One of the most frequently asked questions we get is “Which printer has the cheapest ink?” It’s a fair question, we’re in the middle of a “Cost of living crisis” and the prices of everything need to be lower. This post includes ways to save money when printing, how to get cheap printer inks and our top recommendations for low-running cost printers. Including the best printer for home use with the cheapest inks and our best laser printer for low running costs.
Factors To Consider When Choosing A Printer
Before we dive into our top picks for cheap-to-run printers, let’s look at some important factors to keep in mind when choosing a printer.
Ink Type
The first thing to consider is “Inkjet or Laser”? Inkjet printers using conventional cartridges have a higher cost per print, but lower initial cartridge cost than laser printers.
Inkjet printers and cartridges are smaller, more often seen in homes, than offices.
Laser printers on the other hand are larger, with a higher initial cartridge cost but lower cost-per-print, they use a dry toner powder rather than a liquid ink. Laser printers and their toners are more often used in offices requiring larger amounts of printing.
Print Quality
While a low purchase price is attractive, it’s important to consider the output quality. Having poor print quality with cheap toners will still keep high running costs with constant alterations and reprints.
Printer Features
Consider the features you need. Are your print volumes high? Do you really need a scanner/copier? What about all the additional connection options? Keep these in mind when choosing a printer.
Best Printers With The Cheapest Ink
Canon MAXIFY GX7050
The Canon MAXIFY GX7050 is part of the Canon office-based “MegaTank” range of InkTank printers, featuring 4 high-yield ink bottles which are easy to refill. Rated as the best office printer with the cheapest inks, designed for small workforces
Brother HL-L2310D
This monochrome laser printer is an excellent option for those who print in black and white, it has a low purchase price and offers high-yield toners to lower costs. The biggest downside being this is a USB connection-only printer.
HP SmartTank 7305
A home office or small workforce cartridge-free all-in-one. The HP SmartTank 7305 takes the quality and usability HP is known for but drastically reduced the running costs with the new SmartTank range of InkTank printers.
Featuring four ink bottles capable of up to 12,000 black & 8,000 colour pages and a 35-sheet ADF for scanning. Being one of the few affordable inktank printers with automatic double-sided printing makes this ideal for those looking to save paper costs as well as print costs.
Canon PIXMA G4511
One of Printerbase’s top 5 inkjet printers, Canons PIXMA G4511 is an affordable home office printer, which is also perfect for family use. Featuring a 20-sheet ADF and borderless printing up to A4 makes this a versatile printer.
Having the lowest running costs possible thanks to four refillable ink tanks makes this Printerbases best printer for home use with cheap inks.
Canon PIXMA G1530
The best printer for home use with cheap inks, the Canon PIXMA G1530 is ideal for single users or a family computer. Missing out on some popular features, including Scanning & WiFi connectivity to keep costs low. However, keeping with a traditional dye-based CMYK system gives all prints a colourful, bright pop.
Epson EcoTank ET-M1100
The Mono A4 inktank printer has possibly the lowest running costs ever seen in a printer. With a single black ink bottle and automatic double-sided printing means this no-frills printer is simple to refill, cheap to run and small enough to fit on almost any desk.
Notable Mentions
An improvement to the Brother HL-L2310D. Another monochrome laser printer sharing all the same features and specs, but with wireless connectivity built in too.
Professional Photo Printer using 8 ink bottles, keeping high quality, sale-worthy printing with the lowest running costs for a professional quality photo printer.
Another one of the Canon “MegaTank” printers, is a six-ink refillable system designed around printing photos. Having two additional ink bottles to refill can make the running costs seem more expensive. However, the high yield from these bottles is capable of up to 3,800 photos.
Compared to the other printers in this blog, the Kyocera ECOSYS M5526CDW seems more expensive to purchase and run. While that is the case, this printer is designed for use in a shared office environment, compared to the competition in this space, Kyocera has the cheapest printer toner.
Tips For Saving Money On Ink Cartridges
Choosing a printer with affordable ink cartridges is a great start. However, here are some more steps you can take to save money on ink.
Printing in draft mode uses less ink than in standard, this is great when printing off long documents for storage.
Printing using compatible ink and toner is a grey area. Making sure they’re from a reliable supplier (Like Printerbase) is a good choice, make sure they come with some sort of warranty or after-support, as most manufacturers wouldn’t support a printer using 3rd party inks.
We do have an ink & toner finder on our website, covering compatible cartridges on most printers. If you can’t find yours, let us know and we’ll see if one is available.
Be selective with what you print, do you really need all pages in the document or just the signing sheet?
Don’t print unnecessarily, save your ink for another day.
Summary
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2 comments
Where can I get a converter for my epson 29 so it works abroad with there ink
Hi George, thanks for getting in touch.
Unfortuantely we wouldn’t be able to advise of any way to do this.
Sorry we couldn’t help any further.