HP Wants You to Subscribe to Your Next Printer

For as long as they've been around, inkjet printers have sucked. They're difficult to keep a consistent connection to, and they're always running out of ink. They're the bane of any home office setup: If you hit the print button, you need to mentally prepare for some issues.

HP's vision for the future is ... different, to say the least. Rather than push you to buy one of their expensive, anti-consumer printers, they'd rather rent it to you through their "HP All-In Plan" service. And if you try to cancel, you'll wish you bought the printer from the outset.

What is the HP All-In Plan?

HP's new subscription service lets you, essentially, rent a printer. You pay a monthly subscription fee, and with it, you get your choice of one of three HP printers: the HP Envy, HP Envy Inspire, or the HP OfficeJet Pro.

With the printer, HP also sets you up with automatic ink delivery: When setting up your All-In Plan, you choose how much ink you want for the monthly period, as well as whether you want color or black and white. (Both cost the same.) When your printer detects you're running low on ink, it'll ping HP, which will subsequently ship you the ink. So if you thought it was a pain to have a printer stop working when it ran low on ink, imagine how fun it'll be to have the printer decide when you need more ink at all times!

To be fair, you do get 24/7 customer support, and if something is wrong with your printer, you can request a replacement with next-day delivery.

How much does the HP All-In Plan cost?

Depending on which printer you choose, your starting subscription price will vary:

• HP Envy ($6.99 per month)

• HP Envy Inspire ($8.99 per month)

• HP OfficeJet Pro ($12.99 per month)

However, this is just the starting price. From here, you need to choose a monthly page allowance. Each plan comes with a default 20 page per month allowance, which is laughably low for anyone who prints a reasonable amount. The amounts increase from here, depending on the plan:

• HP ENVY

  • Light: 20 pages for $6.99/month

  • Occasional: 50 pages for $8.99/month

  • Moderate: 100 pages for $10.99/month

  • Frequent: 300 pages for $16.99/month

• HP ENVY Inspire

  • Light: 20 pages for $8.99/month

  • Occasional: 50 pages for $10.99/month

  • Moderate: 100 pages for $12.99/month

  • Frequent: 300 pages for $18.99/month

  • Frequent plus: 500 pages for $25.99/month

  • Business: 700 pages for $31.99/month

• HP OfficeJet Pro - for 1-24+ months

  • Light: 20 pages for $12.99/month

  • Occasional: 50 pages for $14.99/month Moderate: 100 pages for $16.99/month Frequent: 300 pages for $22.99/month

  • Frequent plus: 500 pages for $29.99/month

  • Business: 700 pages for $35.99/month

  • Business plus: 1500 pages for $60.99/month

So the more you need to print, the pricier this agreement gets. Plus, if you go over your allotment, HP will charge you $1 per 10–15 additional pages, which is tacked onto your monthly bill. On the flip side, unused pages get rolled over to the following month.

While there is a 30-day free trial, you won't want to go over that if you're uncertain about your commitment. If you cancel after the trial but within 12 months from enrolling, you'll need to pay $120, $180, or $270 for the HP Envy, Envy Inspire, or OfficeJet Pro, respectively. After 12 months and before 24 months, you'll pay $60, $90, and $135, respectively. If you cancel after the two-year subscription, you can do so without paying, so long as you return the printer within 10 days.

Should you subscribe?

In many ways, subscriptions for hardware do make some sense. For devices you tend to upgrade frequently, it might make sense to leave the ownership up to the company, and reap the benefits of "renting." But it's not like the things that suck about printers are going to improve with this plan: I imagine you'll still have issues with ink levels, even if HP will ship you ink automatically, and depending on how much you print, you may end up spending more on "page allotments" than you would've if you bought your own printer.

You also need to keep your printer connected to the internet at all times. Yikes. You might already do this for wireless printing, but if you like to wire your printer to your computer, there's no need to plug another device to the internet. HP is watching you at all times, and may cut off service if you disconnect your printer from the internet. Seeing as the TOS also says HP owns your non-personal data and can send this data to ad partners, my advice is to stay away from this. We're all monitored too closely already: Do you really need to hand over the data generated by your printer, too?

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