Which office printer should you compare against which?
For mono volume, the Brother HL-L5210DW: 48 pages a minute, two paper sources and about 1.9 cents a page. For color, the Epson EcoTank ET-4950 at roughly 1.2 cents an ISO color page. For a small office on a budget, the Brother DCP-L2640DW at $209.99. None of the three needs a subscription.
Office printer specifications are published in a format designed to be skimmed one machine at a time. Put six of them on a single grid and the pattern becomes obvious: speed and paper capacity scale with price in a predictable way, and cost per page does not scale with anything at all. The dearest printer here is also one of the cheapest to run, and the cheapest cartridge belongs to a machine in the middle of the price list.
The comparison, on one grid
| Printer | List price we read | Rated speed | Paper capacity | Scanner | Per mono page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brother HL-L6210DW | $349.99 | Up to 50 ppm | 520 + 100 sheets | None | ~1.3¢ |
| Brother HL-L5210DW | $329.99 | Up to 48 ppm | 250 + 100 sheets | None | ~1.9¢ |
| Epson EcoTank ET-4950 | $499.99 | 18 ppm black, 9 ppm color | 250 sheets | Flatbed with ADF | ~0.3¢ |
| Brother MFC-L2820DW | $279.99 | Up to 34 ppm | 250 sheets + 1-sheet slot | Flatbed with 50-page ADF | ~3.3¢ |
| Brother HL-L3220CDW | $284.99 | Up to 19 ppm black and color | Not published | None | ~3.2¢ |
| Brother DCP-L2640DW | $209.99 | Up to 36 ppm | 250 sheets | Flatbed with 50-page ADF | ~3.3¢ |
Speeds and capacities as published by each manufacturer; list prices as published on the date we read each page. Cost per page is our own arithmetic — supply price divided by the manufacturer's rated yield at ISO 5% coverage — and the HL-L3220CDW figure is for its black cartridge only, because color toner prices were not published where we could read them.
Three things in that grid are worth saying out loud. The two fastest machines have no scanner at all. The only machine that prints color cheaply is the slowest of the six. And the cost-per-page column varies by a factor of two and a half across printers whose prices vary by a factor of two and a half in the opposite direction.
What actually decides an office printer
Not speed, in almost every office. A 48-pages-a-minute machine and a 34-pages-a-minute machine are indistinguishable on a four-page document, which is most documents. Speed matters when somebody prints a 200-page deck, and then it matters enormously.
- Monthly volume. Below about 200 pages a month, buy on features and ignore the cartridge. Above roughly 500, the cartridge is the decision and the sticker price is noise.
- Whether anybody scans. An automatic document feeder is the single most-used feature in a small office and the one most often left off the shortlist. Three of these six have one.
- Whether color is real or occasional. Occasional color is a laser job, because toner does not dry out. Real color volume is a tank job, because toner is expensive per page.
- Paper handling. A second paper source means letterhead stays loaded. Only two of these have a genuine second tray — a one-sheet manual slot is not one.
- Whether it will be on a network or a desk. Ethernet is published on the DCP-L2640DW and the ET-4950 and is worth having in any office where Wi-Fi is shared with a dozen other devices.
The cartridge comparison, which is the real one
Office printing is bought once and paid for monthly. Over three years at office volumes the supply bill is usually larger than the printer, and the gaps are not small.
| Cartridge or bottle | Printer | Rated yield | Price we read | Three years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epson 502 black ink bottle | EcoTank ET-4950 | 7,500 pages | $24.99 | $60 |
| Brother TN920UXXL ultra high-yield toner cartridge | HL-L6210DW | 18,000 pages | $241.49 | $241 |
| Brother TN920XXL super high-yield toner cartridge | HL-L5210DW | 11,000 pages | $204.29 | $334 |
| Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge | DCP-L2640DW, MFC-L2820DW | 3,000 pages | $98.29 | $590 |
| Brother TN229XL black high-yield toner cartridge | HL-L3220CDW (black only) | 3,000 pages | $96.29 | $578 |
Mono pages only, supplies only, at a flat 500 pages a month for 36 months. Drums, paper and color pages are excluded, and the ET-4950 figure is ink rather than toner. Our method in full.
At 500 pages a month the bottle-fed Epson costs less in ink over three years than a single ultra-high-yield Brother cartridge costs to buy. That is the comparison the specification sheets will never put side by side, and it is the reason this site exists.
Which one, by office
- One or two people, mixed documents. DCP-L2640DW. Duplexing, a feeder, 36 pages a minute, $209.99.
- Three to ten people, mono volume. HL-L5210DW, or the HL-L6210DW if somebody is reloading paper every other day. The cheaper cartridge pays for the upgrade.
- Any office with real color volume. ET-4950. Nothing else here prints color at a cost worth repeating.
- Occasional color, long idle spells. HL-L3220CDW. Pay more per color page for a machine that always works.
- You need fax as well. The MFC-L2820DW and the ET-4950 both publish it; the others do not.
If you want the ranked version of this rather than the grid, we have it: best laser printers for small offices and best ink tank printers for small business. This page exists for the moment before that, when you are still deciding which kind of machine you are shopping for.