If you are replacing a small LaserJet, buy the Brother HL-L2460DW at $179.99: the same job, 36 pages a minute, automatic duplex, and about 3.3 cents a page on toner you simply buy. Replacing a LaserJet MFP with a scanner, buy the DCP-L2640DW at $209.99. Replacing a business LaserJet, the HL-L5210DW roughly halves your cost per page. The budget pick is the Canon imageCLASS LBP6030w, for very light printing only.
What “LaserJet” actually means
LaserJet is HP’s own brand name for its laser printers, and it has been since 1984. That matters for two practical reasons. The first is that there is no such thing as a Brother LaserJet or a Canon LaserJet — if you are searching for one, you are searching for a laser printer from another maker, which is what this page is. The longer version of that point.
The second is that the name covers an enormous range. A LaserJet can be a small desktop machine that prints black documents and nothing else, a multifunction MFP with a scanner and a feeder, a workgroup machine with two paper trays, or a color laser. Those are four different products, and the right replacement depends entirely on which one you have. That is why this page is organized by class rather than by price.
What LaserJet is genuinely known for is worth saying before you walk away from it. It is the most widely deployed laser brand in offices, which means IT departments know it, drivers are mature on every platform, and supplies are stocked in any store that sells printer supplies at all. Many LaserJets have had long, uncomplaining service lives — a good number of the searches that reach this page come from people whose LaserJet lasted a decade. We are not going to pretend that is nothing.
Why people look for an alternative anyway
Mostly one of two reasons, and they are different problems.
The first is that the machine has died or become uneconomic, and the replacement question is open. Here the honest answer is that cost per page should decide it, not brand loyalty, and that is a calculation you can do with published numbers.
The second is supplies. HP publishes a firmware feature it calls Dynamic Security, which has caused some HP printers to reject cartridges that do not carry an HP chip. That is HP’s own documented behavior rather than a rumor, and it is the single most common reason readers tell us they are leaving. What Dynamic Security does, with the sourcing. Every machine on this page is bought once and fed with cartridges you buy outright, with no plan and no account required in order to print.
One honest caveat, because it would be unfair to leave it out: Brother has faced reports and litigation about firmware affecting third-party toner behavior, which Brother has denied. We treat that as a live dispute rather than a settled fact, and every per-page figure on this page is genuine manufacturer toner for exactly that reason. Our wider roundup for buyers avoiding one brand goes through the alternatives on supply policy.
How we picked
An alternatives page is only useful if each pick replaces something specific, so every one here is tied to a LaserJet class rather than to a price point.
- Does it do the same job? Matched by capability first: print-only to print-only, MFP to MFP, color to color. A cheaper machine that cannot scan is not a replacement for one that can.
- Does it fix the reason you are leaving? No subscription, no account, no page allowance on any pick, and toner you can buy from anyone who sells it.
- What does a page cost, with arithmetic? Every figure is ours: published cartridge price divided by the manufacturer’s rated yield, with the sources listed and the drum named separately where it is a separate part.
- What does it give up? Each pick says so in its own entry. The honest summary is that none of these has HP’s service network, and the cheapest one has the worst cost per page on the page.
What replaces what
| If your LaserJet is | What it does | Buy instead | Roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| A small desktop printer | Black documents, print only | Brother HL-L2460DW | $180 |
| An MFP with a scanner lid | Print, scan, copy | Brother DCP-L2640DW | $210 |
| An MFP that also faxes | Print, scan, copy, fax | Brother MFC-L2820DW | $280 |
| A workgroup or business machine | Volume mono, two trays | Brother HL-L5210DW | $330 |
| A color laser | Short-run color, dry output | Brother HL-L3220CDW | $285 |
| Dead, and you print very little | Occasional black pages | Canon imageCLASS LBP6030w | $130 |
Matched on published capability rather than on model-number equivalence. Prices are the manufacturers’ own US list prices read on 27 September 2026, except the Canon, which came from a named retailer because Canon’s US store would not return one. HP’s store and LaserJet category page did not respond when we checked on 11 November 2026, so no HP price or specification is quoted anywhere on this page.
If your old machine faxed, that row matters more than the others, because fax is the one capability that has quietly disappeared from most current printers. On Brother only MFC models have a modem, and the model numbers are close enough to order the wrong one by accident. The three machines we cover that still fax.
The part that decides the money
Whatever class you are replacing, the printer you choose commits you to a cartridge family, and the families are not priced alike. This is the table we wish shops put next to the machines.
| Cartridge | Rated yield | Price we read | Per page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brother TN920UXXL ultra high-yield toner cartridge | 18,000 pages | $241.49 | ~1.3¢ |
| Brother TN920XXL super high-yield toner cartridge | 11,000 pages | $204.29 | ~1.9¢ |
| Brother TN229XL black high-yield toner cartridge | 3,000 pages | $96.29 | ~3.2¢ |
| 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¢ |
| Canon 125 black toner cartridge | 1,600 pages | $96.95 | ~6.1¢ |
Prices read on 27 September 2026 from the sources at the foot of this page; yields are each maker’s own ISO/IEC 19752 ratings. Per-page figures are our arithmetic — the method. Published industry ranges put laser printing at around 5 to 8 cents a page in mono.
Two rules fall straight out of that table. Never buy the standard-yield cartridge when a high-yield version of the same toner exists — it costs about 5.1 cents a page instead of 3.3 cents for the identical job. And if you print real volume, choose the body that takes the business cartridge, because at about 1.9 cents a page it saves more each year than the dearer machine cost. Every laser we cover, ranked by cost per page.
Two things to do before you switch
First, work out whether you need to replace the hardware at all. If the LaserJet still prints, buying standard cartridges outright may cost less than a new printer, and the arithmetic is thirty seconds of work: current cartridge price divided by its rated yield, times your monthly pages, times the months you expect to keep it. The calculator does it for you.
Second, on whatever you buy next, turn automatic firmware updates off on day one. It is the single step that keeps a printer behaving the way it did when you bought it, whatever the brand on the front, and it costs nothing.