Brother vs HP vs Canon vs Epson running costs for UK small firms

29 October 2026 9 min read

We compared Brother, HP, Canon and Epson running costs on their own UK store prices in October 2026: cost per page, subscriptions, current promotions, warranty terms and the UK rules that apply to an office printer.

Written by CTC Staff House editorial team

Epson's EcoTank is the cheapest office printer to run, at 0.25p a black page on the makers' own UK store prices checked on 29 October 2026, but Epson's business EcoTanks cost several times more to buy than a Brother or HP mono laser. Canon publishes the strongest warranty terms without a subscription, and none of the four publishes customer retention figures.

The short answers to what buyers keep asking:

Cheapest to run is Epson's EcoTank, at 0.25p a black page. Canon's i-SENSYS toner is next at 2.5p, with Brother and HP at about 3.6p and 3.7p.
To separate genuine savings from marketing, work out the cost per page yourself. Subscriptions used in full come out about level with buying toner, whatever the "up to 90%" banners say.
For promotions, Brother pays £25 to £100 cashback to 31 October 2026, Epson has 10% off ink to 1 November, and Canon takes 5% off repeat deliveries. These offers are time-limited and were checked on 29 October 2026, so confirm on the brand's own site before you buy.
For service, Canon leads on paper, with three years and onsite repair on selected i-SENSYS models. Epson also reaches three years if you register and stick to genuine ink.
On loyalty, nobody publishes retention data. HP+, Epson Advantage+ and Brother EcoPro exist to keep you buying from the same maker.
What justifies a dearer machine is Brother's separate drum, signed firmware on Brother, Secure Boot on HP, or an EcoTank's lack of cartridges.

Which office printer brands have the lowest consumable costs?

The method is simple. For each brand we picked the high-yield black cartridge that fits a current small office model, then divided its UK store price, VAT included, by the page yield the maker declares. The sums are ours; every input comes from the makers' own pages.

Brother is selling the TN2510XL toner for £107.36 including VAT, rated at 3,000 pages under ISO/IEC 19752, for the £133.42 HL-L2400DW. HP's 135X high-yield cartridge costs £88.49 and is good for about 2,400 pages in the LaserJet M209 and M234 families.

Canon's 070H toner is £254.99 for up to 10,200 pages, for the i-SENSYS LBP246dw II and MF461dw II. Epson's 113 pigment black bottle costs £18.49 for 7,500 pages in EcoTank models such as the ET-5800 and ET-5850.

Black cost per page on each brand's high-yield supplies

Store price including VAT divided by the maker's declared page yield, checked 29 October 2026

View the data

Black cost per page on each brand's high-yield supplies
Category	Pence per black page
Epson 113 bottle	0.25
Canon 070H	2.5
Brother TN2510XL	3.58
HP 135X	3.69

Source: Brother UK, HP UK, Canon UK and Epson UK online stores, October 2026

One caution on yields. They are measured on a standard ISO test page, and a letterhead with a logo, a spreadsheet or a photo-heavy proposal burns through toner faster. The order of the four should hold; the size of the gaps will move with what your office actually prints.

Three costs sit behind the per-page figure. Start with the drum. Brother sells its DR2510 drum separately, at £118.85 for 15,000 pages, so add roughly 0.8p to every Brother page.

Then there is the starter cartridge. HP ships the M209dw with an in-box cartridge good for about 700 pages, and Brother's HL-L2400DW comes with a 700-page in-box toner too. In a busy office, that first full-price cartridge order arrives within weeks.

And then the printer itself. Epson lists the EcoTank ET-5855, a multifunction with fax, at £1,059.99, which is £926.57 more than the Brother HL-L2400DW. Counting the Brother drum, the EcoTank saves roughly 4.1p a black page on supplies, so you would need about 22,500 pages to win that back. At 1,000 pages a month, that is just under two years.

What the dearer machines buy you is mostly time and risk. Brother's HL-L2400DW lists digitally signed firmware and Cloud Secure Print, HP's M209dw lists Secure Boot and firmware integrity checks, and the EcoTank removes cartridge changes altogether. Canon's case rests on cover, set out below.

Are printer subscriptions genuine savings or marketing?

