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Printer Cost Per Page UK — 21 Printers Compared

Prices refreshed from Amazon UK twice a day · method updated 10 November 2026

What a printed page really costs for 21 current UK printers, worked out the same way for every one: today's Amazon UK price for the cartridge or ink bottle, divided by the manufacturer's stated page yield. Cheapest black page first.

Right now the cheapest black page in the table costs 0.17p (Epson 113 EcoTank Pigment Ink — Genuine 4-Colour Multipack) and the dearest 4.6p (HP 220A Black Original Toner W2200A (2,000 pages)) — a 28-fold spread for the same sheet of paper.

Cartridge / inkFitsTypeStated yieldPriceBlack pageColour page
Epson 113 EcoTank Pigment Ink — Genuine 4-Colour Multipack Epson EcoTank ET-5800 (business) Genuine Black up to 7,500 pages, colours up to 6,000 each £49.59 0.17p 0.79p
Epson 102 EcoTank Black Ink Bottle (genuine, 127 ml) Epson EcoTank ET-3850 (with Ethernet), Epson EcoTank ET-4850 Genuine Up to 7,500 pages £12.94 0.17p —
Epson 104 EcoTank Ink Bottles — Genuine Multipack (CMYK) Epson EcoTank ET-2850, Epson EcoTank ET-2860 Genuine Up to 4,500 mono / 7,500 colour pages per set £31.49 0.17p 0.49p
Epson 104 EcoTank Black Ink Bottle (genuine) Epson EcoTank ET-2850, Epson EcoTank ET-2860 Genuine Up to 4,500 pages £8.31 0.18p —
TN-248XL Compatible Toner 5-Pack (2 × black + CMY, third-party) Brother HL-L3220CW, Brother HL-L3220CDW (with duplex), Brother HL-L3240CDW Compatible Black 3,000 + 3 × colour 2,300 pages £56.88 0.38p 1.9p
TN-2510XL Compatible Toner Twin Pack (third-party, 2 × 3,000 pages) Brother HL-L2400DW, Brother HL-L2460DW, Brother HL-L2445DW Compatible 2 × 3,000 pages £28.97 0.48p —
HP 149A Compatible Toner with Chip (third-party, 2,900 pages) HP LaserJet Pro 4002dn, HP LaserJet Pro 4002dw Compatible 2,900 pages £22.98 0.79p —
TN-3600XL Compatible Toner Twin Pack (third-party, 2 × 6,000 pages) Brother HL-L5210DW (professional) Compatible 2 × 6,000 pages £107.10 0.89p —
HP 937 Original Ink Cartridges — 4-Pack CMYK HP OfficeJet Pro 9120e, HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e, HP OfficeJet Pro 9132e, HP OfficeJet Pro 9730e (A3) Genuine Black 1,250 pages, colours 800 pages each £109.00 2.2p 12.4p
Brother TN-2510XL High-Yield Toner (genuine, 3,000 pages) Brother HL-L2400DW, Brother HL-L2460DW, Brother HL-L2445DW Genuine 3,000 pages £72.53 2.4p —
HP 937 Black Original Ink Cartridge 4S6W5NE HP OfficeJet Pro 9120e, HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e, HP OfficeJet Pro 9132e, HP OfficeJet Pro 9730e (A3) Genuine 1,250 pages £38.49 3.1p —
HP 149A Black Original Toner W1490A (2,900 pages) HP LaserJet Pro 4002dn, HP LaserJet Pro 4002dw Genuine 2,900 pages £109.70 3.8p —
Brother TN-2510 Toner (genuine, 1,200 pages) Brother HL-L2400DW, Brother HL-L2460DW, Brother HL-L2445DW Genuine 1,200 pages £46.19 3.8p —
Xerox C230 / C235 Black Toner 006R04383 (genuine, 1,500 pages) Xerox C230 (colour) Genuine 1,500 pages £67.19 4.5p —
HP 220A Black Original Toner W2200A (2,000 pages) HP Color LaserJet Pro 4202dw Genuine 2,000 pages £91.61 4.6p —
Epson 102 EcoTank Cyan Ink Bottle (genuine, 70 ml) Epson EcoTank ET-3850 (with Ethernet), Epson EcoTank ET-4850 Genuine Up to 6,000 pages £7.90 — 0.40p + black
HP 207A Cyan Original Toner W2211A (1,250 pages) HP Color LaserJet Pro M255dw Genuine 1,250 pages £82.48 — 19.8p + black

“Colour page” is a full-colour page: black plus all three colours. Where a row is a single colour cartridge, the figure is three of them and black is extra. In a multipack the price is split evenly across the cartridges. “~” marks a typical price where no live price is available. Yields are the manufacturers' own figures at about 5% coverage per colour.

What the table tells you

  • Ink tanks win by a distance. A bottle that costs about the same as a takeaway prints thousands of pages. The catch is the price of the printer, which is two or three times a cartridge inkjet. See the EcoTank guide and ink subscription vs EcoTank.
  • Standard-yield cartridges are the expensive way to buy toner. The high-yield (XL / X) version of the same cartridge is nearly always cheaper per page, and worth it for anyone printing more than about 100 pages a month.
  • Compatibles cut laser costs to ink-tank levels, with more risk. On Brother mono lasers they are routine; on recent HP printers a firmware update can lock them out.
  • Small colour lasers are costly in colour. Four cartridges, low yields. Buy one for sharp text with occasional colour, not for printing photos or brochures.

For the short answer on which printer to buy, see the cheapest printer to run in the UK.

How to work it out for any printer

  1. Find the cartridge's page yield on the manufacturer's own product page (not the retailer's).
  2. Divide the price by the yield. A £90 toner that prints 3,000 pages is 3p a page.
  3. For colour, add the three colour cartridges together, divide by their yield, then add the black figure.
  4. Expect to do worse than the result. Yields assume about 5% of the page is covered; a full page of text is nearer 8–10%, and a photo many times that.

Frequently asked questions

The price of the cartridge divided by the number of pages the manufacturer says it prints. Those yields come from standard test pages with about 5% of the sheet covered (ISO/IEC 19752 for mono toner, 19798 for colour toner, 24711 for ink), so a page of dense text or a photo costs more than the figure shown.

For black text, under 1p a page is cheap, 2p to 4p is normal for a laser on genuine toner, and anything over 5p is expensive. For colour, under 2p is cheap (ink-tank printers), and 10p or more is normal for cartridge inkjets and small colour lasers.

Refillable ink-tank printers such as Epson EcoTank, at a fraction of a penny per page in black or colour. A mono laser on high-yield or compatible toner comes next. Cartridge inkjets are the most expensive per page unless you use an ink subscription.

On cost alone, yes: compatibles are often a fifth of the genuine price per page. The trade-offs are less consistent yields, the occasional dud, and printers (HP in particular) that can reject non-genuine chips after a firmware update. Each supply page here says where that risk applies.

No. It is toner or ink only. Paper adds roughly 1p a sheet, and a laser printer also needs a new drum unit every so often.
Using this table: you are welcome to quote the figures with a link to this page. They change with Amazon's prices, so give the date you read them. We earn an affiliate commission on Amazon purchases made through our links; it does not change the price you pay.

As an Amazon Associate UniDoc Solutions earns from qualifying purchases. Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.