Cost per page (CPP) is one of the most important numbers to know before buying a printer. It tells you how much each sheet will cost in ink or toner, and over months or years it can easily outweigh the price of the machine itself. In 2025, Brother’s printer lineup covers budget inkjets, refillable tank systems, and high-volume lasers — and their CPPs vary a lot.

If you print frequently, a low CPP can mean hundreds of dollars saved each year. If you print occasionally, the difference matters less, but it still affects whether your printer feels “cheap to run” or like a constant expense. This article breaks down real yield and cost numbers so you can choose the most economical Brother printer for your needs.

Understanding Cost Per Page

CPP is calculated by dividing the price of a cartridge or ink bottle by the number of pages it can print. Manufacturers determine yields using ISO standards, which assume about 5% page coverage. In real life, heavy graphics or full-page color increase coverage and raise actual costs. That means a “cheap” printer on paper might not be so cheap if you print a lot of color.

Inkjet All-in-Ones with Low Ink Costs

If you want an affordable all-rounder with scanning, copying, and faxing, Brother’s INKvestment series has some of the best CPP in its category.

The Brother MFC-J995DW is designed with internal ink storage tanks that hold more ink than standard cartridges. High-yield LC3039 cartridges can print roughly 6,000 black pages or 5,000 color pages. In 2025 prices, that’s around 1.6¢ per black page and 5–6¢ per color page — extremely competitive for a cartridge-based inkjet.

The Brother MFC-J1205W (also sold as the DCP-J1200W) takes a similar approach but is aimed more at home and student use. Its LC406XL cartridges yield up to 5,000 pages black and 5,000 color, giving a CPP of roughly 2¢ for black and 6–7¢ for color. That’s low enough that color printing doesn’t feel like a luxury.

These models work well if you print a mix of documents and occasional photos, and they avoid the bulk of a tank printer while still offering low running costs.

Brother’s Ink Tank Option

For users willing to handle bottled ink refills, the Brother DCP-T580DW is hard to beat on CPP. This printer ships with bottles that can produce around 7,500 black pages and 5,000 color pages before you need to buy more. Replacement bottles are inexpensive — about $47 for a full set — making black pages cost less than 0.7¢ and color pages about 1¢.

Ink tanks excel when you have high monthly volumes and want predictable, minimal costs. They also remove the “my cartridge dried out” problem common with low-volume inkjet users. The trade-off is more manual handling and the risk of spills during refills, but in raw numbers, this is one of Brother’s cheapest ways to print in 2025.

Monochrome Laser: Low Cost for Black-Only

If almost everything you print is black-and-white, a monochrome laser is often the cheapest choice. Brother’s HL-L2390DW is a standout here. Using its standard TN730 toner, the CPP is about 3.7¢ per page. Upgrade to the high-yield TN760 toner and it drops to roughly 2.7¢ per page.

Laser printers also have drum units that need replacing after a certain number of pages, but even factoring that in, the per-page cost remains low for high-volume text printing. They’re faster than inkjets for bulk jobs and immune to ink-drying issues.

High-Yield Toner for the Absolute Lowest CPP

If you really want rock-bottom running costs, pairing the right Brother laser model with ultra-high-yield toner is the way to go. Cartridges like the TN560 (rated at 6,500 pages) or TN880 (rated at 12,000 pages) can bring the CPP below 1¢ for black-only pages.

The catch: these toners are compatible with specific high-volume laser models, often aimed at office environments. For a household printing a few hundred pages a year, the big cartridges may expire before they’re used up, which wastes toner. But for schools, law firms, or any business churning out thousands of pages monthly, this is the cheapest route possible.

Which One Is Cheapest for You?

For pure black-and-white printing, a high-yield monochrome laser like the HL-L2390DW or a model that supports the TN880 toner is usually the best choice. These beat every ink option for cost if you print a lot of text.

For color printing on a budget, the DCP-T580DW’s tank system offers extremely low CPP for both black and color, with no need for frequent cartridge changes.

For balanced use without a tank, INKvestment printers like the MFC-J995DW give low CPP while keeping the convenience of cartridge swapping.

Our Real-World Impression

We’ve tested enough printers to know that advertised CPP assumes ideal conditions. Printing a 5-page color newsletter every week will use more ink than the ISO test pages, and draft mode savings are real if you can live with lighter text. We’ve also seen that leaving an inkjet unplugged for long periods can lead to cleaning cycles that eat into the economy.

That’s why the “lowest CPP” is partly about your habits. A tank printer is unbeatable on paper, but if you print so rarely that ink dries between jobs, the maintenance wipes out the advantage. On the other hand, a laser with a 12,000-page toner might have a minuscule CPP, but if you only print 50 pages a month, you won’t see the benefit until several years down the line.