The EcoTank range is confusing on purpose. The only thing that changes the running cost is which ink family a model takes - and it is not the model you would guess.
#ad — buy links are affiliate links and we may earn a commission at no cost to you. How this site is funded. We do not display live prices, so every button sends you to Amazon’s own page for the current one. Cost-per-page figures are arithmetic on supply prices we read on 27 September 2026 — here is the method.
Epson sells a lot of EcoTanks with four-digit names that tell you nothing. The single fact that makes the range legible is this: there are two home ink families, and which one a model takes matters more than where it sits in the price list.
How we picked
We grouped the range by ink family first and ranked within it, because that is the only variable that changes the running cost. Within each family the price steps buy hardware — a duplexer, a feeder, Ethernet — and we judged those against what they actually save or spare you rather than against the spec sheet.
Every price here came from Epson’s own store, and where Epson did not publish one, the entry says so. Yields came from Epson’s replacement ink specifications, which state ISO page figures per bottle.
The two ink families, and the surprise
Epson's two home EcoTank ink families, as read from Epson's own pages
Ink
Black bottle
Color bottle
Black per page
Color per page
522
4,500 pages, $17.99
7,500 pages, $17.99
~0.4¢
~1.1¢
502
7,500 pages, $24.99
6,000 pages, $16.99
~0.3¢
~1.2¢
552 (photo)
6,700 pages, $23.99
6,200 pages, $21.99
~0.4¢
~1.4¢
Yields and prices read from Epson US on 27 September 2026 at the pages listed below. 502 has the cheaper black page; 522 has the cheaper color page. Which one wins for you depends on what you print, which is the useful finding on this page. Our method.
So the surprise is that the dearer printers do not have dearer ink, and the cheaper printers do not have cheaper ink. The 502 family, which sits on the mid-range bodies, has the lowest cost per black page in the whole range. The 522 family, on the entry-level bodies, has the lowest cost per color page.
Which model, by what you print
Mostly text, some color, long documents: ET-2850. Best black page in the range plus a duplexer.
Mixed household printing, single and double pages: ET-2800. The default answer.
Money is the constraint: ET-2400. Same ink, same cost per page, fifty dollars less.
You scan multi-page documents: ET-4800 for the feeder, or ET-3850 for a feeder and a duplexer on the cheaper black ink.
Photographs are the point: the Photo ET-8550, and nothing else in the range comes close.
The subscription question, for EcoTank
No EcoTank requires a subscription. Epson sells a supply subscription for its cartridge printers, which is a different product line; an EcoTank is filled from bottles you buy outright. And because there is no cartridge, there is no chip for a firmware update to reject — which is the practical reason bottle-fed printers keep winning the third-party ink question.
Who should not buy an EcoTank
Anyone printing under about twenty pages a month, especially if those pages are black text. You will not print enough to recover the higher sticker price, and an inkjet left idle for months is the printer most likely to disappoint you. Buy a mono laser instead and accept the higher cost per page you will barely notice.
Specifications and running costs side by side, for the printers discussed on this page.
Cost-per-page figures are our own arithmetic: supply price divided by the manufacturer’s rated page yield, using prices read on 27 September 2026 and yields rated at the ISO 5% coverage standard. They are not measured by us and they are not current prices. Every input, and the working · run the numbers for your own printing
The picks in detail
Best EcoTank overall
Epson EcoTank ET-2800
The cheapest way to get genuinely low-cost color printing at home, as long as you can live without an auto duplexer or a document feeder.
Illustrative photograph of this kind of printer. We do not have this model in hand and this is not a photograph of the unit.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s page is the price of record.
~0.4¢ per mono page · ~1.1¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 522 black ink bottle rated at 4,500 pages at $17.99, priced on 27 September 2026.
The color figure adds one per-page cost for each of the three color channels, because an ISO color page draws from all of them.
Epson 522 black ink bottle — rated 4,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 522 color ink bottle — rated 7,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
Among the lowest cost per page of any printer sold for home use
Refillable bottles, so no chipped cartridge can be locked out by firmware
Comes with enough ink in the box to last most households a long time
What you give up
No automatic two-sided printing, so paper costs twice what it needs to
Flatbed scanner only - no document feeder for multi-page scans
Inkjets still need to be used occasionally or the print head can clog
The ET-2800 is the model most households should buy. It prints, scans and copies in color from 522 bottles, at about 0.4 of a cent a black page and 1.1 of a cent in color, for $239.99 at Epson’s own list price when we checked.
No automatic duplexer, which is its one real omission. On a printer this cheap to feed, paper is the bigger cost, so if you print long documents the ET-2850 is genuinely worth the step up.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s page is the price of record.
~0.3¢ per mono page · ~1.2¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 502 black ink bottle rated at 7,500 pages at $24.99, priced on 27 September 2026.
The color figure adds one per-page cost for each of the three color channels, because an ISO color page draws from all of them.
Epson 502 black ink bottle — rated 7,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $24.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 502 color ink bottle — rated 6,000 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $16.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
Automatic two-sided printing, which the ET-2800 and ET-2400 lack
Uses 502 ink, whose black bottle is rated higher than the 522 black
Lowest cost per mono page of the EcoTanks we cover
What you give up
Noticeably dearer than the ET-2800 at list price
Still no document feeder
502 color bottles are rated lower than 522 color, so heavy color use narrows the gap
The ET-2850 does two things the cheaper models do not: it duplexes automatically, and it runs on 502 ink, whose black bottle is rated at 7,500 pages — considerably higher than the 522 black. That gives it the lowest cost per black page in the EcoTank range at about 0.3 of a cent.