Brother, HP and Epson all sell office supplies by subscription, priced per page rather than per cartridge. Canon's per-page PIXMA Print Plan covers selected PIXMA inkjets only; for i-SENSYS toner it offers discounted repeat deliveries instead. Whichever you pick, a plan only saves money if you print close to its allowance every month.

Brother's EcoPro mono laser plans start at £1.99 a month for 50 pages and top out at £15.99 for 500. Unused pages roll over up to twice the monthly limit. Go over and you pay 69p to 89p per 10 pages. Every plan carries an extended warranty.

HP's Instant Ink ink plans go from £1.79 for 10 pages to £28.99 for 700 a month, and HP says the average small business sits on the 700-page plan. Colour and black pages count the same. Epson pitches ReadyPrint Flex for business from 300 pages a month at £10.99. Its ReadyPrint MAX plan bundles an EcoTank printer from £6.99 a month, on an 18-month minimum term.

Cost per page on each brand's business subscription, used in full

Monthly plan price divided by plan pages, including VAT, checked 29 October 2026

View the data

Cost per page on each brand's business subscription, used in full
Category	Pence per page
Brother EcoPro 500 pages	3.2
Epson ReadyPrint Flex 300 pages	3.66
HP Instant Ink 700 pages	4.14

Source: Brother UK EcoPro, Epson UK ReadyPrint and HP UK Instant Ink plan pages, October 2026

Used in full, those plans work out at 3.2p to 4.1p a page, roughly what Brother or HP toner costs bought outright. So the argument for a subscription is a fixed monthly bill and toner that turns up before you run dry. A cheaper page is not part of it.

Treat the headline savings with the same care. Brother says EcoPro saves up to 76%, HP says many Instant Ink customers save up to 70%, and Epson says EcoTank saves up to 90%. HP's footnote compares against standard cartridges in HP's own A4 colour inkjets, and Epson's against the 30 best-selling consumer inkjet cartridge printers tracked by IDC. Neither is measured against the high-yield toner a small office would actually buy.

Which brands offer discounts and promotions right now?

Every offer below has an end date, and two of them close on 31 October and 1 November 2026. Brother's October 2026 end-user promotion pays £25 to £100 cashback on named models, £25 on the DCP-L2627DWE and £50 on the MFC-L2800DW among them. Buy by 31 October 2026 and claim within 28 days.

Epson has a 10% voucher, code BOO, on selected EcoTank ink bottles until 1 November 2026, capped at three units per product per order. Canon knocks 5% off orders set up as repeat deliveries on its UK store. HP's offer is cover, not price. A three-year Care Pack with next-day exchange for LaserJet printers costs £30. These offers are time-limited and were checked on 29 October 2026, so confirm on the brand's own site before you buy.

Which printer brands have the best customer service and loyalty schemes?

None of the four publishes UK customer retention or satisfaction figures, so claims about loyalty are hard to test. What they do publish is how they try to keep you. Epson calls Advantage+ its printer loyalty programme. HP+ ties a printer to Original HP supplies for life. Brother's EcoPro bonus pages are forfeited if you cancel. Warranty terms are the clearest test of service, and they differ more than the toner prices do.

Canon's standard European Warranty System cover is two years. Its 3 year warranty offer, now permanent, adds a year and upgrades selected i-SENSYS models, including the LBP246dw II and MF461dw II, to onsite repair if you register within 30 days of purchase.

Epson starts at one year; the ET-5855 page lists 12 months carry-in. Register an eligible printer with Epson's Advantage+ programme within 30 days and you get three years plus 20% off ink. The catch is that you must keep using genuine Epson ink and keep the printer online.

Brother also starts at 12 months. EcoPro subscribers get extended cover, and October buyers could take an extended warranty of up to three years instead of the cashback. For phone help, Brother lists a UK line, 0333 777 4444, and WhatsApp chat, both open 9am to 5.30pm on weekdays.

HP gives a one-year limited warranty on the LaserJet M209dw, priced at £149.99. The same page says the printer is intended to work only with cartridges carrying a new or reused HP chip, and uses dynamic security measures to block others. Under HP's UK HP+ terms you get extended warranty in exchange for using Original HP supplies for the printer's life. Planning to run third-party toner? Read that disclosure on any model first.

