#ad — buy links are affiliate links and we may earn a commission at no cost to you. How this site is funded. Prices as shown on Amazon as of November 12, 2026; Amazon’s own page is the price of record. Cost-per-page figures are arithmetic on supply prices we read on 27 September 2026 — here is the method.
The OfficeJet alternative to buy is the Epson EcoTank ET-4800, for a home office that needs a document feeder and a wired port: the same office jobs on refillable bottles at about 1.1 cents an ISO color page. If your OfficeJet did automatic two-sided printing, step up to the ET-4950. If your pages are mostly black and you want speed, the Brother MFC-L2820DW is faster and drier. The budget pick is the ET-2800 at $239.99, for anyone who does not actually need the feeder.
What an OfficeJet is genuinely good at
OfficeJet is HP’s small-office inkjet line and it is well designed for the job. Across the range you get a flatbed scanner with an automatic document feeder, copying, fax on many models, wired Ethernet alongside Wi-Fi, automatic two-sided printing on most of the current line-up, and color output from a machine small enough for a desk. HP’s driver and mobile printing support is mature, supplies are available in any supermarket, and the hardware is cheap to buy.
That last point is the catch, and it is the reason this page exists. An OfficeJet is priced on the assumption that you will keep buying its cartridges, and HP’s consumer lines push the Instant Ink subscription as the way to do that. Published cost-per-page ranges put cartridge inkjet printing at about 7.5 cents a page in mono and about 20 cents a page in color, against 0.4 and 1.1 cents on bottle-fed ink. Whether a subscription is required · what Dynamic Security does.
How we picked
An OfficeJet replacement has to do the office jobs, so capability came first and price second.
Is there an automatic document feeder? The defining OfficeJet feature. Three of our four picks have one, and the fourth says plainly that it does not.
Is there a wired network port? Small offices share printers, and Ethernet is how that is done reliably.
Does it print and copy in color? Everything except the Brother, which is ranked for the specific case where your pages are black.
What does a page cost, with arithmetic? Ours, from published supply prices and rated yields, with sources. This is where the alternatives win and the margin is not close.
What replaces what
OfficeJet features and the alternative that keeps them
If your OfficeJet has
Keep it with
Per ISO color page
Feeder, Ethernet, fax
Epson EcoTank ET-4800
~1.1¢
All of the above plus auto duplex
Epson EcoTank ET-4950
~1.2¢
Feeder, used mostly for black documents
Brother MFC-L2820DW
Mono only
Nothing you actually use
Epson EcoTank ET-2800
~1.1¢
Matched on published capability rather than model-number equivalence. Specifications read from Epson US and Brother USA on 27 September 2026; per-page figures are our arithmetic on dated supply prices — the method.
Two things, honestly. Automatic two-sided printing is standard on most of the current OfficeJet line and is only published on one of our tank picks, the ET-4950 — so a $499.99 machine is what it takes to keep a feature a much cheaper OfficeJet has. And an inkjet document feeder on a tank printer is slower than the laser equivalent, so if your scanning is high volume the Brother is the better tool despite being mono.
What you gain is the part that recurs. At 200 pages a month with a third in color, three years of ink on 522 bottles comes to a figure most OfficeJet owners spend in a year. Run it with your own numbers · tank against cartridge, in full.
Specifications and running costs side by side, for the printers discussed on this page.
#ad — the price buttons are affiliate links and we may earn a commission at no cost to you. How this site is funded. Prices as shown on Amazon as of November 12, 2026; Amazon’s own page is the price of record.
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 OfficeJet alternative overall
Epson EcoTank ET-4800
The ET-2800's running cost with the office hardware bolted on: a document feeder, wired Ethernet and fax. Worth it only if you actually need one of those three.
Product photograph supplied by Amazon for this listing. We do not have this model in hand and have not photographed it ourselves.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. Prices as shown on Amazon as of November 12, 2026; Amazon’s own page is the price of record.
~0.4¢ per mono page · ~1.1¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 522 black ink bottle rated at 4,500 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.
Epson 522 black ink bottle — rated 4,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 522 color ink bottle — rated 7,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, 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
Not published where we checked on 27 September 2026
Supply type
Refillable ink bottles
Two-sided printing
Not stated on the spec page we read
Document feeder
Automatic document feeder
Connectivity
Wireless and Ethernet
Subscription
None required
What we like
Same 522 ink and therefore the same cost per page as the cheaper EcoTanks
Automatic document feeder for multi-page scanning and copying
Wired Ethernet, which is more reliable than Wi-Fi for a shared printer
What you give up
Epson did not publish a list price on its product page when we checked
You pay for the feeder and the fax whether or not you use them
Still an inkjet, so it wants occasional use
Who it is for: anyone replacing a mid-range OfficeJet in a home office or small business.
This is the closest like-for-like swap we can offer. An OfficeJet is defined by its office furniture — an automatic document feeder, a wired network port, fax, print, scan and copy in color — and the ET-4800 publishes all of it. What changes is underneath: refillable 522 bottles instead of cartridges, at about 0.4 of a cent a mono page and 1.1 cents an ISO color page.
