Frequently Asked Questions

What does the cyan cartridge actually do in my SP C252DN prints?

Cyan does far more than make blue. On the Ricoh SP C252DN it blends with magenta and yellow to build greens, teals, sky tones, and the cool half of photographs and charts, and it mixes with the other colors to form process black in color documents. When cyan fades first, color pages do not just lose blue — skies go pink, greens turn yellow, and logos drift off-brand. This listing is for the cyan cartridge only, rated at 6,500 pages; the black cartridge for this machine is sold separately.

How long should one 6,500-page cyan cartridge last?

It depends entirely on how much cyan your pages carry. A mostly text office that prints the occasional color chart might stretch one cartridge well past a year, while a small studio printing full-color flyers every week can work through 6,500 pages of rated yield much faster — the rating assumes light, standard coverage, and heavy color pages use toner far quicker. A practical check: if your color volume is a few hundred pages a month, expect cyan to be a slow-moving supply rather than a monthly purchase.

Will this cyan cartridge work in my printer?

This cartridge is made for Ricoh SP C252DN. Check the model name on the front of your machine before ordering — Ricoh sells several similar-looking SP C-series printers that take different cartridges, and the color position matters too: this is the cyan cartridge, so it belongs in the cyan slot only. If your printer's model is not the SP C252DN, this is not the right cartridge for it.

Is $51.34 a fair price for 6,500 pages of cyan?

Honest answer: at roughly 0.79¢ per rated page, this is not bargain-bin toner, and we will not pretend otherwise. The SP C252DN is a compact machine with modest cartridge yields, so its cost per page runs higher than big departmental printers. What the $51.34 buys is availability for a specific color position in a specific machine, a rated 6,500 pages, and the coverage described below — for most owners, keeping a working printer supplied beats replacing the machine over one empty color.

My printer says cyan is low but my prints still look fine — should I wait?

You can usually keep printing while the low warning is on, but do not let it run completely dry mid-job: an empty color can leave streaks and force a reprint of the whole run. Because cyan affects greens and blues before the change is obvious in text, faded skies or yellowish greens are your real signal. Ordering when the warning first appears — rather than when pages come out pink — keeps a spare on the shelf without tying up much money in a single cartridge.

What protection comes with this cartridge if something goes wrong?

Every Clever Supplies compatible cartridge is covered by a 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns, set out on our shipping and returns page. If this cyan cartridge is defective or fails early, contact support Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM CST, and we will make it right. Orders ship from our warehouses in IL, PA, GA and CA, so a replacement does not have to cross the whole country to reach you.

About This Cyan Cartridge

This is a Clever Supplies compatible cyan toner cartridge for the Ricoh SP C252DN, rated at 6,500 pages and priced at $51.34. It is one color position of a four-cartridge machine — black is sold separately — and it is backed by a 1-year warranty with 1-year free returns. See the full range for this printer family on our Ricoh toner page.