UK rules that apply to an office printer

A Wi-Fi printer sold to the public is a connectable product. Under the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure regime, in force since 29 April 2024, makers of consumer connectable products must not use universal default passwords, must publish how to report security issues and must state a minimum security update period. Printers are not on the exempt list, which covers items such as desktop and laptop computers. Look for that support period before you buy.

If you hold or want Cyber Essentials, the NCSC's requirements for IT infrastructure apply to any in-scope device that can make outbound connections to the internet, which would include a printer that talks to a cloud print service. Default passwords must be changed, and critical or high-risk updates installed within 14 days.

At the end of its life, a printer is waste electrical and electronic equipment. Under the WEEE regulations, distributors must offer free take-back of like-for-like items when they sell new equipment. Use that, or a maker's recycling route, rather than the skip.

How to choose for a UK office of 2 to 20 people

Start with your monthly page count, which a networked printer usually shows on its status page. Below about 300 black pages a month, a Brother or HP mono laser at £133 to £150 beats an EcoTank business model over three years. Add a subscription sized to your volume if you want a fixed bill.

Print 1,000 black pages a month or more and the EcoTank's price premium pays for itself inside three years. Canon's i-SENSYS sits in between. For an office with nobody in IT, its onsite repair upgrade may be what settles it.

Whatever you buy, register it within 28 to 30 days, change the admin password on day one, and hold firmware updates to the same 14-day clock as your PCs.

Sources

Frequently Asked Questions

Which office printer brands have the cheapest ink or toner?

On UK store prices in October 2026, Epson's EcoTank bottles are cheapest at about 0.25p per black page. Canon's 070H toner follows at 2.5p, then Brother at 3.58p and HP at 3.69p. Brother's figure rises by about 0.8p once you add its separate drum.

Which printer brands offer discounts or promotions?

Brother's October 2026 promotion pays £25 to £100 cashback on named models bought up to 31 October 2026. Epson offers 10% off selected EcoTank ink with code BOO until 1 November 2026. Canon takes 5% off repeat toner deliveries, and HP sells a three-year Care Pack for £30. These offers are time-limited and were checked on 29 October 2026, so confirm on the brand's own site before you buy.

Are printer ink and toner subscriptions worth it for a small business?

They are worth it for predictable volumes. Full-use costs run from 3.2p a page on Brother EcoPro to about 4.1p on HP Instant Ink's 700-page plan, close to buying toner outright. Unused pages roll over only up to a cap, so pick a plan near your real usage.

Which printer brand has the best customer service in the UK?

No maker publishes UK satisfaction or retention data, so compare warranty terms instead. Canon gives two years as standard and three with onsite repair on selected i-SENSYS models. Epson goes from one year to three through Advantage+, while Brother and HP start at one year.

Which printer brands have the most loyal customers?

No maker publishes UK retention figures, so nobody can rank them on loyalty. What you can compare is how each one holds on to buyers: Epson's Advantage+ loyalty programme, HP+ and its genuine-supplies rule, and Brother's EcoPro bonus pages, which go if you cancel.

Do cheaper printers cost more in the long run?

Often, yes. Epson's ET-5855 costs £926.57 more than Brother's HL-L2400DW, but it saves about 4.1p per black page once Brother's drum is counted, so it pays back after roughly 22,500 pages. Below that volume, the cheaper laser wins.

Back to All Articles

0.25p is the black cost per page of Epson's 113 EcoTank bottle, at £18.49 for 7,500 pages (Epson UK store, October 2026)
2.5p is the black cost per page of Canon's 070H toner, at £254.99 for 10,200 pages (Canon UK store, October 2026)
3.58p is the cost per page of Brother's TN2510XL toner, at £107.36 for 3,000 pages, before the 0.8p drum (Brother UK store, October 2026)
£28.99 a month buys 700 pages on HP Instant Ink, the plan HP says the average small business uses (HP UK, October 2026)
3 years of warranty with onsite repair on selected Canon i-SENSYS models if registered within 30 days (Canon UK offer terms, 2026)
14 days is the Cyber Essentials deadline for installing critical or high-risk updates on in-scope devices (NCSC, April 2026)