If you have a Mutoh, then to my knowledge you still have to use smart cards. Most 3rd party ink suppliers either throw them in, or will charge you $5 - $7/ea for them. They work pretty good most of the time, but it is in your best interest to keep a handful of each color in stock. I recently had a problem where 4 out of 6 cards I had were bad, that was definitely not the norm, just saying don't count on having 1-2 cards for each color as being a safe bet. I would keep 4-6 cards per color on hand just in case...