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Nov 02, 2024

Best cheap printer of 2024: My top 10 cost-cutting picks | TechRadar

Cut your print cost with these low-cost printers When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The best cheap printers deliver great

Cut your print cost with these low-cost printers

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

The best cheap printers deliver great functionality and print quality without breaking the bank and there are plenty to choose from.

As TechRadar Pro’s resident printer specialist, I’ve tested over a hundred printers, from the best printers and best small business printers. The models I've rounded up here are the top ten budget printers that all stand out for their low price and high performance.

The list includes some of the best inkjet printers and the best laser printers with the emphasis here on value for money. Of course, the catch with the cheapest printers is the cost of their pricey cartridges, so I’ve taken that into consideration and included an ink tank model too. Supertank printers are significantly more expensive, but their bottled ink is so affordable they are often the best buy for a small budget.

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1. HP Deskjet 2755e wireless color printer - $84.99 at AmazonBonus 3 months' free ink: The Deskjet 2755e is Amazon's best-selling inkjet printer and has enough ink to print up to 4200 pages thanks to its bundled Instant Ink. It is compact, has a built-in scanner and uses dual Wi-Fi for enhanced connectivity.

2. Canon Pixma MG3620 wireless color printer - $80 $69 at AmazonSave $20: Available in red, black and white, the MG3620 is one of the few printers of this price that does duplex printing as well, great if you want to want to print booklets and leaflets.

Our expert review:

When we tested it, this was the smallest laser printer and likely to remain so. The two trays fold away neatly so that the footprint is only a little larger than a sheet of A4, and it stands no taller than the average smartphone.

Being as small and inexpensive as an inkjet, yet with all the speed, economy, and consistency of a laser, the LaserJet Pro M15w is, in many ways, the ideal cheap printer. The LaserJet Pro M15w can print a thousand documents consistently and quickly on a single toner cartridge. It manages to hold one hundred sheets of paper and print on them at the respectable rate of 19ppm. Sadly, there’s no duplex mode and no display, but at this price, it’s hard to argue.

Read our full HP LaserJet Pro M15w review.

Our expert review:

The Epson EcoTank ET-2850 is a relatively affordable ink tank all-in-one aimed at the home worker or small office. It’s a pared back machine that won’t take up too much desk space and with Epson’s bottled ink costing around 90% less than cartridges, it’s also one of the cheapest printers to run.

Epson has held back a few features in order to keep the price competitive, so there’s no frontal paper tray, just a 100-sheet rear tray, and no touchscreen or NFC. It does carry the essentials, such as auto duplex printing, high-res scanning and Wi-Fi with AirPrint compatibility and it can print on any kind of paper up to A4 in size. The print quality is a pass rather than a distinction due to a more modest Micro Piezo nozzle array than you find inside other EcoTanks, but it’s good enough for the average business user. The real selling point though, is the wildly generous amount of inbox ink. The five bundled bottles should yield up to 20,000 pages before you need to buy more.

Read our full Epson EcoTank ET-2800 / 2850 review

Canon has stripped all but essential functionality from this all-in-one, leaving a portable-sized printer that works surprisingly well. There’s no Ethernet port or scanner bed, but its gridded flat top is perfect for scanning documents using your smartphone and Canon’s iOS/Android companion app. Including Bluetooth and AirPrint makes it easy to connect wirelessly, so the printer does not need to have its own touchscreen.

It prints on glossy photo paper or plain paper with room for sixty sheets of A4 in the main tray. Canon bundles the printer with two small inkjet cartridges, one black, and one combined color. There’s no auto-duplex mode, but that may not be a problem if your print jobs are small and infrequent. There's also a quiet mode to lower the printing noise for home office use.

The HP Deskjet 2755 (known in the UK as the HP Deskjet 2710) is a smart-looking all-in-one with small price tag. It can print, copy and scan in color and accept any size media from envelopes up to A4. It cannot auto duplex, but it has self-healing Wi-Fi and is compatible with AirPrint and Google Cloud Print.

This printer's printed photos are not great, and the color fidelity and page yield for both color and black documents are low.

As with every other cheap inkjet printer, the cartridge cost is the kicker, but this model is eligible for an HP Instant Ink subscription, which could bring your consumables bill down by around 70%. It also means your replacements will be sent to your letterbox before you run out.

Find the best deals on HP printers with our HP discount codes.

The Pantum P2200W proves that laser printers don’t have to be expensive. This basic black-and-white print-only device costs less than a lot of inkjets but prints much faster at 22 pages per minute, and the bundled starter cartridge is good for 700 pages. A standard cartridge will yield 1,600 pages at a lower per-page cost than any inkjet cartridge.

Unfortunately, it cannot auto-duplex print, but Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi Direct is built for a ready wireless connection. It’s small enough to sit on your desk and big enough to hold 150 sheets in its input tray and 100 in the output tray.

The competent Canon Pixma TS702 (known as the TS705 outside the US) is an all-in-one that will not break the bank. It can print, scan and copy in color despite lacking its own flatbed scanner. You use your smartphone instead, thereby decreasing the cost of this simplified device and making more room for paper. You can fit 250 sheets in the main tray and another 100 in the rear tray.

It is very flexible in what it can print onto with blank CDs and even fingernail stickers featured on the list of compatible blank media. It can auto-duplex and achieve enhanced print quality by using five discrete ink cartridges instead of the usual four.

The Pixma TS705 also supports Canon's XXL ink cartridges, so you won't have to refill often (but it will cost more than a regular ink cartridge).

