10 Of The Best Budget-Friendly Printers For 2024

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While printers form an essential part of many home offices, most buyers aren't willing to spend a fortune on one. Yet, no one likes to give up on the added features and conveniences that pricier printers can bring. Striking the right balance can be tricky, especially since the cheapest printers often balance their lower upfront costs with higher ink costs over time. So, what looks like a good deal at first might cost more in the long run.

The key to getting it right is to work out not only what you want to use the printer for — printing family photos, churning out documents, scanning or even receiving fax messages – but also how often you're likely to use it. Once you know what you're looking for, it's time to pick a printer with the features you'll need that doesn't make you pay extra for features you don't. After sifting through the scores of printers currently available from leading manufacturers, these options cover a wide range of use cases. Each can be picked up for $250 or less, with some available for under $100.

Another popular budget printer range is HP's OfficeJet series of printers. Contrary to what its name suggests, the OfficeJet Pro 8025e is useful in more than just office contexts, although it's a particularly good choice for anyone looking to buy an affordable home office printer that doubles up for family printing duties. The all-in-one inkjet offers printing, scanning, and copying features, and comes with six months of free ink when you sign up to HP+. The printer itself retails for $224.99.

When printing monochrome, the OfficeJet Pro 8025e offers up to 20 pages per minute, while color pages slow that maximum rate to 10 pages per minute. Those numbers are slightly on the slow side compared to what else is on the market at this price point, but not overly so. Much like Canon, HP also offers its Instant Ink subscription service to purportedly make buying ink easier, with multiple "Print Plans" available. It's worth noting here that Instant Ink isn't without its critics — in fact, some claim the service is so bad that it makes them hate HP printers as a whole. It's considering unbranded ink alternatives before signing up for a subscription.

Although the Canon PIXMA TR7820 doesn't cost much upfront — it retails for $179.00, and for that, you get an impressive printer, copier, and scanner — its ink costs can add up over time. It uses just two cartridges, one for black and one for color, which can get very expensive to replace if you frequently run out of one color before the others. Therefore, it's not recommended for frequent home printer users. Although, perhaps leading with its biggest flaw is a little unfair: if you're only looking for a printer for occasional use, both for scanning and printing, it's a solid choice.

It features a straightforward LCD touchscreen and an array of buttons for easy access to the printer's main functions, and it can also print wirelessly from PCs and phones, the latter through the Canon Print app. It churns out up to 10 color pages per minute, more than fast enough for occasional home users. Plus, the 35-sheet automatic document feeder is one of the largest at this price point. So, it's more than worthy of consideration for occasional printer users, even if it doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny for more frequent use.

Bottled ink works out cheaper than cartridges, and the Canon PIXMA MegaTank G3270 is about the cheapest Canon ink tank printer on the market. It retails for $229.99, making it the most expensive printer on this list by MSRP. It's occasionally discounted as low as $149.99 on Amazon. The all-in-one printer does come with a few compromises to keep its price low: there's no automatic duplex printing, which many other printers at this price point offer, and the 1.35-inch LCD screen is smaller than its competitors and also not a touchscreen.

Other than that, there's little to dislike. The printer's image quality is consistently strong, and a notable step up from the entry-level models in the PIXMA lineup. It boasts a range of connectivity options including Apple AirPrint. The biggest selling point for more frequent printer users, however, remains its ink bottle compatibility. It won't take long for the refill cost savings to exceed the extra upfront costs compared to a cheaper cartridge printer, especially for busier home offices.

The HP OfficeJet 8015e retails for $159.99, but as of this writing, is down to under $100 on Amazon. It offers many of the features of pricier printers without the added cost, including wireless printing, an automatic document feeder, and automatic dual-sided printing. Not only that, but it also implements those features in a fairly easy-to-use package, with the 3.0-inch touchscreen removing the need for too many unsightly buttons.

The printer comes with three months of ink included when you sign up for the HP+ ink subscription service, although as mentioned above, caution is advised as not everyone is sold on the value of the subscription. Even if you choose to buy ink individually, the running costs for the OfficeJet 8015e should be competitive with the printer's leading rivals. As an all-in-one, it also features a color scanner, although at this price point, don't expect the scanner's clarity to match that of a good standalone unit.

Anyone looking for a simple home office printer for document printing won't want to pay extra for all-in-one features they're unlikely to use. In that case, a monochrome laser printer like the Brother HL-L2460DW is a better option. It retails for $159.99 and boasts significantly faster printing times than its inkjet rivals, at up to 36 pages per minute. The paper tray is also one of the largest on this list, with a capacity of 250 sheets. Like Brother's all-in-one printers, it can print wirelessly and can be managed through the brand's smartphone app. Apple AirPrint is also supported.

It does without nearly all of the features that all-in-one printers boast — there's no built-in scanner, no touchscreen, and as a monochrome printer it can't print color photos either. Nonetheless, for simple, straightforward document printing it's the superior choice, with low costs per page and the clarity to handle all kinds of documents.