Best cheap printers to buy and run

Some inkjet printers waste a lot of ink during cleaning cycles, meaning you'll need to constantly order pricey new cartridges.

An inefficient printer could cost you £100 more a year to print the same number of pages as an economical model. 

So you'll be glad to hear that Best Buy printers won't cost you a fortune to buy or run, having aced our expert and in-depth tests.

Buying a printer: the key questions to consider

If you're not sure what type of printer you need, here are three key questions to consider when buying a new printer:

• What will you use your printer for? If you often print colour documents and photos, your should consider an inkjet printer as ink is much better at reproducing colour than laser toner. However, if you frequently print letters, documents and office spreadsheets, then a laser printer could be the better - and more economical - choice for your home.
• How frequently will you print? If you print only occasionally - such as around 30 pages per month - a Best Buy inkjet printer under £50 should be fine. If you print regularly, potentially more than 100 pages per month, you should consider increasing your budget. More expensive printers come with useful features such as an automatic document feeder.  
• How much will the cartridges cost? Laser toner cartridges are expensive to buy, but generally last longer than ink cartridges. The price of ink will depend on whether you go for original ink (made by the printer brands) or cheaper third-party alternatives. See the ink and toner brands matching high quality with low prices in our in-depth printer inks guide.  

Don't get stung with high printing costs

We know that there’s more to printer running costs than manufacturers’ figures may let on. Many printers automatically clean their print heads every so often, using up precious ink that never makes it to the paper. This makes a big difference to how much you’ll end up spending on printer ink.

Our unique occasional printing tests take this extra ink into account, so we can give a more realistic idea of printing costs. 

We’ve found that the worst offenders use up to six times as much ink as the best when you leave time between print jobs, which can more than double the amount you spend on ink.

We also set our printers up to run almost continuously, printing as many text, spreadsheet and photo pages as we can from three new sets of ink cartridges. This is much like the method manufacturers use to come up with the page yield figures displayed on the box of the printer

To give you an idea of how much a printer will cost you to run, we give one, two and three-year running cost estimates for all tested printers in the Tech Specs. Or, to find the best value printer ink, head over to our expert guide to the best cheap printer ink.

Wasteful printers to avoid

While the printers above match top quality prints with affordable printing costs, not all models reach such levels of excellence.

Some printers cost a fortune to buy, underwhelm in terms of their print quality and then, to make matters even worse, will drive up your bills with high printer ink costs.

Below, we've picked out three printers that aren't the bargains they may first appear. 

Cheapest printers to buy

You can easily spend hundreds of pounds on a printer, but the fantastic cheap printers we've featured below, including Best Buy inkjet printers, are available for less than £100, with some even under £50.

Go for a budget printer if you just want a basic machine to churn through office documents and coursework. If you want a more fully featured office printer to do a range of tasks, it's better to spend a bit more.

More premium printers come with additional features and functions, such as an additional paper cassette or an automatic document feeder that makes it easier to copy, scan or fax multi-page documents.