sources of consumables are also available to supply these machines, including OEM brand ink and toner, remanufactured

Remanufacturing

Remanufacturing is the process of disassembly and recovery at the module level and, eventually, at the component level. It requires the repair or replacement of worn out or obsolete components and modules. Parts subject to degradation affecting the performance or the expected life of the whole are...

 toner and ink cartridge

Ink cartridge

An ink cartridge or inkjet cartridge is a replaceable component of an inkjet printer that contains the ink that is deposited onto paper during printing....

s, and refilled ink

Inkjet refill kit

An inkjet refill kit is a set of tools and a certain amount of ink used to refill ink cartridges. The specific tools and the amount or type of ink depends on which cartridge the kit is designed for...

 and toner cartridges

Toner refill

Toner refilling is the practice of refilling empty laser printer toner cartridges with new toner powder. This enables the cartridge to be reused, saving the cost of a complete new cartridge and the impact of the waste and disposal of the old one....

. Compatible ink manufacturers differentiate their product by using all new parts, whereas other ink replacements recycle used OEM parts.

Quality

Part of the debate surrounding compatible consumables is about the quality of compatible products. Third part manufacturers defend the quality of their products vigorously. Independent testing on compatible ink show little or no difference in quality between compatible and OEM products. However, many critics of compatible ink say the colors (especially yellow) on prints are not as bright as genuine ink, and that finished prints appear to be less glossy. Critics also say that color prints made with compatible ink are less durable than OEM ink and toners as well. One example given is that while Epson OEM ink can produce prints that last for 92 years, compatible ink prints generally fade more quickly.