The two brands barely compete with each other. Brother is the answer for cheap black text; Canon is the answer for cheap color. The mistake is buying either one for the other job.
#ad — buy links are affiliate links and we may earn a commission at no cost to you. How this site is funded. We do not display live prices, so every button sends you to Amazon’s own page for the current one. Cost-per-page figures are arithmetic on supply prices we read on 27 September 2026 — here is the method.
Brother and Canon are not really rivals for the same purchase. Brother best printers are mono lasers: cheap to buy, cheap per page on high-yield toner, immune to drying out, and consistently fitted with Ethernet. Canon best printer is a refillable MegaTank that prints color for a fraction of a cent a page. Choose by the kind of page you print, not by the badge.
Is Brother or Canon better?
Brother for black text and documents: about 3.3 cents a page on the cartridge we priced, auto duplex and Ethernet from $179.99. Canon for color: the PIXMA MegaTank G3270 prints an ISO color page for roughly 0.8 cents, the cheapest figure on this site. Canon cheap laser is the one to avoid.
The two brands, side by side
What each brand actually offers, on the models we have priced
Brother
Canon
Strongest category
Mono laser
Refillable ink tank (MegaTank)
Cheapest mono page we calculated
~1.3¢ (TN920UXXL)
~0.3¢ (GI-21 bottle)
Color printing
Color laser from $284.99
Color inkjet from $248.99
Cheapest ISO color page
Dearer - color toner
~0.8¢
Ethernet on cheap models
Yes, from $179.99
Not on the models we cover
Document feeder available
Yes, 50-page ADF
Not on the models we cover
Subscription required
No
No
Dries out if unused
No - toner is a dry powder
Yes - it is an inkjet
Based only on the Brother and Canon models in our product registry, each read from the manufacturer own specification page on the dates recorded there. Cost per page is our arithmetic on genuine supply prices and rated ISO yields.
The asymmetry in that table is the story. Brother range we cover is four mono lasers, a color laser and a label printer; Canon is one refillable inkjet and one small mono laser. Each brand is strong where the other is thin.
Where Brother wins
Cost per black page at volume. The TN920UXXL is rated at 18,000 pages for about 1.3 cents each — roughly a fifth of what Canon 125 toner costs per page at about 6.1 cents. The cheap-toner page has the full set.
Printing after a long gap. Toner does not dry. For a household that prints in bursts, this is the single most practical difference between the brands.
Networking and feeders. Ethernet appears on every Brother laser we cover, including the $179.99 one, and 50-page document feeders on the all-in-ones.
Its public position on third-party toner. Brother denied the 2025 allegations that firmware blocks third-party supplies. Canon has its own history with chipped cartridges on its cartridge printers. Canon position.
Where Canon wins
Color, decisively. About 0.8 cents an ISO color page from a bottle against tens of cents from color toner. If you print color at all regularly, Canon MegaTank is the cheaper machine to own by a wide margin. Color laser vs ink tank.
Lowest overall running cost. GI-21 ink is the cheapest per page of any supply we have priced, mono or color.
A pigment black. Canon states one on the G3270, which is more water-resistant on plain paper than a dye black.
Large bottles. A black bottle rated at 6,000 pages means refilling is a rare event rather than a chore.
Three years, two brands
At 150 mono pages a month for three years, supplies alone come to $177 on the Brother HL-L2460DW, $72 on the business-range HL-L6210DW, $16 on the Canon MegaTank and $327 on the Canon imageCLASS. Add the purchase price and the ranking barely moves: the MegaTank and the business Brother are the cheap pair, and the cheap Canon laser is the expensive one.
Which is the point of comparing brands at all. “Brother or Canon” is the wrong question; “toner or bottles, and how much color” is the right one, and each brand has a good answer to exactly one of them. Brother vs Epson runs the same test against the other tank brand, and the calculator takes your own volume.
Specifications and running costs side by side, for the printers discussed on this page.
Cost-per-page figures are our own arithmetic: supply price divided by the manufacturer’s rated page yield, using prices read on 27 September 2026 and yields rated at the ISO 5% coverage standard. They are not measured by us and they are not current prices. Every input, and the working · run the numbers for your own printing
The picks in detail
Best Brother for most homes
Brother HL-L2460DW
If you print black text and nothing else, this is the printer to buy. It cannot dry out, it duplexes, and Brother does not block third-party toner.
Illustrative photograph of this kind of printer. We do not have this model in hand and this is not a photograph of the unit.
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~3.3¢ per mono page
Based on a Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge rated at 3,000 pages at $98.29, priced on 27 September 2026.
Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge — rated 3,000 pages (ISO/IEC 19752), $98.29 at Brother USA, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
Dual-band wireless (2.4 GHz / 5 GHz), Ethernet or USB
Subscription
None required
What we like
Toner does not dry out, so it is ideal if you print in occasional bursts
Automatic two-sided printing at 36 pages per minute
Brother has publicly denied blocking third-party toner with firmware
What you give up
Black only - no color at all
Cost per page is roughly ten times a tank printer's
The 700-page starter cartridge runs out fast; budget for a TN830XL
Brother strongest argument in one box: $179.99, up to 36 pages a minute, automatic duplexing, dual-band Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and the TN830XL cartridge rated at 3,000 pages at about 3.3 cents each. Mono only.
It cannot dry out, it will print the week after a month of silence, and Brother has publicly denied blocking third-party toner with firmware. The dispute, reported as a dispute.
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~0.3¢ per mono page · ~0.8¢ per color page
Based on a Canon GI-21 pigment black ink bottle rated at 6,000 pages at $17.99, priced on 27 September 2026.
The color figure adds one per-page cost for each of the three color channels, because an ISO color page draws from all of them.
Canon GI-21 pigment black ink bottle — rated 6,000 pages (ISO/IEC 24712 (Canon default print mode)), $17.99 at Target, checked 27 September 2026
Canon GI-21 color ink bottle — rated 7,700 pages (ISO/IEC 24712 (Canon default print mode)), $12.99 at Target, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
List price
$248.99 at Office Depot, checked 27 September 2026
Supply type
Refillable ink bottles
Two-sided printing
Not stated on the spec page we read
Document feeder
None
Connectivity
Wireless
Subscription
None required
What we like
Lowest cost per page of any model on this site, mono and color
Pigment black ink smudges less on plain paper
Large 170 mL bottles, so refills are infrequent
What you give up
Canon's own store would not show us a price, so ours is a retailer listing
No document feeder
Canon's headline yields assume its default print mode, not draft mode
Canon strongest argument is the opposite one: color pages for pennies. The PIXMA MegaTank G3270 refills from GI-21 bottles at roughly 0.3 of a cent a mono page and about 0.8 cents an ISO color page — the lowest running cost of anything we cover.
A pigment black that resists water on plain paper, a flatbed scanner, wireless, and a $248.99 retail listing. No document feeder and no stated auto duplex. It is an inkjet, so it wants regular use.
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~3.3¢ per mono page
Based on a Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge rated at 3,000 pages at $98.29, priced on 27 September 2026.
Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge — rated 3,000 pages (ISO/IEC 19752), $98.29 at Brother USA, checked 27 September 2026
Yields are manufacturer-rated at the ISO 5% page-coverage standard, not measured by us, and real-world cost runs higher. Prices are not live: this is arithmetic on a price we read on the date shown, not a current price. How we calculate cost per page.
Ethernet, dual-band wireless (2.4 GHz / 5 GHz) and Hi-Speed USB 2.0
Subscription
None required
What we like
Fifty-page document feeder and auto duplex at 34 pages a minute
Runs the same TN830XL toner as Brother's cheaper models, so no cost-per-page penalty for the extra hardware
Ethernet as well as dual-band Wi-Fi, which matters when several people share it
What you give up
Mono only - no color at all
Seventy dollars more than the DCP-L2640DW, and the difference is mostly the fax
The ADF scans one side only, so double-sided originals still need flipping
If the household needs to scan and copy as well as print, Brother has the better-equipped mono machines: a 50-page automatic document feeder, auto duplex at 34 pages a minute, Ethernet and dual-band Wi-Fi, fax, and the same cheap TN830XL toner.
$279.99 at list. Canon equivalent in the range we cover, the imageCLASS LBP6030w, is print only and far dearer to feed at about 6.1 cents a page.
Brother if you print mostly black text: about 3.3 cents a page from $179.99, with nothing to dry out. Canon if you print color: the PIXMA MegaTank G3270 at roughly 0.8 cents an ISO color page is the cheapest printer to run that we cover.
+−Which brand has cheaper supplies?
Canon, at the bottom of the range: GI-21 bottles are about 0.3 of a cent a mono page. Brother business toner is close at about 1.3 cents, and Canon 125 laser toner is the dearest supply we priced at about 6.1 cents.
+−Do Brother or Canon printers need a subscription?
Neither does. Both sell optional supply plans and both print normally without one. Nothing in either range requires an account or a monthly fee to put ink or toner on paper.
+−Which brand allows third-party ink and toner?
Brother publicly denied blocking third-party toner with firmware after allegations in 2025. Canon bottle-fed MegaTank printers have no cartridge chip at all. We cover both positions with their sources on our ink freedom pages.
+−Is a Brother laser or a Canon MegaTank better for a home office?
A Brother laser if the output is documents: faster, with feeders and Ethernet, and a supply that keeps. A Canon MegaTank if the output includes color, where it is many times cheaper per page.
