10 Best Cheap Laser Printer in 2024
The right laser printer can make a huge difference to your printing speed and your productivity. It can also help you to avoid irritating issues like loss of WiFi signal, paper jams and more.
But that doesn’t mean you want to break the bank, and many people don’t want to spend over the odds on this particularly piece of tech.
For that reason, this article is going to count down some of the best printers in terms of the performance:price ratio. These are the best cheap laser printers.
The Best Cheap Laser Printers
Product
Features
Price
Lexmark B2236dw Laser Printer
Ricoh SP C261DNw Laser Printer
Brother HL-L3210CW
HP Color LaserJet Pro M281fdw
Canon Color imageClass MF634Cdw
Lexmark MC2535adwe
HP LaserJet Pro M254dw Wireless Laser Color Printer
HP LaserJet Pro M15w Printer, White
Brother HL-L2350DW Compact Monochrome Laser Printer
Samsung Xpress M2835DW
Lexmark B2236dw Laser Printer
If it’s an affordable laser printer you’re looking for, then they don’t come much cheaper than this!
The Laxmark B2236dw appears to defy logic by offering a laser printer at such a low price that is perfect for a small office or a family home that needs to print a lot of admin and documents. We say that this is ideal for admin or documents of course because the printer is not able to print in color – hence the low price.
There are some other compromises to be found here to. While there is an LCD display, the design is otherwise that of an ugly white box.
But the paper tray offers a very respectable 250 pages, the cartridges are good for up to 6,000 prints (though the included toner cartridge can only handle 700), and the printer has robust security features.
Pros
Cons
Ricoh SP C261DNw Laser Printer
For a significant step up in price, you have a printer that will allow you to create vivid color pages. It is certainly befitting the description of “cheap laser printer” and the fact that it is color is the icing on the cake.
BUT it also falls down in some other key areas – especially compared to the next option on this list that is actually cheaper (no peeping!).
The printer looks quite dated with loose plastic panels. It also has a rather low printing speed. This means you could be waiting around for a while for it to work. It’s noisy too! For those reasons we don’t recommend it for office use. But around the home if it’s just a cheap laser printer you want, this shouldn’t be an issue.
What might be a little more problematic, is that this printer is not particularly user-friendly.
The saving grace is the print quality, which is actually rather impressive. Combine that with the price, and it deserves a place on this list.
Pros
Cons
Brother HL-L3210CW
This is quite a large looking laser printer that denotes something powerful that you might expect to find in an office. While it appears to be all singing and dancing though, the price is very much on the budget-friendly side for a laser device, which should attract your attention right away.
Can it really offer that much by the way of features for the price though?
Actually, the specs and features are pretty great here. For one, the paper tray can hold a massive 250 sheets of paper, and will support both legal or letter sizes. A manual feed slot is also available for different sized paper. You can even print onto envelopes.
The print speeds are good too at up to 19ppm, and it’s not too noisy to use.
The printer is ideal then for a home office that needs to do a lot of printing and that wants to stay productive. The maximum monthly duty cycle is 30,000 pages, with the recommended being 1,500. That’s more than enough for most home uses and should even suit many small businesses and offices.
The printer supports Apple AIrPrint and Google Cloud.
Pros
Cons
HP Color LaserJet Pro M281fdw
HP is a recognized brand and one that many regular users will be more than happy to invest in. They should be too: this is a very effective printer with a reasonable price tag that is ideal for busy entrepreneurs looking for something that has lots of tricks and great performance.
More expensive than the Brother, but still very reasonable for a full color laser printer, this one is faster to boot. You’ll be able to get through 22 pages per minute, and even more (26) when printing in black and white. The printer also takes a wide range of different paper sizes, while the 50 page automatic document feeder is perfect if you need to print out the first draft of your novel.
The printer has a recommended monthly duty cycle of 150 to 2,500 pages. This isn’t a lot but it should be sufficient for most home offices.
The printer is also only average in terms of size and weight, which is something we really like about it. Plus there is a color touchscreen that is great for navigating the interface.
Pros
Cons
Canon Color imageClass MF634Cdw
Laser printers are typically more expensive, hence they are most commonly used in the office. But when you are looking for cheap laser printers for the home, there are a few options available.
This is a great example of that: a laser printer with a reasonable price tag and the focus on photo printing. This printer is ideal for those looking to make physical copies of their phone photos, or looking to restore old images.
The printer therefore combines a scanner that lets you drop in a series of photos and then have them printed out. It’s very quick as well at 19ppm, which is great for those that have a lot of work to get through. Keep in mind that this is an average speed though, with monochrome scans being 28ppm and color scans being 14ppm. The duty cycle is 200-2,500.
The images are not perfect quality and might not be up to the standards of professional photographers. But families should be happy with the end products, and offices looking for a way to quickly reproduce documents will also be happy if they are small enough in size.
Pros
Cons
Lexmark MC2535adwe
The second Lexmark on this list, and another fine entry in terms of value for money. This money comes packing some serious smarts thanks to a built in 1.2GHz quad core processor and 6GB of memory! It also prints extremely quickly at 35ppm – a speed that you would very much expect to find on a much more expensive model.
