Frequently Asked Questions

The first step on this ladder is the steepest — what does the second cartridge really cost?

Do the subtraction: the pack is $137.55, a single is $78.02, so the second cartridge effectively costs $59.53. The per-cartridge price falls from $78.02 to about $68.78, and two singles bought separately would cost $156.04 — the pack saves $18.49. In the bigger GPR families the first pack step is a gentle discount; in the GPR-36 family it is the single largest price drop per cartridge on the ladder, which makes the 2-pack this family's natural resting point for many buyers.

What does the pack do to the per-page cost?

It brings it from about 0.41 cents on the single down to roughly 0.36 cents — the largest single improvement available in this family. Across the 38,000 pages the pack holds, that difference is the same $18.49 saving seen from the cost side. On a mid-volume machine the absolute money is modest; the honest claim is simply that this rung is where the GPR-36 stops being bought at its most expensive rate.

One cartridge in the machine, one on the shelf — is that the whole idea?

Essentially, yes, and for a mid-size office it is usually enough. The GPR-36BK changes are infrequent events — a cartridge lasts months — so the risk is not volume, it is timing: the cartridge fades on the morning of the big print run, and the replacement is three delivery days away. The shelf spare removes that scenario for the price of the discount described above. When the spare goes in, that is the reorder signal, and the cycle repeats without urgency.

How long will this pack carry a mid-size office?

The pack holds 38,000 pages. At 3,000 pages a month, that is roughly a year of black printing; at 2,000 a month, about nineteen months. The ratings behind those figures assume 5% coverage, and real office output wanders around the standard — heavy report months shorten the horizon, quiet months stretch it. Either way, this is a pack bought once and mostly forgotten about, which is what a supply purchase should feel like.

How should the spare wait out its months on the shelf?

Sealed, flat, and somewhere cool and dry — out of sunlight, away from radiators and damp storerooms. Nothing else is required: a compatible cartridge in its bag loses nothing by waiting, and there is no advantage to installing it early. One practical detail: the 1-year warranty and returns cover runs from purchase, and normal rotation in a 2-pack cycle keeps any cartridge comfortably inside its cover period anyway.

What if the spare turns out to be faulty when its turn finally comes?

It goes back under the same cover as the cartridge that went in first: a 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns, applied to each cartridge individually, at no cost to you. Contact support — Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM CST — and the return is arranged from there. The full terms are on our shipping and returns page.

About This Canon GPR-36 Black Toner 2 Pack

Two compatible Canon GPR-36 black cartridges (GPR-36BK), 19,000 pages each — 38,000 pages at about $68.78 a cartridge and roughly 0.36 cents a page, for the mid-volume imageRUNNER machines built around the GPR-36 family. Orders ship from our warehouses in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia and California, routed from whichever is closest to you. Larger rungs of this family are in our Canon toner range.

The GPR-36 fit list for this black 2 pack runs to the ImageRunner Advance C2030, ImageRunner Advance C2225, ImageRunner C2020, and ImageRunner Advance C2020. Rounding out the GPR-36 range are the black cartridge (GPR-36BK), the GPR-36 black 3 pack, and the GPR-36 4-cartridge set.