Against a cartridge PIXMA, an Epson EcoTank is the cheaper printer to own and it is not a close contest: bottles of ink replace chipped cartridges and the cost per page falls by an order of magnitude. Against a PIXMA MegaTank — Canon own refillable line, sold under the same PIXMA name — the comparison is genuinely tight, and on the prices we read Canon GI-21 ink is the cheapest per page of anything on this site.
Is an EcoTank better than a Canon PIXMA?
Yes if the PIXMA is a cartridge model: an EcoTank refills from bottles and costs a fraction as much per page. No clear winner if the PIXMA is a MegaTank, which is also refillable — Canon GI-21 ink is marginally cheaper per page, while Epson offers auto duplex and document feeders further up its range.
PIXMA is two different printers
This is the thing that makes the comparison confusing, and it is Canon naming rather than anybody misunderstanding. PIXMA is the brand across Canon consumer inkjets, and it covers both the traditional cartridge printers sold cheaply at every big-box retailer and the PIXMA MegaTank G-series, which is refillable from bottles in exactly the way an EcoTank is.
So before comparing anything, find out which one is in front of you. If the model number starts with a G and the printer has visible ink reservoirs down one side, it is a MegaTank and it is not the ink trap. If it takes a cartridge with a chip on it, every argument on this site about cartridge economics applies. EcoTank vs cartridge covers that case in full.
EcoTank vs PIXMA MegaTank, on the numbers
| Canon PIXMA MegaTank G3270 | Epson EcoTank ET-2800 | Epson EcoTank ET-2850 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| List price | $248.99 | $239.99 | $349.99 |
| Ink | GI-21 bottles | 522 bottles | 502 bottles |
| Mono per page | ~0.3¢ | ~0.4¢ | ~0.3¢ |
| ISO color per page | ~0.8¢ | ~1.1¢ | ~1.2¢ |
| Black ink type | Pigment | Not stated | Not stated |
| Auto duplex | Not stated | No | Yes |
| Document feeder | No | No | No |
| Scanner | Flatbed | Flatbed | Flatbed |
Hardware and ink facts as published by each manufacturer on the specification pages recorded in our registry. Cost per page is our arithmetic - bottle price divided by the manufacturer rated ISO yield. The Canon list price is a retailer listing because Canon own store would not show us a price.
Read down the cost rows and the gap is real but small in absolute terms: on a thousand mono pages the difference between the cheapest Canon and the cheapest Epson here is pennies. Both are roughly a tenth of what a laser costs per page and a tiny fraction of a cartridge printer. The decision is not really about the ink.
What actually decides it
- Hardware you need. Epson publishes a wider refillable range: auto duplex on the ET-2850, a document feeder and Ethernet on the ET-4800, both plus fax on the ET-4950. If a feeder or a duplexer is on your list, Epson has more models that have it.
- Pigment or dye black. Canon states a pigment black on the G3270, which smudges less and resists water better on plain paper. That is a genuine advantage for paperwork, labels and anything that gets handled.
- Bottle availability. Epson 522 and 502 bottles are stocked very widely. GI-21 bottles are less universal. Neither is hard to find online; one is easier to find locally at nine in the evening.
- Neither brand needs a subscription. Both lines are filled from bottles bought outright, and neither requires an account to print. Brand by brand on subscriptions.
If the PIXMA you are looking at takes cartridges
Then the comparison is over before it starts, and the reason is structural rather than a criticism of Canon. A cartridge printer is sold cheap and earns its margin on supplies; a refillable printer is sold dearer and earns nothing afterwards. We do not publish a cost per page for Canon cartridge PIXMA models because we have not priced those cartridges from a source we can cite — but the published cartridge yields in that class are measured in hundreds of pages, against 6,000 pages for a single GI-21 black bottle.
Three years at 100 pages a month is $11 of ink on the MegaTank. That is the number to hold up against any cartridge printer you are considering, whoever makes it. What printer ink actually costs.
The verdict
Buy the Canon PIXMA MegaTank G3270 if you want the lowest running cost available and can live without a duplexer or a feeder. Buy an Epson EcoTank if you want a refillable printer with office hardware attached — and buy the ET-2850 rather than the ET-2800 if you print anything longer than a page, because the duplexer saves more in paper than the ink difference between the two brands amounts to. The three-way comparison puts HP in the picture as well.