For printer users who have to decide where to spend their cash on, knowing the difference between a high yield cartridge and a standard yield cartridge as well as when to choose which assists in making the best financial decision for sourcing printer supplies.
For most ink cartridges (and a lot of the toner cartridges as well), there is typically no physical difference between the standard yield and the high yield cartridge. The difference (which is only discerned within the manufacturer documentation by the number of pages that will be printed by each cartridge) is in the volume of ink or toner powder contained within each cartridge.
High yield cartridges on average, have two times to three times the ink volumes than a standard yield cartridge. And more importantly, high yield cartridges print more pages than the standard variant. For example, HP 60, which is popular ink cartridge for the HP Desktop printers for home use, the standard yield color cartridge, the HP 60 CC643WN Original Tri-color Ink Cartridge, has a page yield of only 165 Pages, compared to the High yield version, the HP 60XL CC644WN Original Tri-color Ink Cartridge which has a page yield of 440 Pages.
There is also a relationship between the yield of a cartridge and the cost per page. The cost per page tells how economical the printing cost per page is. The lower the cost per page, the less is your printing expense over a longer time period. Using the earlier example of the HP 60, the cost per page for the standard yield cartridge is 18.2 cent(s) while the cost per page for the high yield cartridge is 15.9 cent(s). Knowing which of the variants to buy (high yield or standard yield?) depends on your printing habits. If you are an infrequent printer user who prints sporadically and has a conservative budget, you are best advised to go for the standard yield. But if you are a heavy printer user, then the best option is to buy the high yield version of a cartridge as it will save you more over the long term.
