A tank printer costs roughly an eighth as much per page as this printer. We still recommend this one more often, because most households do not print enough for that ratio to matter and every household resents a printer that does not work.
Cost to run
The HL-L2460DW takes the TN830 family. On the high-yield Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge — rated at 3,000 pages, $98.29 on Brother’s store when we checked — that is about 3.3¢ a page. On the standard cartridge it is about 5.1¢.
Published industry figures put mono laser printing at around five to eight cents a page, so the high-yield cartridge puts this printer at the good end of normal for its technology. It is not cheap next to a bottle of ink and it was never going to be.
| If you print | Toner over 3 years | Total with the printer |
|---|---|---|
| 10 pages a month | $12 | $192 |
| 25 pages a month | $29 | $209 |
| 75 pages a month | $88 | $268 |
| 200 pages a month | $236 | $416 |
Supplies only in the middle column; sticker price plus supplies in the right one. Mono pages at the manufacturer’s rated yield and the supply price we read on 27 September 2026. Real cost runs higher because rated yields assume 5% page coverage. The full method.
Why it wins at low volume
Look at the ten-pages-a-month row. Three years of toner costs less than a restaurant meal, and the printer itself dominates the total. Now compare that total against an ET-2800’s at the same volume: the tank printer costs more to buy, saves a trivial amount on ink, and has spent three years slowly drying out while nobody printed anything.
That is the entire argument, and it is not an argument the cost-per-page column can make on its own. It is why this site publishes a calculator instead of a single ranked list.
What it cannot do
- Color. At all. Not a limitation, a category. If you need color, this is the wrong page.
- Scan or copy. Print only. The DCP-L2640DW is the same engine with a scanner and a feeder.
- Compete on cost per page. Roughly eight times a tank printer’s figure. We are not going to bury that.
Budget for the real cartridge
Brother lists the included cartridge as a starter rated at 700 pages, and the DR830 drum at approximately 15,000 pages. Plan on a TN830XL earlier than the headline yield implies, and remember the drum exists if you print heavily.
Who should buy something else
- You print color. An ink tank printer.
- You need to scan. The DCP-L2640DW.
- You print more than about a hundred pages a month. The per-page gap starts to be real money; compare the two properly.