Brother has stripped this laser printer right back to basics to bring the price down to that of the average inkjet printer. It may have lost a few features, such as an auto-duplex mode, a Wi-Fi module, and a covered paper tray, but the Brother HL-1112 is conveniently compact and efficient. It can print at a speedy 20 pages per minute, and there is room for 150 pages in the open paper tray.

This printer is compatible with both Windows and macOS and is fairly lightweight so that it can be moved around easily. There is enough toner in the box for 700 pages, and a new standard cartridge will give you 1,000 pages. For cheap and fast mono laser printing without the frills, this is the Brother you want by your side.

The Canon Pixma range has always been rated especially well for photo printing, and the Canon Pixma MG3650S doesn't let the team down. The budget model in this range is even better, so you won't have to break the bank to get high-quality photos and other images printed.

Another big plus is that it's a wireless printer, so there is no having to mess about with leads and cords. With a print resolution of 4800 x 1200dpi and a color print speed of almost 10 pages a minute, this is a model that can surprise and impress, especially at this price range. It also has a scanner and copier option to boot.

Owing to the high price of Canon's black ink cartridge, this printer isn't ideal for those who only want to print plain text documents. But it'll be a decent investment if you're going to print color photos.

To save some money on Canon products, check out our Canon coupon codes.

Epson’s entry-level all-in-one looks as smart as the rest of its stylishly simple Expression Home printers, and it shares almost all the same features. It can print in color using individual ink cartridges, scan A4 pages at high resolution, and photocopy. The printer's four-color individual ink set is also 50% more efficient in comparison to combined color cartridges. Wi-Fi is built-in for a network connection or a Wi-Fi Direct link with your smartphone.

It can print envelopes and glossy photo paper and hold a hundred sheets of A4 in its main paper tray. The only feature missing is the auto duplex, which is a pity, but with Epson’s aggressive discounting, we think this model is well worth the money. Another potential problem with the printer is that it's not the easiest to set up and can eat up your time.

Our expert review:

At first glance, the Brother DCP-J1800DW is a regular budget all-in-one inkjet, but it has a cool extra feature. It’s basic business printer aimed at the home worker with modest print demands. It’s compact enough to fit on a shelf while incorporating a useful 20-sheet automatic document feeder and offers both USB and Ethernet ports with neat cable management. There’s also a guillotine. Wait, what?

It’s the first printer of its kind to come armed with an internal blade for chopping A4 down to A5. This unique selling point could prove invaluable for reducing your consumables cost along with your document size, but even if you never use the cutter, this is a good printer. As a cartridge-based inkjet, the ink bill is always going to be high, but the print quality is crisp and consistent with both documents and photos. Unless you plan to print lots of pages, we have no reservations recommending this ingenious inkjet.

Read our full Brother DCP-J1800DW review

You can find the best cheap printer ink from a wide variety of online retailers, offering replacement ink cartridges, toners, and bottled ink for all printer types.

When choosing which cheap printer is best for you, you'll have a few considerations to make.

CategoryThe three main categories of printer are inkjet, laser, and ink tank. Generally, inkjet printers are cheap to buy, but replacement ink cartridges can be expensive. They excel at photos and casual document printing. Laser printers are more expensive to buy, but toners are cheap. Popular with businesses, these units are ideal for printing crisp, clear documents. Ink tank printers are effectively inkjet printers with the ability to manually top up ink reservoir using bottled ink. This makes them a good choice when you need a cheap printer over the long-term. To help you decide, we've reviewed the best inkjet printers, best laser printers, and best ink tank printers.

FeaturesThe best cheap printers aren't necessarily no-frills and feature-free. You can find plenty of affordably-priced units that include an automatic document feeder (ADF) and auto-duplex mode, which lets you print double-sided. We've also tested many budget printers that let you print, scan, copy, and fax - although expect quality to vary at the cheapest end. For more on that, we reviewed the best all-in-one printers.

Wired/wirelessAs standard, printers let you connect to a laptop or computer, but if you want to easily print from a mobile device (or don't have the ports to spare), look for a cheap printer that supports wireless printing over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. For more of these, we tested the best wireless printers.

PriceYou can find affordable printers, relative to their features, at a range of prices, so always scout for the best prices - generally, you'll pay more for faster print speeds, higher resolutions, and extras like scanning, copying, and faxing. When assessing budget, look at how much printer ink refills, cartridges, and toners will cost. We've seen some incredible Prime Day printer deals and Black Friday printer deals when the sales are live.

Have a preferred brand? We've tested the best Epson Printers, best Canon printers, and best Brother printers, and the best HP printers.

Our team of expert reviewers have tested hundreds of printers, including best printers for Mac, best wireless printers, and best large format printers. It doesn't matter about the budget - we conduct the same tests one everything from best portable printers to the best A3 printers to identify each unit's strengths and weaknesses.

To test the best cheap printers, we’ve looked at the prices of the printers and their ink cartridges. If the price of the printer’s low but the ink cartridge’s expensive, then users will end up spending more in the long run, depending on usage and printer efficiency.

We analyzed the printers’ print quality by printing the same bunch of text documents across all the machines and checking how they perform when printing color and black and white documents. We assessed the quality, vibrancy, and overall fidelity of the color prints.

We also considered the build quality, design, and dimensions of the printers and included both, compact and large printers in our list.

You can find out more in our guide to how we test printers at TechRadar Pro.

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Jim has been evaluating printers for more than twenty years and has, to date, written over a hundred reviews for TechRadar Pro. From pocket printers to industrial dye sublimation, Jim has been there, run the tests and printed the t-shirt. His expertise extends to consumables (paper, ink, toner) and his printer buying guides make it easy to compare these essential peripherals.

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