That’s not all this printer can boast though. It also has a special feature that allows you to choose just how much color you want to use – whether you want to create vivid and high-color images, or whether you’re more interested in something that is a little less vibrant but also less expensive to print!
There is a full-spectrum security architecture. This is an important feature for offices.
The connectivity is great too, with plenty of options, and you get a useful display for managing the interface. It’s all very intuitive and well thought out, and we’re generally very impressed with this affordable laser printer that is great for the home OR the small office.
Pros
Cons
HP LaserJet Pro M254dw Wireless Laser Color Printer
Another printer that flies in the face of those that say you can’t get a high quality color laser printer for an affordable price. This one is very fast and efficient, allows you to easily print from a smartphone, and even allows you to conveniently order more toner direct from HP when you run low!
The printer is also unique for not being absolutely massive, which makes it a much better fit for many home offices.
The 21ppm printing speed is very good, if nothing to write home about, and there are once again options to alter the amount of color you want to use.
Again, HP are a well known brand, and this comes across with a hardware and software experience that is reliable and easy to use. You won’t spend ages searching for your printer, or find it getting jammed – it just works when it works. And that’s why this has been the recipient of many awards.
Pros
HP LaserJet Pro M15w Printer, White
This printer comes in at absolute rock bottom in terms of price, but that’s really not a bad thing – especially considering that this is a well reviewed and well-liked product in spite of that extremely low price tag.
The printer has a lot going for it too in terms of its performance. The print speeds are average to good at 18/19ppm, and the look is very compact and easy to fit into any space. This is a particularly welcome feature for home offices that don’t necessarily want something the size of a small filing cabinet sitting on their desk!
That smaller size also comes with a higher efficiency: this is a low energy printer which is great for those that want to print in an eco conscious manner.
You’ll also be printing in a way that saves you energy thanks to the generally headache-free setup and performance. You can print seamlessly from the cloud, and you’ll be able to connect very easily.
The printer is one of the smallest in its class and it really is quite unique in the market. Of course, it is only black and white, but it’s high quality black and white!
This is perfect for the home office or small family that just want a printer that will be fast and reliable – but don’t want to pay over the odds for it.
Pros
Cons
Brother HL-L2350DW Compact Monochrome Laser Printer
Another laser printer from Brother. Like the last time the manufacturer graced this list, this is an extremely affordable printer that does a lot for its asking price. Unlike last time, it also has a great look and a small footprint!
Of course there is a catch though – this is again a black and white printer. That’s no problem if your main use is going to be printing black and white documents of course, but it does mean that certain applications won’t be suitable.
The printer has a lot else going for it. It has automatic duplex printing, it has a 2 line LCD for navigation (good at this price), and it can print on everything from paper, to envelopes, to labels. It’s quick to set up, easy to use, and rarely goes wrong.
The only real drawback is that the quality of the prints is not the very best.
Pros
Cons
Samsung Xpress M2835DW
Another black and white printer but this time from Samsung, a company known for making amazing smartphones and great TVs that can also actually make pretty darn good printers – at least if this option is anything to go by!
This printer comes with a 250 sheet capacity paper tray and can print an extremely impressive 29 pages per minute. Given a very reasonable asking price, these are extremely impressive stats!
The printer is also generally well designed. It looks very good all things considered and is easy to use. It can print from numerous cloud storage locations, and it even benefits from NFC – meaning that all you need to do is to tap an Android phone onto the printer in order to pair!
The only downside – and it’s a big one – is that it won’t work with all paper. This printer requires a specific paper provided by Samsung to prevent jams, which is a serious limitation.
Pros
Cons
Buyer’s Guide
Laser printers are often chosen over inkjet printers for a number of reasons. The first is that they are generally known to produce better looking text when printing. This is because they use crisp lines with a very high resolution that is great for reading small fonts in particular.
What’s more is that laser printers are much cheaper to run. The cost of toner is much lower compared with inkjet, and that paper tends to last a lot longer. Then there is the speed: a laser printer will typically print much faster than a comparable inkjet printer.
When you take all those things into account, this makes the laser printer a much better option for businesses in particular. But it can also be a good choice for families too.
If you find yourself printing a lot of documents for travel, for admin, for accounting etc., then having a laser printer means you won’t be spending large amounts of time waiting for your printer to finish, or struggling with low ink. What’s more is that a laser printer is typically more reliable, meaning that you’re going to struggle less with printer jams and similar issues.
At the same time though, laser printers are normally more expensive in terms of the upfront cost. This can make them off putting, but remember that you will be earning that money back over time by using less ink.
These are the things to consider when choosing a laser printer. Do you spend a lot of money on something that prints extremely quickly and creates vibrant images in color? Or do you just need something very basic to print out documents?
Another option some people might consider is to use a basic laser printer for printing out documents, and to have an inkjet printer for handling photos and other full color images. This way you can print out documents quickly when it is urgent, and then you can use the slower and slightly less reliable inkjet to print out photos and color pictures. You’ll still only spend a small amount in total!
Conclusions
While all the options on this list are very affordable, they also offer great value in terms of quality. These are fantastic printers each, that will print lots of high quality documents with little trouble.
The right one for you will of course come down to your specific needs, but you can rest assured that it certainly is possible to get a laser printer for under $300, $200, or even $100 and still get a good experience!