HP Instant Ink vs. HP Plus vs. HP Smart: Which Ink Program Saves You the Most?

When you buy and install an HP printer, the setup routine may ask you to make some choices depending on the printer model. The most notable are whether to sign up for the HP Instant Ink plan and—for printers that support HP Plus—whether to install as an HP Plus device. After the installation you may also have to contend with multiple choices of productivity tools and drivers, most of which aren't self-explanatory. It's easy to get confused, especially since (as an HP rep told me) the company is in the middle of a large-scale transition period as it rolls out and scales HP Plus. Some details are still changing, and some rough spots are almost inevitable, as we've found when testing some HP Plus printers recently. This article will try to explain what you need to know to make setup go a little more smoothly.

All the Many Pieces

Because HP's various plans and tools are interrelated, it's helpful to know a little about each of them before getting into details. So we'll start with a quick overview:

HP Instant Ink is an ink subscription plan.

HP Plus (sometimes dubbed HP+) is not an ink subscription plan, but if you sign up for it, you can take advantage of Instant Ink for six months without charge, then choose whether to continue it after the free period. You'll also get other benefits, including a warranty extension and extra functionality. For laser printers, any given model that supports HP Plus, such as the HP LaserJet MFP M234dwe, must be installed as an HP Plus printer. For supported inkjets, including the HP Envy 6055e and HP OfficeJet 8035e, you get to choose during installation whether to set the printer up with HP Plus or not.

HP Smart has two components for any given device. The first is an app that runs on your Windows PC, Mac, or Android or iOS device, and must be installed to use the printer. A second component lives online, and integrates so seamlessly that you can't always tell when you're working in the cloud.

As for drivers, if your inkjet printer supports HP Plus but you choose not to set it up for the program, the Windows setup routine will install a standard driver with the port selection set to match whatever connection you're using. However, HP Smart also functions as a driver. And if you opt into HP Plus when setting your inkjet up, or are installing a LaserJet with HP Plus, HP Smart will also show up as a driver in Windows' Printers and Scanners list when you choose Settings > Devices > Printers & Scanners. The HP Smart app also offers more options for some features than the standard drivers and is HP's recommended choice.

Smart Advance is a collection of productivity tools that HP says is now available for any printer that supports HP Plus, whether you install the printer to take advantage of HP Plus or not.

A Closer Look: HP Instant Ink

If you sign up for the Instant Ink subscription service, you'll pay a monthly fee for printing up to a given number of pages, with a choice of tiers. Pricing is subject to change, but at this writing the tiers start at $1.99 per month for laser toner and 99 cents per month for ink. The cost includes delivery and recycling.

HP says you can save up to 50% using Instant Ink rather than buying ink or toner cartridges as you need them. Your actual savings will depend on how close you come to printing your full allotment of pages without going over that amount. If you go over the number in any given month, each additional set of 10 to 15 pages (depending on plan) costs $1. It helps that unused pages roll over to the next month, up to three months' worth for inkjets and two months' for toner, but after you reach the limit, you lose any additional pages that you've paid for and haven't used. Also note that the page count doesn't distinguish between black and color pages, so the higher the proportion of color pages you print, the more likely you are to save money with Instant Ink.

More About HP Plus

HP's laser printers either come with HP Plus as a requirement for setup or lack HP Plus support altogether, so you effectively choose whether to install with HP Plus when you choose a printer. By contrast, inkjets that support HP Plus give you the option during setup. HP says it plans to add the ability to opt in for some additional length of time after initial setup, however, so depending on when you read this, you may have additional time to decide.

What links HP Plus to HP Instant Ink is that, when you buy an HP Plus printer, you're entitled to a six-month Instant Ink subscription, only if you install the printer for HP Plus. Some printers also come with a separate introductory Instant Ink subscription for a number of months, which you can take advantage of whether you install the printer as an HP Plus device or not.

