Which Alcohol Marker Brands Are Refillable or Replaceable?

Alcohol markers are fun to use and they blend well, but over time they can dry out or run out of ink. Some alcohol markers are also expensive, especially the name brand “professional” level markers like Copics. Because the markers themselves are such an investment, many people prefer to purchase alcohol markers that are refillable or easily replaced.

Copic, Ohuhu, Spectrum Noir, Blick Studio Markers, and Altenew are all brands that sell ink refills for their alcohol markers. Additionally, Ohuhu and Windsor & Newton are brands that sell individual markers that can be purchased to replace dried out markers. Depending on an artist’s budget and skill level, it may be better to buy inexpensive markers and replace them, or for others it may be better to buy expensive markers and refill.

Which Alcohol Markers Are Refillable?

Copic Markers

Comes in a 0.4oz bottle, check the current prices here.

Pro: Copic is the most widely used, professional grade alcohol marker. They have tons of ink shades to purchase, and the ink will refill a marker several times.

Con: Copic markers and ink refills are expensive. Keep reading for tips to turn cheap markers into Copics using the nib replacement and ink refills.

Ohuhu Markers

Pro: Ohuhu markers are priced cheaply, but they look and feel high quality. The markers are so much cheaper than Copic that you can just replace markers as they run out of ink. The marker replacements are cheap ($2 or less) and each marker will fill around 8 pages of paper before running out of ink. They also have the most color options available (320 colors to choose from).

Refills: Ohuhu recently started selling refills of many of their popular colors. You can see the list and current pricing on their website, here.

Blick Studio Marker Ink Refills

Comes in a 0.85 oz bottle, Check the prices here.

Pro: The bottle is twice the size of the copic refill, for around the same price. There are tons of refill colors to choose from.

Con: There’s a warning on their website that says due to supply chain issues, some inks may be out of stock longer than usual.

Spectrum Noir Ink Refills

Comes in a 1.0 oz bottle with an eyedropper for easy refilling. Check the prices here.

Pro: Refill inks come in all 216 colors of their markers. They have the biggest bottle size of any refills, and the price is the same currently as the smaller Blick and Copic refill bottles. Their website claims you can refill your marker up to 8 times with their ink refills.

Con: None that we found so far.

Altenew Ink Refills

Comes in a 1.0 oz bottle (30ml), check the prices here.

Pro: Same size refill bottle as Spectrum Noir (one of the largest refill bottles) for a slightly lower price.

Con: The markers themselves are sold in smaller sets of 4 or 12, instead of available in large packs of 70 or 120 or more like some other brands.

ShinHan Touch Ink Refills

Pro: The markers are easy to handle and feel comfortable in your hand.

Con: The markers are fairly expensive, and refill inks are hard to find in stock, at least in the USA right now.

Alcohol Marker Brands That Sell Individual Marker Replacements

Windsor & Newton Markers

Pro: They have 189 different colors to choose from.

Con: Each marker replacement is around $7, so it’s a lot more expensive than the Ohuhu.

Bianyo Markers

Pro: Replacement markers are very cheap.

Con: There are currently only 72 colors available to refill, so selection is limited.

Buying Expensive Markers and Refilling vs. Buying Cheap Markers and Replacing

There are a couple of factors to consider when deciding whether to buy expensive or inexpensive alcohol markers. The first factor to consider is your budget. High end alcohol markers like Copics are a huge investment up front. However, if you don’t have a couple hundred dollars to drop on a starter set of markers right up front, you might want to consider a budget pick. Ohuhu brand now sells sell ink refills, but you can also replace their markers individually for $2 each when they run out of ink.

The other factor you may want to consider is skill level. If you are a professional artist or an aspiring professional artist, you may want to spend the extra money to make sure you have the highest quality markers available. If you are a hobby artist or you are just getting started in the world of alcohol markers, you may not want to spend as much up front before deciding if you enjoy using alcohol markers.

How long does an ink refill last compared to a replacement marker?

An ink refill will definitely last longer than a replacement marker. Even though the ink refill bottles are smaller than they used to be, you can refill one marker several times using the same ink refill. Each brand is slightly different as far as exactly how much ink their markers hold, so it can vary from marker to marker as to exactly how many times you can refill it from the same ink refill bottle. Copic refills can range from refilling 3 pens on their bigger markers, to refilling 9 of the fineliner markers. Other brands, like Spectrum Noir, can refill up to 8 of the full sized markers with one refill.

In the same way, markers from different brands have a different lifespan. Ohuhu markers, even though they are on the budget friendly end of the spectrum, can completely fill between 7-8 sheets of paper before running out of ink. Copic markers on the other hand, are able to fill between 5-6 pages completely before running out of ink.

Can you use refills from one brand to fill other markers?

Alcohol ink refills can be used to refill markers from other brands, the only potential issue is that the ink may not be an exact color match between companies. Each marker brand has their own system for naming their marker colors, and even though two colors of green may look the same on the marker caps, the ink inside the marker could be very different shades.

There are two ways to avoid these issues. First, you could use a completely empty marker and replace the brush nib with a new replacement nib. Copic marker has brush nib replacements that will fit in the Ohuhu Honululu brand markers on the brush side. Ohuhu has their own brush nib replacements that obviously fit their markers a tiny bit better. They are also cheaper and double sided, so if the nibs start to fray you can flip them around and use the other side. If you are using a totally empty marker and a fresh nib, you should be able to fill the marker with whatever color of ink refill you would like.

The second way to avoid this issue would be to put a color swatch of the old marker beside a color swatch of the new ink refill to see how closely they match. You can also layer the old and new color on top of each other to make sure they blend well if they aren’t a perfect match. The only issue with this idea is that the old marker needs to still have some ink left, it can’t be completely dried out, or you won’t be able to get a fresh marker swatch. Obviously the easiest way to avoid this is to buy the refill ink for the brand of marker that you already have, then you can just match up the name and number of the marker.