The big difference between the two is the print yield AKA page yield, or how many prints or pages you can get from one cartridge.
High yield cartridges can typically print up to double the prints of a standard cartridge.
Standard yield toner cartridges, for example, have around 3,000 to 4,000 letter style prints for a standard cartridge, while high yield toner cartridges provide up to 10,000 letter style prints.
You'll also notice that even for such a high yield, by comparison, high yield cartridges are not much more expensive than a standard cartridge. For example, our Compatible Brother TN730 Toner Cartridge is priced $28.95 while its high yield version, Compatible Brother TN760 Toner Cartridge is priced $29.95. The former has a page yield of 1,200 pages while the latter has a page yield of 3,000 pages.
That's a price difference of 3.4% with a page yield difference of 85.71%.
If you do a lot of printing, buying high yield cartridges will save you more money in the long run while ensuring you're replacing your cartridges less often.
When shopping for cartridges, just look for "XL" or "XXL" in the cartridge model, indicating it is a high yield.