If you’re after a decent home printer, but you don’t have cash to burn, and want the best possible option, here are the best cheap printers available to buy in 2021.

By Thomas Newton

Published: Monday, 23 August 2021 at 12:00 am

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Picking the best cheap printer for you and your home can be confusing. You’d think that being on a budget would limit your options, but even when you exclude some of the more expensive printers from your shopping list, there’s still a lot of choices out there to sift through.

To narrow things down, it’s helpful to, first of all, determine what you mean by ‘cheap’. Are you after a printer that’s cheap to buy, or are you after something that’s cheap to run?

Consider your needs and how often you expect you’ll hit that ‘Print’ button before opening your wallet. If you only print documents once every month or so, then picking up something with a low initial cost might be better, even if it’s not the most economical option.

On the flip side, if you’re printing lots of sheets every week, whether that’s for homework reasons, coursework reasons, or you’re printing lots of newsletters, posters, and pamphlets, you’ll want a printer with the lowest possible cost-per-page that your budget can accommodate – picking something because it has a low price tag could end up burning a hole in your pocket in the long run, so it might be better to pick something with a higher RRP if it turns out to be a long-term saver.

Depending on your needs, you might also want to consider picking up a laserjet printer instead of an inkjet – we’ve covered the pros and cons of these printer types in our inkjet vs laser printers article.

In this round-up, we’ve picked the best cheap printer options going, mainly looking at printers in and around the £100 price range, some cheaper than that, some slightly more expensive than that, but included here because they’re very cost-effective.

For our top picks for all budgets, head to our best printers round-up.

Jump to:

• How to choose a good cheap printer
• Best cheap printers at a glance
• Best cheap printers to buy in 2021

How to choose a cheap printer

Tip 1: look at the cost-per-page

Keeping an eye on running costs is a key consideration when shopping around for the best budget printer.

In terms of which printers have the cheapest ink, HP has some of the lowest prices going for its HP 305 black ink and tri-colour (cyan, magenta, yellow) ink cartridges. These cost £10.99 per cartridge and come with enough ink for roughly 120 and 100 printouts, respectively. That works out at a cost-per-page of 9p and 10p.

That’s about the standard per-page price you can expect from a cheap inkjet printer, but it’s by no means the cheapest option available to you.

For example, a single HP 44A black toner cartridge is priced at £52.99, far more expensive than the HP 305 ink cartridges, but it promises enough toner for around 1,000 printouts – which means that the cost-per-page falls to around 5p.

Even better value for money in terms of running costs is bottled ink. Printers like the Epson EcoTank ET-2750 – excluded from this round-up because it costs £349.99 upfront – are very cheap to run, with the cost-per-page less working out to be less than a penny.

Likewise, going for bigger XL ink cartridges will always be more expensive upfront, but your money will go further. Think about how many pages you’ll realistically be printing every month before making your choice.

Tip 2: research which ink subscriptions are the cheapest

While it’s useful to weigh up cartridge prices and yields, consider that a lot of printers these days are covered by subscription plans, which can save you money, not to mention the hassle of having to order fresh cartridges yourself.

These are typically only offered if you’re buying a printer that can be connected to the Internet, because services like HP’s Instant Ink and Epson’s ReadyPrint work by the printer monitoring ink levels and alerting the manufacturer when ink levels are getting low, which sees fresh cartridges popped into the post and sent out to you in advance of you running out of ink.

HP Instant Ink and Epson ReadyPrint subscription prices are therefore based on how many pages of paper you print in a month:

HP Instant Ink subscription prices

Epson ReadyPrint subscription prices

Tip 3: look at the up front printer price

If running costs are less of a consideration, then your job is made slightly easier by the fact that you’ll mainly, if not exclusively, looking at that initial price tag.

At the same time, consider what you need the printer for. If it’s just for documents, then get a mono printer, even if that’s not as cheap as a colour version, purely for the fact that you’ll only ever have to buy blank ink to replace it.

By the same token, if you want to print out the occasional photo or document with colour images, then there’s no point in buying a mono printer, even if it’s got a lower RRP.

Best cheap printers at a glance

• Cheapest colour printer to buy: Canon Pixma TS205 (£35.49)
• Best value all-in-one printer: Canon Pixma TR4550 / 4551 (£49.99)
• Best value all-in-one printer covered by HP Instant Ink: HP DeskJet Plus 4120 (£59.99)
• Best value all-in-one printer covered by Epson ReadyPrint: Epson XP-3105 (£59.99)
• Best quality all-in-one printer: Canon Pixma TS7450 (£79.99)
• Fastest budget colour printer: HP Envy Pro 6240 (£89.99)
• Cheapest mono laserjet printer: HP LaserJet Pro M15W (£89.99)
• Cheapest high capacity mono laserjet printer: Brother HL-L2350DW (£142.80)

Best cheap printers to buy in 2021

Canon Pixma TS205, £35.49

Best value colour printer

Pros:

• Very cheap to buy and run
• Good overall print quality
• Easy to set up and use

Cons:

• Slow printing speeds
• Ink smudges easily
• No Wi-Fi or mobile app support

The Canon Pixma TS205 is a cheap and cheerful colour inkjet printer. Very cheap to buy at around £35, the TS205 is about as bare-bones as it gets – it’s just a printer, there’s no scanner and no photocopy function, and there’s no Internet connectivity, so it can’t even accept print jobs over Wi-Fi, and it can’t be controlled via a phone – working with Windows and Mac desktop and laptop PCs, the Pixma TS205 accepts print jobs over a USB connection, and that’s it.

Aimed at buyers who want a cheap, sub-£50 printer to use every so often, the Canon Pixma TS205 is included here as it’s one of the very cheapest colour printers on the market.

It’s very easy to set up and use and is suitable for running off homework, letters, boarding passes and the like. Despite its low price, the Canon Pixma TS205 can even print photos on glossy photo paper.

Print quality is generally very good, a lot better than you might expect from such a cheap printer.

It’s not without its drawbacks, though, and the main drawback is the fact that text printouts are very prone to smudging. Images, too, take a long time to dry out, so you need to be extra careful when lifting pages up off of the Pixma TS205’s tray, lest you smudge something and need to print it out again.

It’s also quite slow, something you’ll only really notice if you’re printing out multiple copies of the same document, or long essays.

That said, if time is not of the essence, and you only print things every so often, the Canon Pixma TS205 is one of the best cheap printer options currently going.

Read our full Canon Pixma TS205 review.

The Canon Pixma TS205 is available to buy from:

• Amazon
• BT Shop