Its 502 color bottles are rated lower than 522 color, so heavy color printing narrows the gap and can reverse it. Mostly text with some color: this is the one. Mostly color: the ET-2800 holds up.
The ET-2800's running cost with the office hardware bolted on: a document feeder, wired Ethernet and fax. Worth it only if you actually need one of those three.
Illustrative photograph of this kind of printer. We do not have this model in hand and this is not a photograph of the unit.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s page is the price of record.
~0.4¢ per mono page · ~1.1¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 522 black ink bottle rated at 4,500 pages at $17.99, priced on 27 September 2026.
The color figure adds one per-page cost for each of the three color channels, because an ISO color page draws from all of them.
Epson 522 black ink bottle — rated 4,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 522 color ink bottle — rated 7,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
List price
Not published where we checked on 27 September 2026
Supply type
Refillable ink bottles
Two-sided printing
Not stated on the spec page we read
Document feeder
Automatic document feeder
Connectivity
Wireless and Ethernet
Subscription
None required
What we like
Same 522 ink and therefore the same cost per page as the cheaper EcoTanks
Automatic document feeder for multi-page scanning and copying
Wired Ethernet, which is more reliable than Wi-Fi for a shared printer
What you give up
Epson did not publish a list price on its product page when we checked
You pay for the feeder and the fax whether or not you use them
Still an inkjet, so it wants occasional use
The office-shaped EcoTank: an automatic document feeder, wired Ethernet and fax, on the same 522 ink as the ET-2800 so the cost per page is identical. Buy it for the feeder, which is the only one of the three most households will use.
Epson did not publish a list price on the page we read, so we cannot tell you whether the hardware is well priced — only what it costs to run.
The cheapest entry into bottle-fed ink. It runs on exactly the same 522 ink as the ET-2800, so the cost per page is identical - you are only giving up some hardware.
Illustrative photograph of this kind of printer. We do not have this model in hand and this is not a photograph of the unit.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s page is the price of record.
~0.4¢ per mono page · ~1.1¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 522 black ink bottle rated at 4,500 pages at $17.99, priced on 27 September 2026.
The color figure adds one per-page cost for each of the three color channels, because an ISO color page draws from all of them.
Epson 522 black ink bottle — rated 4,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 522 color ink bottle — rated 7,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
Identical 522 ink to the dearer ET-2800, so identical running cost
Small enough for a shelf or a shared family desk
What you give up
No automatic two-sided printing
Flatbed scanner only
Fewer hardware niceties than the ET-2800 for a modest saving
The entry point, at $189.99 when we checked, taking exactly the same 522 ink at the same rated yields as the ET-2800 and the ET-4800. Identical running cost, less hardware.
If money is the constraint and you can live without a duplexer and a feeder, nothing about this printer makes your printing more expensive than a dearer EcoTank would.
The only printer here bought for photographs rather than paperwork. It is expensive to buy and remarkably cheap to feed, which is the whole argument for it.
Illustrative photograph of this kind of printer. We do not have this model in hand and this is not a photograph of the unit.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s page is the price of record.
~0.4¢ per mono page · ~1.4¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 552 black ink bottle rated at 6,700 pages at $23.99, priced on 27 September 2026.
The color figure adds one per-page cost for each of the three color channels, because an ISO color page draws from all of them.
Epson 552 black ink bottle — rated 6,700 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $23.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 552 color ink bottle — rated 6,200 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $21.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
Six-color ink set with a dedicated photo black and a gray channel
Prints borderless up to 13 by 19 inches
Bottle-fed, so heavy photo printing does not mean a cartridge bill
What you give up
By far the highest sticker price on this site
No Ethernet, despite the price
Overkill unless photographs are the main reason you are buying
A different tool from everything above it. Six colors including a dedicated photo black and a gray channel, borderless printing up to 13 by 19 inches, and $749.99 at Epson’s list price when we checked — by far the highest sticker price on this site.
It is here for one buyer: somebody printing photographs often enough that cartridge costs became the problem. At about 0.4 of a cent a black page and 1.4 of a cent in color it is cheap to feed; it is expensive to buy, and overkill for documents.
The ET-2800 for most households, at about 0.4 of a cent a black page and $239.99 at Epson’s list price when we checked. The ET-2850 is better if you print long documents: it duplexes and its 502 ink gives the lowest cost per black page in the range.
+−What is the difference between Epson 502 and 522 ink?
They fit different EcoTank models and have different rated yields. The 502 black bottle is rated at 7,500 pages against the 522 black’s 4,500, so 502 gives a cheaper black page. The 522 color bottles are rated higher than 502 color, so 522 gives a cheaper color page.
+−Do EcoTank printers need a subscription?
No. Every EcoTank is filled from ink bottles you buy outright. There is no plan, no account requirement and no page allowance, and no cartridge chip for a firmware update to reject.
+−Is an EcoTank worth it for home use?
Above roughly forty pages a month, or if you print color at all regularly, yes — the ink cost is about a twentieth of a cartridge printer’s. Below about twenty pages a month, a mono laser is the better buy on both cost and reliability.
+−How long do EcoTank ink bottles last?
On Epson’s rated yields, a single 522 black bottle is rated at 4,500 pages and a 502 black at 7,500. For a household printing fifty pages a month that is years. Rated yields assume 5% page coverage, so heavy graphics consume ink faster than the headline figure suggests.
+−Can I use third-party ink in an EcoTank?
Physically yes — it is a bottle poured into a tank, with no chip to authenticate. We do not publish cost-per-page figures for third-party ink because its yields are not rated to the ISO standard, and Epson’s own bottles are already under half a cent a page.
