We show that the Hausdorff dimension of the attractor of an inhomogeneous self-similar iterated function system (or self-similar IFS) can be well approximated by the Hausdorff dimension of the attractor of another inhomogeneous self-similar IFS satisfying the strong separation condition. We also determine a formula for the Hausdorff dimension of the algebraic product and sum of the inhomogeneous attractor.