I'm not if this is the same State side but here in UK Canon's own carts will cost me around £44 for a set, versus £14 for generic carts from an online supplier in the Jersey tax haven. I have little doubt that the Canon carts combined with Canon paper ( critical) provide really outstanding results but at a cost that cannot be justified for school project and travel documents that the printer needs to churn out on a regular basis. So I use cheap carts such as these on the family Mac but nice Canon ones on my photoprinter.