Want to update your home office printer for less? Printers, along with a slew of other household items, are already on sale for Amazon Prime Day. Check out our favorite printer deals below.
The best home office printers are diverse and capable machines that can pull double duty as robust business printers during the day and personal printers for the whole family in the evening and weekends as well. Most of these printers have built-in wireless printing, making it easy to print from any computer or mobile device on the same wireless network—no annoying printer cables required.
All-in-one printers can handle print, copy, and scan tasks in one device.
All of our picks have particular advantages for home offices—and may even satisfy the needs of some small businesses, too. If all you need to do is print stacks of professional-quality documents, a monochrome or color laser printer might make sense. These have a lower cost per page than other choices.
For greater flexibility and versatility across work and family needs, a multifunction printer, also known as an all-in-one printer, may be the better choice. All-in-one printers can print, scan and copy documents; some add fax capabilities and an automatic document feeder as well. Need more guidance on how to buy a printer? The advice at the end of this article makes choosing the best home or home office printer a lot easier than you might think.
- Best Home Printer Overall: Epson EcoTank ET-3830 ($400)
- Best Affordable Home Printer: HP Envy Inspire 7955e ($200, Was $270)
- Best Home Office All-in One Color Laser Printer: HP Color LaserJet m182nw ($429)
- Best Family Printer: Canon G3260 ($200, Was $230)
- Best Photo Printer: Epson Photo ET-8550 ($800)
- Best Home Office All-In-One Printer: Canon Maxify GX7021 ($750, Was $800)
- Best Wide-Format Home Office Printer: Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000 ($400)
- Best Monochrome Laser Home Office Printer: HP Neverstop Laser Printer 1001nw ($290)
- Best Portable Printer For Road Warriors: Canon PIXMA TR150 ($250)
Best Home Printer Overall
Print, Copy And Scan
Best Affordable All-In-One Home Office Inkjet Printer
Great Price For A Printer With An Automatic Document Feeder
Best Home Office All-In-One Color Laser Printer
Crisp, Speedy Laser Output
Best Family Office Printer
A Low Cost Operator
Best Photo Printer
Create Large, Beautiful Photo Prints And Graphics
Best Home Office All-In-One Printer
Dual Paper Trays Make This Workhorse Ideal For A Home Office
Best Wide-Format Printer
Create Large Prints At A Not-So-Large Price
Best Monochrome Laser Printer
Fast Printing For Home Offices
Best Portable Printer For Road Warriors
Create A Remote Office Virtually Anywhere
Discover The Best Home Office Printer Deals Right Now
Sometimes you don’t necessarily need the best printer—what you want is the best price. If price is a primary consideration, check out some of these awesome deals you can take advantage of right now.
Save $60 On This All-In-One Canon
Take $50 Off An Epson Workhorse
An Even More Affordable HP Envy Variant
A Lightning Deal On A Label Printer
A Fujifilm Instant Photo Printer
Looking for more Amazon Prime Day deals? Visit our Amazon Prime Day coupon page to save more.
What To Look For When Buying A Printer
Your choice of printer depends on how much you routinely print—a few pages per month or dozens each day—as well as whether you want to print photos or two-sided documents. You also need to consider if you simply require black and white (often referred to as monochrome) output, or you want to have full color at your disposable.
Let’s take a look at a handful of other common features and functions to look for when buying a new printer.
Wireless printing is a popular feature to look for when choosing a new printer.
Inkjet Printer Versus Laser Printer
Your easiest decision is probably whether to get an inkjet or laser printer. Lasers are a good choice if you print a lot of documents that need to be of professional quality to share with clients or colleagues in a small or home office environment. Monochrome laser printers are fast, reliable and relatively inexpensive—and best for text and graphs, but not graphics or photos. You can get a color laser, but those models are pricier and more complicated to maintain. If your printing needs sometimes include color—whether for home, home office or schoolwork-related tasks—an inkjet is your least expensive and most versatile option.
Since the print quality of a laser printer tends to be superior to that of an inkjet printer, laser printers are a good choice if your home office produces printed business correspondence, reports or collateral to be shared with others. To meet the average needs of a family—and for many small businesses—a full-color inkjet (either with ink cartridges or ink tanks) will be more economical and versatile.
All-In-One (Multifunction) Printers
Super popular both at home and in small offices, these printers are able to print, copy, scan and sometimes even fax—all from the same device. Some models include an automatic document feeder for copying or scanning multiple pages at once.
