The biggest consideration that goes into the purchase of a good printer is how much it costs to run it. To be more specific, how often does it require a change of ink cartridges, and what is the cost of the replacement of the ink cartridges? A printer that runs on cheap ink is at the top of the list of features for an ideal printer and today we are going to take a look at some printers that do just that.

The first thing that you must look for when making a purchase for a printer with cheap ink is to see if the printer contains individual cartridges. Some printers do have cartridges that require you to replace the whole cartridge assembly even when you run out of just one color, as opposed to printers with individual cartridges, thus increasing the overall cost of operation.

Besides this, a fast printer that has a good printing speed (measured in terms of PPM or pages per minute) is another critical requirement on the hardware front. The higher the PPM number, the better is the printer. Besides these basic under the hood considerations, the printer’s ability to be a connected device using cloud and wireless connectivity are important as well.

If your printer with cost-effective ink can let you connect to it using your smartphone or tablet, then it makes your life with it significantly easy while giving you superior value for money, with usage. Lastly, good driver support, easy availability of the cartridge, and value-added services like automatic refill by the manufacturer go a long way in adding value to your consideration for a good printer that works on the cheapest ink.

HP OfficeJet Pro 8720

Pro: Extremely fast with superior customizability, capable of handling the printing duties of multiple people, larger paper tray, and duplex scanning ensure that it doesn’t need a lot of human intervention, allows easy mobile printing.
Con: There have been complaints when setting it up using wifi, onboard features take quite a bit of getting used to.

The HP Officepro is an absolute workhorse designed to go about its job relentlessly. Equipped with features like air print, two-sided duplex print, and wireless print, this is a machine that is built for use by multiple people. Use it as a printer for your family or for an office environment, it will power through like a finely tuned race car. Offering an extremely impressive speed of 20 pages per minute in color and 25 in black and white this printer is fast and is designed to make efficient use of the cartridges making it a natural choice for our list today.

This printer can be customized for a variety of tasks including printing different types of letters and documents of multiple sizes. Equipped with a paper tray containing 250 sheets, the 8720 is impressive on the scanning and fax front as well as capable of scanning both sides without the need for intervention. You are going to love using it via the color touchscreen. It also does photo printing duties very well and offers connectivity with smartphones well. The printer is backed with HP’s instant ink plan where the machine automatically orders for new ink cartridges before you run out of ink.

Brother MFCJ6920DW

Pro: 11″ x 17″ paper size support, NFC for super convenient printing, 35 PPM printing speed, remarkably low cost per page, perfect small business use machine.
Con: While the photo print resolution on paper is good, there is a lot left to be desired in terms of photo print quality.

The Brother MFC’s ability to do multiple printing duties while still managing to feature on our printers with the cheapest ink list is truly remarkable. Offering a staggering 35 pages per minute in color and 27 in black, this printer is capable of handling 500 sheets in its dual tray set up. Perfect for you if you are thinking about using this in a small business environment, given the 11″ x 17″ paper size printability. This printer is on our list because of its ability to return cost-effective prints at an impressive paper size.

Backed by features like AirPrint, Google cloud print, and Brother I print, this printer even has NFC support which means that once you have set up your mobile and tablet devices with this via NFC, you simply can get to printing by being in close proximity to it without the need to connect via a network. Custom print features like ‘outline and copy’ and ‘outline and scan’ let you customize parts of a document you would like printed or scanned, by eliminating what you don’t want from a given document. Capable of printing 1200 pages in color, the Brother MFC is one of the most cost-effective printers on our list today.

Epson WorkForce WF-3620

Pro: Sharp durable prints, excellent value for money in terms of both initial investment and cost per print, good print per minute speeds, given the price point, one of the most versatile printers in our list.
Con: This is more of a home set up rather than a machine for an office environment.

Epson has done a great job of introducing a small business-grade printer at this price point. With an impressive print speed of 19 PPM, the workforce is capable of rivaling the performance of a laser printer and this is impressive, given its size. Designed to let you do more at a phenomenally economical price, the Epson is equipped with auto duplex print, tablet, and smartphone connectivity using wifi and a 35-page auto document feeder to make scanning duties easy without the need for you to intervene.

The Epson WorkForce WF-3620 is good at creating sharp and extremely durable fade and water-resistant prints using its proprietary ‘Precisioncore’ print engine which is perfect for you if you are using it to print photos.

Epson Expression Home XP-430

Pro: Compact, prints excellent photos, sd card support, individual ink cartridges for different colours, fantastic value for money.
Con: No duplex(two-sided printing), the LCD display is too small.

Small, compact, affordable, and powerful, the Epson Expression is just what you need if you are on a budget. This printer has been built from the ground up to be and do everything in a cost-effective way. Take the cartridge, for example, you need to replace only the specific color when you run out of it, a golden feature for a printer to be on this list. This is an all in one printer loaded with a built-in memory card slot so you can circumvent the need for a PC.

It is also loaded with a whole slew of tools like red-eye removal and photo restoration. Designed to hold 100 sheets so you don’t have to reload more often, the Expression home is supported by wifi direct, simply connect to it using your smartphone and tablets. Delivering an impressive print speed of 5 ppm for color prints, this printer is guaranteed to be your best friend if you are a photographer who likes to keep hard copy prints.

HP OfficeJet 4650

Pro: Uses only two ink cartridges, the black, and tricolor, making the operating cost of the OfficeJet, significantly low compared to other printers at this price point, easy to set up and use, thanks to the user-friendly touch screen interface and simple installation procedure.
Con: Does not have an ethernet port and requires a wifi connection at all times, known problems with hp instant ink service. (although not a drawback of the machine specifically, cancellation of the ink service has resulted in disabled printers!)

Built to perform strictly in a small office and home environment, the HP Officejet is an effective choice on a budget. Easily capable of rivaling the performance of a laser printer at 20 pages per minute for black prints, this printer is designed to make optimum use of the cartridge setup. The OfficeJet is quite capable of some hard work while making economical use of the printer ink. Supported by the HP instant ink plan, this printer auto orders cartridges before you run out of them.

The two-sided duplex printing goes a long way in saving you a lot of paper. The scan feature lets you save the document directly to the specified folder on your computer. Equipped with mobile printing using wifi, this printer also supports borderless printing of sizes up to 8.5 *11 inches. The OfficeJet 4650 is an affordable printer with a premium feel and even more affordable operating cost.

HP Envy 4520

Pro: A good home solution for a professional, a cost-effective all in one printer at this price.
Con: Known issues with the HP instant ink subscription, no ethernet port making the presence of a wifi connection critical.

The HP Envy is a high-quality photo printing device that puts out lab-quality photos. Outstanding in its performance, the Envy has a decent print speed of 6.8 ppm for color. Equipped with duplex printing and wireless printing you can print your favorite photos from your tablet and smartphone with support for borderless prints as well without incurring wastage on paper.

The Envy 4520 s ability to print professional-grade photos for the economical use of ink is exactly why it is on our list today. Outfitted with a touchscreen user interface, this printer carries out its scanning duties with the same precision as its printing duties. The HP Envy is supported by the HP instant ink service.

Conclusion

As well as being relatively frugal with ink, the HP OfficeJet 4650 is an all-around solid printer option. The cartridges for it are somewhat expensive, but all cartridges are. They’re actually a good bit less expensive than many other printers on the market, so you’ll save a good deal of money in the long run. Refilling them is quite easy. Those who have a tendency to make mistakes that end up using ink in the process won’t have to worry too much either. Since the 4650 has a user-friendly touchscreen interface, there’s much less risk of running into these kinds of problems.

*Any prices mentioned in the article were at the time of publishing and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.

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