Honest cons. Epson does not publish automatic two-sided printing for this model, where many OfficeJets do, and that is a genuine step down. One paper tray, and an inkjet feeder is not fast. Our ET-4800 page.
The current EcoTank that has everything a small office asks for - feeder, auto duplex, Ethernet and AirPrint - on the cheaper 502 ink. The price is the argument against it.
Product photograph supplied by Amazon for this listing. We do not have this model in hand and have not photographed it ourselves.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. Prices as shown on Amazon as of November 12, 2026; Amazon’s own page is the price of record.
~0.3¢ per mono page · ~1.2¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 502 black ink bottle rated at 7,500 pages at $24.99, 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.
Epson 502 black ink bottle — rated 7,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $24.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 502 color ink bottle — rated 6,000 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $16.99 at Epson US, 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.
18 ISO pages per minute black, 9 ISO pages per minute color
Two-sided printing
Automatic
Document feeder
Automatic document feeder
Connectivity
Wireless and Ethernet
Subscription
None required
What we like
Auto duplex and a document feeder together, which the cheap EcoTanks do not offer
502 ink, the lowest cost per page of any Epson bottle family we have priced
AirPrint is named on Epson's own product page, so Macs and iPhones need no driver
What you give up
$499.99 at list - more than twice the cheapest EcoTank that prints the same pages for the same money per page
Still an inkjet, so it wants occasional use or the head can clog
18 pages a minute is slow next to any mono laser
Who it is for: an office replacing an OfficeJet Pro, where duplex printing is part of the workflow.
If your OfficeJet printed on both sides automatically, this is the model that keeps that. Epson publishes an automatic document feeder, automatic two-sided printing, a 250-sheet tray, Ethernet and fax, at 18 ISO pages a minute black and 9 color, on refillable 502 bottles at about 1.2 cents an ISO color page.
Honest cons. It lists at $499.99, several times what a comparable OfficeJet costs up front — the money comes back in ink rather than on day one. Nine ISO color pages a minute is slow if color is most of your volume. The full cost-to-run breakdown.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. Prices as shown on Amazon as of November 12, 2026; Amazon’s own page is the price of record.
~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
Who it is for: an office whose OfficeJet mostly printed black documents, and whose real complaint was speed.
A mono laser all-in-one does the same office jobs faster and drier: a flatbed scanner with a 50-page automatic document feeder, copying, fax with a 33.6K modem, Ethernet, AirPrint and Mopria, at 34 pages a minute with automatic two-sided printing, for $279.99. Pages come out finished rather than damp, and about 3.3 cents each on high-yield toner.
Honest cons. Mono only — no color printing or color copying at all, which is a real loss against any OfficeJet. The feeder scans one side at a time. What it costs to run.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. Prices as shown on Amazon as of November 12, 2026; Amazon’s own page is the price of record.
~0.4¢ per mono page · ~1.1¢ per color page
Based on a Epson 522 black ink bottle rated at 4,500 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.
Epson 522 black ink bottle — rated 4,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, checked 27 September 2026
Epson 522 color ink bottle — rated 7,500 pages (ISO/IEC 24712), $17.99 at Epson US, 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.
Among the lowest cost per page of any printer sold for home use
Refillable bottles, so no chipped cartridge can be locked out by firmware
Comes with enough ink in the box to last most households a long time
What you give up
No automatic two-sided printing, so paper costs twice what it needs to
Flatbed scanner only - no document feeder for multi-page scans
Inkjets still need to be used occasionally or the print head can clog
Who it is for: someone replacing a basic OfficeJet whose scanning is single sheets.
Plenty of OfficeJets end up in households doing household work. If your scanning is a form at a time rather than a stack, you do not need the feeder, and this prints, scans and copies in color on the same 522 bottles for $239.99 — about 1.1 cents an ISO color page.
Honest cons. No document feeder, no Ethernet, no fax, no automatic duplex, one tray. This is the pick that gives up the most OfficeJet hardware, deliberately. Full cost-to-run breakdown.
+−What is the best alternative to an HP OfficeJet?
The Epson EcoTank ET-4800: it publishes the same automatic document feeder, Ethernet and fax, with refillable bottles instead of cartridges at about 1.1 cents an ISO color page.
+−Is there an ink tank printer with a document feeder like an OfficeJet?
Yes. The Epson EcoTank ET-4800 and ET-4950 both publish an automatic document feeder, and the ET-4950 adds automatic two-sided printing and a 250-sheet tray.
+−Why is an OfficeJet cheap to buy but expensive to own?
Because the margin is in the cartridges rather than the hardware. Published ranges put cartridge inkjet printing at about 7.5 cents a page in mono against about 0.4 of a cent on bottle-fed ink, so the gap compounds with every page you print.
+−Should I replace my OfficeJet or just stop using Instant Ink?
If the hardware is fine, buying standard cartridges outright may cost less than a new printer — work out your own cost per page first. Replace it when the cartridge arithmetic over the next two years exceeds the price of a tank machine.
+−Do these alternatives print as fast as an OfficeJet?
The tank printers are comparable but not quick — the ET-4950 is rated at 18 ISO pages a minute black and 9 color. The Brother mono laser is much faster at 34 pages a minute, which is why it is here despite having no color.
