Epson

Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550

Photo printerBottles

Borderless 13 × 19 is the headline, and for a home printmaker it changes what the machine is for. A print that size is something you frame, and the ET-8550 will produce it from refillable tanks rather than from a tray of cartridges that empty on the third print. The six-ink set is the same as the ET-8500's — the grey channel doing the heavy lifting on black-and-white — and so is the rest of the body: 16 ISO ppm for documents, automatic duplex, a card slot, a 4.3-inch touchscreen, Ethernet. Photographers coming from a cartridge photo printer tend to be startled twice: once by how cheap the prints are, and once by how much ink an initial fill and a few head cleans consume. Both are true, and the second stops mattering after the first few weeks.

Approx. price: ~$799
Cost per mono page: 0.30¢
Cost per colour page: 1.1¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$822
Print speed, mono: 16 ISO ppm

Best for

A photographer who wants gallery-size prints at home and is tired of cartridge photo printers running dry mid-print.

marks an estimate. Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Purchase price plus ink or toner over the pages shown, assuming four mono pages for every colour page. Price is an approximate snapshot from our last catalogue update.

What it costs to own

Black consumable: Epson 552 pigment black bottle · 6,700 ISO pages · ~$19.99
Colour consumable: Epson 552 cyan / magenta / yellow bottles · 6,200 ISO pages · ~$17.49 each
Cost per mono page: 0.30¢
Cost per colour page: 1.1¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$822
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$833 (7,200 pages)

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. How this is worked out

Cost to own · 5,000 pages

Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550~$822
~$799 printer + ~$23 supplies
Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8500~$622
~$599 printer + ~$23 supplies

purchase priceink or toner. An estimate: purchase price plus 5,000 pages at each printer’s computed cost per page, assuming 4 mono pages for every colour page. Printers whose consumable price we could not source are left out.

Specifications

Manufacturer-published figures. Cost lines are computed from the consumable figures above and are estimates.

Approx. price: ~$799
Cost per mono page: 0.30¢
Cost per colour page: 1.1¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$822
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$833
Technology: Piezo inkjet
Ink system: Bottles
Inks: 6
Black consumable: Epson 552 pigment black bottle · 6,700 pages
Colour consumable: Epson 552 cyan / magenta / yellow bottles · 6,200 pages
Ink in the box: 6,700 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: None offered
Print speed, mono: 16 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 12 ISO ppm
Functions: Print · Copy · Scan
Two-sided printing: Auto
Document feeder: None
Paper capacity: 100 sheets
Max paper size: 13×19
Borderless photo: Yes
Resolution: 5760 × 1440 dpi
Connectivity: Wi-Fi · Ethernet
Mobile printing: AirPrint · Mopria
Display: 4.3" colour touchscreen
Dimensions: 20.4 × 16.8 × 6.7 in
Weight: 23.6 lb
Released: 2021

Features

Borderless printing up to 13 × 19 inches
Six-ink Claria ET Premium set including grey and photo black
Refillable tanks rather than photo cartridges
Automatic two-sided document printing
4.3-inch touchscreen with an SD card slot
Wired Ethernet alongside dual-band Wi-Fi

Auto duplex No ink lock Wider than letter Borderless photo Ethernet

In its favour

13 × 19 borderless prints from a tank printer, which almost nothing else in this price band offers
The grey ink keeps monochrome prints genuinely neutral
Per-print cost is a fraction of any cartridge photo printer's
Still a capable everyday document printer with auto duplex and 16 ISO ppm
Prints straight from an SD card on the 4.3-inch screen
A card slot and a 4.3-inch screen mean a photo can be cropped and printed without a computer

Against it

The scanner is letter-size only, so it cannot copy what it prints at full size
Six tanks to refill, and the initial fill consumes a visible chunk of every bottle
Dye colour inks trade some archival life for punch
The most expensive machine in this catalogue outside the professional photo printers

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

Owners who bought this to print their own photographs at exhibition size are, on the whole, glad they did. Thirteen by nineteen inches borderless, six inks including a grey, and refill costs measured in pennies a print rather than dollars — that combination does not exist elsewhere near this price, and people who print a lot say it changed how freely they print.

The reservations get louder the more commercially it is used. Paper jams and feed errors are the most-reported fault, and owners running a small print business describe hitting them often enough to disrupt orders. Drying is the other one: heavy coverage on coated paper stays tacky, and people printing comics or artwork with dark backgrounds report pages sticking.

One piece of folklore worth repeating because owners keep confirming it: the rear feed will take paper longer than the stated 19 inches, and people do print panoramas well beyond it. Epson does not advertise this and does not support it.

What owners like

Borderless 13 × 19 from a refillable tank printer is the combination owners say nothing else offers at the price
Owners report printing panoramas longer than the stated 19 inches through the rear feed, which is not advertised
The grey and photo black inks make monochrome prints genuinely neutral
Per-print cost is low enough that people experiment rather than ration
Popular with zine makers and small print businesses for handling varied paper thicknesses
Still a capable everyday document printer with automatic duplex

Common complaints

The most commonly reported problems are paper jams and feed errors, and owners running it as a business printer describe them as frequent enough to be disruptive
Heavy ink coverage leaves prints tacky, and owners printing comics with dark backgrounds report sheets sticking together
The grey tank runs down faster than the others
The scanner is letter-size only, so it cannot copy what it prints at full size
Six tanks means six bottles to restock when a refill round comes due

Questions that keep coming up

Can it really print longer than 19 inches?

Owners report feeding paper considerably longer than the stated 13 × 19 maximum through the rear path and getting usable panoramic prints. It is not an advertised capability and not supported, so the length that works varies by paper stiffness and how the driver is configured. Treat it as a bonus rather than a reason to buy.

How reliable is it for a small print business?

This is where opinion splits hardest. Owners printing occasionally report few problems; owners running orders through it describe paper jams and feed errors frequently enough to miss shipments, and some have gone through more than one unit. If prints are paying your bills, plan for downtime or keep a backup.

Why is the grey tank emptying first?

The grey ink does most of the work in neutral and shadow areas, so photographic printing — especially black-and-white — consumes it faster than the colours. It is expected rather than a fault. Owners buying a refill round often buy a second grey bottle at the same time.

Does the in-box ink fill the tanks completely?

Owners report the starter bottles being left roughly a third full after the initial fill, which leads to partially used bottles sitting in a drawer for a year or two. They keep, as long as they are sealed and stored upright, but ink dried around the neck is a common reason people decide not to risk them.

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Owner notes are a summary of what people who own the machine report, not a test result — there is no lab behind this site.