A cheap laser body paired with an expensive, low-yield cartridge is the oldest trap in printing. This page ranks on three-year total cost instead of price.
#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.
Printer hardware is routinely sold at or near cost and the margin is in the supplies. So the cheapest laser in the shop is very often the most expensive one to own, and the only way to tell which is which is to do the sum.
How we picked
This page is ranked on three-year total cost rather than on purchase price. For each candidate we took the manufacturer’s list price where one was published, added three years of high-yield toner at 50 pages a month, and compared those totals. That is a different ordering from a price list, and it is the one that matches what you will actually spend.
We also required automatic duplexing on anything we recommend, because at roughly a cent a sheet, paper on a budget laser is a bigger share of the total than most people expect.
The totals, not the prices
Three years at 50 pages a month, printer plus high-yield toner
Printer
List price
3 years of toner
Total
Brother HL-L2460DW
$179.99
about $59
about $239
Brother DCP-L2640DW
$209.99
about $59
about $269
Canon imageCLASS LBP6030w
not published where we checked
about $109
depends on the price you find
List prices from the manufacturers’ own stores on 27 September 2026; toner from the rated yields and prices in the cartridge table below. The Canon’s toner alone over three years costs more than either Brother printer plus its toner, which is the entire point of ranking this way.
The Canon row is the important one. Even before you know what the printer costs, its toner over three years exceeds the total for either Brother. A discount on the body cannot fix that, because the discount happens once and the cartridge happens repeatedly.
The cartridges behind those numbers
What each cartridge costs per page, which is what drives the totals above
Cartridge
Rated yield
Price we read
Per page
Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge
3,000 pages
$98.29
~3.3¢
Brother TN830 standard-yield toner cartridge
1,200 pages
$60.99
~5.1¢
Brother TN229XL black high-yield toner cartridge
3,000 pages
$96.29
~3.2¢
Canon 125 black toner cartridge
1,600 pages
$96.95
~6.1¢
Yields are manufacturer-rated (ISO/IEC 19752 for mono, 19798 for color); prices read on 27 September 2026 from the sources at the foot of this page. Our arithmetic is supply price divided by rated yield — the method.
Three false economies on a budget
Buying the standard cartridge. On the Brother, standard toner is about 5.1 cents a page against 3.3 cents for the high-yield version. The cheaper cartridge is the dearer choice.
Skipping the duplexer. Paper is about a cent a sheet. Manual duplexing on a budget printer means paying that twice on every multi-page document, which adds up faster than the toner difference between models.
Buying a color laser to “have the option”. Four cartridges, and published figures put color laser output at between 12 and 15 cents a page. On a budget, buy mono and use a print shop for the rare color job.
What a tank printer would cost instead
At the same 50 pages a month, an EcoTank’s ink costs a few dollars over three years against roughly 3.3 cents a page for the laser — but it costs more to buy, and it is an inkjet, so it wants regular use. At 50 pages a month the two come out close enough that reliability and whether you need color should decide it.
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 budget laser overall
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.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s 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.
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
The cheapest laser we can recommend without a caveat. $179.99 at Brother’s own list price when we checked, about 3.3 cents a page on high-yield toner, automatic duplexing, 36 pages a minute, Ethernet and dual-band Wi-Fi.
It is not the cheapest laser you can find. It is the cheapest one where the cartridge economics do not undo the saving, which is a different and more useful thing.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s 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.
50-page document feeder, so scanning a stack is one action
Auto duplex printing at 36 pages per minute
Same TN830 toner family as the HL-L2460DW, with the same cost per page
What you give up
Mono only
Thirty dollars more than the print-only model for hardware you may not need
Toner is far dearer per page than bottle ink
Thirty dollars more than the print-only model for a scanner and a fifty-page document feeder, with no penalty at all in cost per page. On a budget that is unusually good value — most upsells in this category cost you more per page as well as more up front.
Skip it only if you genuinely never scan. A phone camera handles the occasional document, and $30 is $30.
#ad — we may earn a commission. How this site is funded. We do not show live prices; Amazon’s page is the price of record.
~6.1¢ per mono page
Based on a Canon 125 black toner cartridge rated at 1,600 pages at $96.95, priced on 27 September 2026.
Canon 125 black toner cartridge — rated 1,600 pages (ISO/IEC 19752), $96.95 at Precision Roller, 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
Toner cartridge
Two-sided printing
Manual only
Document feeder
None
Connectivity
Wireless
Subscription
None required
What we like
Compact and long established, so toner is easy to find
Laser, so nothing dries out between jobs
Frequently sold well below the price of a Brother equivalent
What you give up
Highest cost per page on this site once you buy genuine toner
No automatic two-sided printing, so paper costs double
Canon's own store would not show us a printer price on the date we checked
Frequently the cheapest laser on the shelf and, on genuine toner, the most expensive printer on this site to run at about 6.1 cents a page. It also has no automatic duplexer, so paper costs double on multi-page documents.
Sixty dollars saved at purchase and three extra cents a page is a saving gone inside two thousand sheets. That is a couple of years of ordinary household printing, and then you are behind.
The Brother HL-L2460DW at $179.99 on Brother’s own store when we checked: about 3.3 cents a page on high-yield toner, with automatic duplexing. It is not the cheapest laser available, but it is the cheapest one whose cartridge economics do not undo the saving.
+−Why are cheap laser printers expensive to run?
Because a low sticker price is frequently paired with a low-yield, high-priced cartridge. Printer hardware is often sold at or near cost and the manufacturer recovers the difference over the life of the machine.
+−How much should I budget for toner?
Work it out rather than guessing: cartridge price divided by rated yield, times your monthly pages, times twelve. At 3.3 cents a page and 50 pages a month that is a small annual figure — which is exactly why a cheap laser can be the right budget choice.
+−Is a budget laser or a budget ink tank printer better value?
Below about twenty to forty pages a month the laser wins on total cost and on reliability. Above it, or if you print color at all, the tank printer pulls ahead quickly.
+−Do budget laser printers include a full toner cartridge?
Usually not. Both Brother models here ship with a starter cartridge rated at 700 pages, which is disclosed on the specification sheet. Budget for a high-yield cartridge sooner than the headline yield suggests.