What's the cost for using HP Plus? You must agree to use only genuine HP ink or toner cartridges, recognized by the printer via chips in the cartridges. This doesn't commit you to staying an Instant Ink subscriber after the first six months, but it does commit you to avoiding third-party cartridges, which makes HP Plus a classic example of razors-and-blades marketing.

Six months of free ink isn't the only HP Plus benefit. Signing up also extends your warranty by one year and adds some features that you don't get without it. For instance, both HP Plus members and non-members can print through the cloud using the HP Smart app and take advantage of cloud-based faxing. For printing through the cloud, however, HP Plus adds a setting for private printing—the ability to send a print job from anywhere but print it only when you're near the device and able to pick up the document before anyone else can read it.

Other features you get with HP Plus include a Smart Dashboard in the cloud to manage the printer, security monitoring features, a cloud resiliency capability that HP says ensures print jobs always get delivered, and two years of Smart Advance access (more on Smart Advance below). HP also says that it makes an investment in forest protection and management when you sign up for HP Plus.

HP Smart and Drivers

As mentioned above, HP Smart has two components for any given device—the local app and the cloud features it connects to. These integrate seamlessly, so you can't always tell when you're working in the cloud, but the cloud component is only available if you set up an online account, and some features are available only if you sign up for HP Plus. In addition, if you install your printer as an HP Plus device, the installation routine will add an HP Smart Printing driver choice, which is part of the HP Smart app, in Windows' Printers & Scanners dialog box.

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In our tests with HP Plus printers on our standard Windows testbed, we've noticed more than one driver installed after setting up the printer. When we tested the OfficeJet Pro 8035e using an Ethernet connection during setup, for instance, we saw what appeared to be a standard Windows driver installed for the LAN connection along with the HP Smart Printing driver. Similarly, when we tested printers connected to our network over Wi-Fi during setup, we found an instance of a standard driver installed for a Wi-Fi port. We also noted that connecting a USB cable after installation automatically added a second instance of the standard Windows driver, with the new addition installed for the USB port.

You can print using any of these drivers, but the company recommends using HP Smart. It's automatically installed when you opt into HP Plus during setup, and is required to take advantage of some features not included in the standard drivers. For print quality, for example, the standard driver for the OfficeJet Pro 8035e lets you choose between Draft, Normal, and Best. The HP Smart driver adds EconoMode and Maximum DPI.

Smart Advance

We're not quite done yet: HP insists that Smart Advance is not a subscription service, but once you get past a two-year initial period, you must pay to continue using it, so you might as well think of it as one. According to HP, all printers that support HP Plus get Smart Advance access free for the first two years, whether you sign up for HP Plus or not. The company also says that after one year and 11 months you'll get a notification that your free trial is about to end and be given the option to continue by paying a monthly fee. Pricing is not available at this writing.

The features Smart Advance adds include multi-item scanning with auto boundary detection and saving each item to individual files; book scanning with automatic image correction to flatten pages, then saving all scanned pages into a single file; an auto-heal feature that removes distracting marks and hole punches; and the ability to apply OCR to save scans as searchable PDF, TXT, and DOCX files.

Other Tools

Whether you need, or can use, other productivity tools will vary depending on the printer. But don't be surprised if you have to download some apps after initial setup or simply find some on the HP site that you may prefer to the ones that get installed automatically. After we set up the OfficeJet Pro 8035e, for example, and tried to start a scan from the AIO’s front panel, we got a message on the printer’s touch screen that we needed to download additional software, with instructions for where to find it and how to set it up. Before we were through, we wound up with several additional tools, including HP Scan as an additional choice for scanning.

Finally, one bit of critical information. If the printer you're installing has a USB port, do not connect a USB cable until after setup (if at all). As of this writing, neither HP's Quick Start guides nor installation routines warn that having the cable connected can cause problems during setup. The company says it plans to address that, but whether you see a warning or not, if you plan to print using a USB connection, hold off on connecting the cable until after initial setup.