How we compare printers

Where the specs come from

Manufacturer product pages and specification sheets first, for print speeds, ISO page yields, capacities, dimensions and weights. Consumable prices come from the manufacturer’s own store where it will show one, and from a named retailer where it will not. Every URL actually consulted is recorded against the printer in the repository, and the sources for each entry are listed in its research file.

Where a figure could not be read from a source that opened, the field is null and the page says so rather than showing a guess. That is why 7 of the 50 printers here display no cost per page: their yields are published but no genuine consumable price could be verified. Leaving a gap visible is the point.

How the cost figures are worked out

Cost per mono page is the black consumable’s price divided by its ISO page yield. Cost per colour page adds a full cyan, magenta and yellow set — divided by its own yield — on top, so it represents a page using every ink. Cost to own is the purchase price plus those per-page figures over a stated number of pages, assuming four mono pages for every colour page on a colour printer.

All of them are estimates and are labelled as such everywhere they appear. ISO yields assume a test page with roughly five percent coverage; your pages are not that page. Prices move. Cleaning cycles consume ink the arithmetic assumes reached paper. The figures are still the most useful comparison available, because every manufacturer measures against the same standard. The full method, with the arithmetic.

Why no printer here shows a star rating

Stars only appear when a named retailer or a manufacturer’s own store publishes an owner-review average that can be linked to and that is not Amazon — 0 of the 50 printers clear that bar today, which is to say none of them do. So no stars are shown anywhere, no rating feeds the structured data, and no score is estimated. An uncited number would be a claim about real customers that nobody could check.

Where the owner notes come from

The owner sections are distilled from people who own the machine: public owner discussions, long-term published reviews, and retailer review text. They are summaries of what owners report, not test results. Coverage is 33 of 50 printers — where no owner discussion was read, the page says so plainly instead of leaving a blank that looks like a rendering fault.

Separately, 32 catalogue entries have their pros and cons marked as written from the specification sheet alone. Nothing on this site says “owners report” about a printer whose owners nobody here has read.

What every printer’s sheet records

• Cost per pagethe consumable's list price divided by its ISO page yield — the number this site exists to publish
• Cost to ownpurchase price plus supplies over 5,000 pages and over three years at 200 pages a month
• Consumablethe exact cartridge or bottle, its ISO yield, its price, and the page we read that price from
• Ink systembottles, individual cartridges, tri-colour, toner, ribbon or film — the thing that decides the bill
• Third-party ink lockwhether the printer refuses supplies that are not the manufacturer's own
• ISO print speedthe standardised figure, never a draft-mode number
• Duplex and feederautomatic or manual two-sided printing; feeder capacity; whether it scans both sides in one pass
• Paperinput capacity and the largest sheet — and the scanner's maximum separately, because they often differ
• Inkshow many, because that predicts photo quality far better than a dpi figure
• ConnectivityWi-Fi, Ethernet, front USB, and whether a phone can print without the maker's app

How the lists are ordered

Every sort and every guide names the measurable it orders by — cost per mono page, cost per colour page, cost to own at 5,000 pages, price, pages per minute. None of them is an opinion, and none is a ranking we invented. Where a guide makes a recommendation it states the basis: “lowest computed cost per page among printers under $300” is a claim you can check against the table on the same page.

What we never do

• — No paid placement. Nothing here can be bought, and no manufacturer has been in touch.
• — No retailer links, no affiliate tags, no commission of any kind. Prices are approximate snapshots and are labelled as such; the site earns nothing from what you buy.
• — No invented numbers. If a figure could not be sourced it is absent, not estimated.
• — No star ratings without a citable, non-Amazon source, and none in the structured data either way.
• — No claim of testing. Nobody here has had these machines on a bench; the specifications are the manufacturers’ and the owner notes are owners’.