Frequently Asked Questions
Our 5230dn serves a whole department — how long will one cartridge last us?
Shared machines eat toner at shared rates, so translate the rating into your department's volume. The cartridge is rated at 21,000 pages. A department putting 3,000 pages a month through the 5230dn will see about seven months from one unit; at 5,000 pages a month, a little over four months. Either way it is a twice-or-three-times-a-year event, not a constant interruption — which is exactly what a shared printer needs.
What is the toner cost per page on a shared machine?
About 0.66 cents: $138.32 spread over the 21,000-page rating of the 330-6968 cartridge. For departments that allocate print costs per page or per team, that two-thirds of a cent is a clean, defensible number to work with — measured, like every rating in the industry, at 5% page coverage.
Should a shared 5230dn keep a spare cartridge on site?
Yes — on a machine that a dozen people depend on, the cost of an empty printer is measured in stalled work, not toner. One spare 330-6968 on the shelf means the change takes minutes whenever the installed cartridge gives out, including the Friday-afternoon failures that always seem to land before a deadline. The spare keeps in its sealed box, flat and dry, until it is needed.
Does heavy use by many people shorten the cartridge's life?
It shortens the calendar time, not the page count. The cartridge delivers its rated pages regardless of whether one person or thirty sent the jobs — what changes is how fast the department accumulates 21,000 pages. Mixed departmental work (reports, forms, the occasional dense handout) averages out close to the standard coverage the rating assumes, so the rating stays a good planning number.
Which cartridge does the 5230dn use?
Dell part number 330-6968, the high-yield black rated at 21,000 pages. The 5230dn takes the same cartridge as the rest of the 5230 and 5350 family — one shared supply across the line — and matching the 330-6968 code on your old cartridge is the quickest confirmation before ordering.
What if the cartridge underperforms?
It is covered by a 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns if it does not perform as it should; the full policy is on our shipping and returns page. This is a compatible cartridge rather than a Dell original, and that returns window is there so a department can standardize on it without risk. Questions are handled Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM CST.
About This Dell 5230dn Cartridge
For the Dell Laser 5230dn, this is the high-yield black cartridge it was built around: Dell 330-6968, 21,000 pages at about 0.66 cents per page, $138.32 as a compatible unit. It ships from one of our four US warehouses in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia or California, and it carries our 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns. The rest of the compatible range for Dell departmental printers is on our Dell toner page.
See Compatible Printers
Read more about our ink!
