How much do office printers cost?
The printers an office actually buys list for roughly $180 to $500. Supplies then cost between about 1.3 and 6.1 cents a page on the models we cover, so an office printing 500 pages a month spends more on toner than on the printer within about two years. The cartridge decides the real cost, not the sticker.
Two numbers answer this question and only one of them is on the price tag. A $180 printer with a $97 cartridge is more expensive to own than a $350 printer with a $241 cartridge, because the second cartridge prints fifteen times as many pages. Below is both halves, for every office-capable printer we cover, with the inputs shown.
What office printers cost to buy
These are manufacturer list prices, read from each maker’s own product page on the dates recorded in our registry. Street prices are usually lower and move constantly, which is exactly why we publish the list price and its source rather than a number we would have to keep chasing.
| Printer | Type | List price | Scanning | Speed published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brother HL-L2460DW | Mono laser | $179.99 | None | Up to 36 ppm |
| Brother DCP-L2640DW | Mono laser all-in-one | $209.99 | Flatbed + 50-page ADF | Up to 36 ppm |
| Brother MFC-L2820DW | Mono laser all-in-one | $279.99 | Flatbed + 50-page ADF | Up to 34 ppm |
| Brother HL-L3220CDW | Color laser | $284.99 | None | Up to 19 ppm |
| Brother HL-L5210DW | Mono laser | $329.99 | None | Up to 48 ppm |
| Brother HL-L6210DW | Mono laser | $349.99 | None | Up to 50 ppm |
| Epson EcoTank ET-4950 | Color ink tank all-in-one | $499.99 | Flatbed + ADF | 18 ISO ppm black |
List prices and published speeds as read from Brother USA and Epson US product pages on the dates in our product registry. Canon did not publish a price for the imageCLASS LBP6030w on the page we read, so it is absent from this table.
Note what that range does and does not cover. It does not include the floor-standing copiers a leasing company installs, which are a different purchase with a different contract. It covers the printers a small office, a home office or a single department actually buys outright, which is what the question is almost always about.
What they cost to run, which is the bigger number
Cost per page is the supply price divided by the manufacturer’s rated page yield. Nothing else. The spread between the best and worst machine on this site is more than fourfold, and it correlates poorly with the purchase price.
| Printer | Supply | Rated yield | Per page | 3 years at 500/month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brother HL-L6210DW | TN920UXXL | 18,000 | ~1.3¢ | $241 |
| Brother HL-L5210DW | TN920XXL | 11,000 | ~1.9¢ | $334 |
| Brother DCP-L2640DW | TN830XL | 3,000 | ~3.3¢ | $590 |
| Canon imageCLASS LBP6030w | Canon 125 | 1,600 | ~6.1¢ | $1091 |
| Epson EcoTank ET-4950 | 502 black bottle | 7,500 | ~0.3¢ | $60 |
Our arithmetic: supply price divided by manufacturer-rated yield at ISO 5% page coverage, on prices we read on the dates in our supply registry. Real coverage is usually higher, so treat these as a floor.
Purchase plus supplies: the only figure worth comparing
Add the two together over the life you expect and the ranking inverts. Take 500 pages a month over three years, which is 18,000 pages. The $179.99 HL-L2460DW adds $590 of toner, for roughly $770 all in. The $349.99 HL-L6210DW adds $241, for roughly $591. The dearer printer is several hundred dollars cheaper to own.
Below about 100 pages a month that reverses, because 18,000 pages of toner takes fifteen years to consume and the cheap printer never gets overtaken. There is no single right answer here, only one that follows from your own volume — put your figures in and see where it crosses over.
The costs that are on neither list
- Paper. Roughly a cent a sheet, identical on every printer, and halved outright by automatic duplexing. On a cheap-to-run tank printer, paper can cost more than the ink does.
- The drum, on a laser. Brother sells drum units separately from toner on its laser range. We have not confirmed drum prices and rated lives for the models here, so we publish no figure — but budget for it as a periodic cost rather than a surprise.
- A subscription nobody meant to join. Several makers offer a page plan at setup. That is a monthly bill with an allowance and overage, and on cartridge printers canceling has left owners unable to use cartridges they already own: which printers push one.
- Starter supplies running out early. Many printers ship with a lower-yield cartridge than the one you will buy later, so the first replacement arrives sooner than the rated yield suggests.
So what should an office actually spend?
Our honest rule of thumb, from the figures above. Under 100 pages a month: buy the cheapest competent laser and ignore cost per page, because you will never print enough for it to matter. Between 100 and 400 pages a month: a mono laser all-in-one around $210 to $280 is the sweet spot. Above 400 pages a month: buy the high-yield-cartridge machine at $330 to $350 and the supplies pay the difference back inside two years.
If a meaningful share of those pages is color, the arithmetic changes completely and points at an ink tank rather than a color laser — see color laser vs ink tank. And if the office will leave the printer idle for weeks at a stretch, buy toner regardless of cost per page: toner cannot dry out and ink can.