Frequently Asked Questions

A full set costs $343.28 — how does that sit against four separate emergency orders?

Better than the emergencies do. Four panicked single orders across a season mean four deliveries to chase, four chances to be caught mid-job with a dead slot, and the singles' prices: the GPR-53BK at $105.77 and the three colors at $97.66 each total $398.75. This set — GPR-53BK, GPR-53C, GPR-53M and GPR-53Y in one box — is $343.28, saving $55.47, and it puts the whole family on the shelf before any of it is urgent.

Why will the colors in this set need attention long before the black does?

Ratings. The black is rated at up to 36,000 pages; each color at up to 19,000. On balanced work the color slots turn over about twice inside one black cartridge's life. That is not a defect in the set — it is this family's shape — and it is why the colors are also sold as singles and a 3-color set, so the mid-life color refresh does not require buying black again.

What does the set average per cartridge?

About $85.82 a cartridge — $343.28 across the four — against $97.66 for a color single and $105.77 for the black bought alone. Averaging hides the family's split personality a little: you are really buying one long-life black and three faster-cycling colors at a shared discount, in a single shipment, from US stock.

Should a four-cartridge change be booked as downtime, or can it ride along with other work?

Ride it along if you can. Four swaps and a calibration take minutes each, and pairing the change with a scheduled clean or service visit means the machine is opened once, not five times. If production cannot spare even that, change the cartridges one slot at a time as each calls — the set does not have to go in as a ceremony, and the test page after each swap tells you the state of play.

How do we store the set if the machine still has weeks of life in its current cartridges?

Sealed, flat, cool and dry, out of direct sunlight and away from heat — and dated on arrival. A full GPR-53 set bought slightly ahead of need is normal production practice; the cartridges wait without deteriorating, and having the box in the building when the first slot calls is the entire point. Rotate it ahead of any later purchases so it is used first.

One cartridge in the set is faulty — do we return the whole box?

No. Each cartridge is covered on its own merits by our 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns, so a faulty GPR-53M goes back alone and the healthy cartridges stay in the machine. Keep the packaging until the set has proven itself over a few jobs, and the paperwork stays simple. Full terms are on our shipping and returns page, with support Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM CST.

When the set arrives, what should we check before any seal is broken?

Match the four boxes to the four slots before opening anything: GPR-53BK for black, GPR-53C for cyan, GPR-53M for magenta and GPR-53Y for yellow, seals intact. The code matters more than the box artwork — the three colors share a price and a 19,000-page rating, so the final letter is what tells them apart. A minute at goods-in prevents the mid-swap discovery that one cartridge is wrong.

Does the fitting order matter when all four cartridges go in together?

No set order is imposed — each slot works independently, so fit them in whatever sequence suits the operator. What does matter is the check afterwards: run the machine's calibration, then print one familiar full-color sheet and read all four colors on it. A full refresh is the one moment the machine's color balance can be judged as a whole, before production work starts depending on it.

Our output is mostly two-sided — what do the ratings mean in sheets?

The ratings count printed sides, not sheets. The GPR-53BK's 36,000 pages are 36,000 sides — about 18,000 two-sided sheets — and each color's 19,000 pages are about 9,500 two-sided sheets. A duplex-heavy site should halve the headline figures when planning stock, and read the machine's counter the same way: it counts sides, so it agrees with the ratings, not with the paper tray.

What should we do with the four cartridges that come out?

Keep the outgoing four together, in their slots' order, until the new set has proven itself across a few real jobs — they are your comparison set if a color is questioned, and their boxes carry the codes for the next order. Once the set is proven, clear them in one batch for recycling rather than letting empties accumulate shelf by shelf.

About This Set

This is the complete GPR-53 family in one box: the compatible GPR-53BK black rated at up to 36,000 pages, plus the GPR-53C cyan, GPR-53M magenta and GPR-53Y yellow rated at up to 19,000 pages each. It is the planned full refresh for imageRUNNER production machines, replacing four emergency orders with one stocked shelf. The set ships from one of our four US warehouses in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia or California, and every cartridge is covered by our 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns. More of the family is on the Canon toner page.

For the other GPR-53 options, there are the black cartridge (GPR-53BK), the yellow cartridge (GPR-53Y), the magenta cartridge (GPR-53M), the cyan cartridge (GPR-53C) and the GPR-53 8-cartridge set. On the machine side, this 4-cartridge set serves the imageRUNNER Advance C3330i, imageRUNNER Advance C3520i, imageRUNNER Advance C3525i and imageRUNNER Advance C3325i.