Two-Sided Printing (Also Referred to As Duplex Printing)
Full duplex printers can automatically print to both sides of a page. Not everyone needs this, however. Duplex printers are nice to have at home, but essential in an office. Using this feature, you’ll save a lot of paper, so the environment and your wallet will thank you. On the downside, when using full duplex printing with an inkjet printer, you may need to use thicker paper (28 pound instead of 20 pound) to eliminate ink bleed through.
Print Speed
Not all printers are speed demons. Many printers report two different speeds—the time it takes for the first print to slide out of the printer, and the pages per minute (ppm) once it has started printing. If you only print occasionally, print speed might not be that important, but it’s arguably the single most important feature if you print a lot of pages at a time. Also, despite what a printer manufacturer reports is a particular printer’s ppm speed, when you’re printing graphics-heavy documents or or photos, the printing speed will always be slower. Even the fastest inkjet printers will take up to 90 second to print one 8.5 x 11 inch photo, for example.
Connectivity
Most of today’s printers have wireless connectivity, so you can send files via Wi-Fi rather than plugging directly into the printer’s USB or Ethernet port. Some all-in-one printers can print from memory cards or USB flash drives. Most support wireless printing standards—including Apple AirPrint (for printing from your iMac, MacBook, iPhone or iPad), Mopria and Wi-Fi Direct. Many of the more modern all-in-ones also have the ability to print directly from cloud-based services, like Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. Some models also support Bluetooth connections.
Photo Printing
Any printer can spit out an image, but it won’t necessarily be something you’d want to hang on the wall. Some printers are optimized for photos with higher print resolution, borderless printing or can print on tabloid-size paper. The best photo printers will use six colors (either in ink cartridges or ink tanks) to do a better job at producing lab-quality photo prints. To get the best results, print photos using premium photo paper.
Which Printer Brand Is The Best?
As you might imagine, there’s no single best printer brand; collectively, several companies offer the best all-in-one printers of 2022. But depending upon what you’re looking for—affordability, high printing volume, photo and creative printing, or other criteria—you might prefer one brand over another.
Canon, Epson and HP—as well as a handful of other brands—all offer superb, all-in-one printer models that utilize either inkjet or laser printing technologies. If you're interested in office and productivity printing, HP and Brother are worthy of investigation, but if you want to make high-quality photo prints or get a multi-purpose printer than can do prints as well as other kinds of documents, Canon and Epson have a number of compelling choices. Focus on your needs and not a brand name when seeking out an all-in-one printer that matches your budget as well as your printing, copying and scanning requirements.
What’s The Difference Between A Laser Printer And Inkjet Printer?
The quick answer is that a laser printer uses a laser and toner to render text and graphics, while an inkjet printer relies on using liquid (colored) inks precisely sprayed onto paper in tiny droplets. The actual printing processes are totally different.
In general, a laser printer produces sharper text and graphics, often at faster print speeds than a similarly-priced inkjet. An inkjet printer can print both black and color documents. These printers can often also generate photo prints from digital images using photo paper.
Until recently, monochrome laser printers relied on toner cartridges, while inkjet printers relied on two or more ink cartridges to function. However, many printer manufacturers have introduced a ink tanks—sometimes referred to as supertanks—instead of costly cartridges. The latest printers now use easy-to-refill ink tanks and require no individual cartridges. This makes the printers much less expensive to maintain.
The ink capacity of an inkjet printer’s tank, for example, is typically equivalent to 20 to 30 individual ink cartridges. Most supertank models have four ink tanks. Models aiming to replace standard monochrome laser printers use a single ink tank for monochrome printing; and a few printers use six ink tanks to produce highly detailed photo prints.
Is A Laser Printer Or Inkjet Printer Better?
This all depends on what you’ll be using the printer for. For longer, text-based documents, a monochrome laser printer will generate high-quality and crisp text at a fast print speed (typically at least 20 to 30 ppm). A color laser printer will also generate high-quality text and graphics, also at a fast print speed. Typically color laser jets will be the fastest color printers, but more expensive supertank models can come close to a laser printer’s print ratings. Laser printers are more costly to maintain and are not good at creating photo prints from digital images.
A color inkjet cartridge or supertank printer will have a range of print speeds, with the speed increasing as you move up to more expensive and more powerful models. Typically the speeds will fall between 10 ppm and 20 ppm for B&W documents, with full-color documents lagging behind in speed. If the printer supports premium photo paper, you can print photos as well, but those speeds are slower than standard document speeds.
For average use in a home office, a mid-priced inkjet printer should suffice. If you go with a really low-cost inkjet printer, you may be disappointed by the printer’s speed and print quality, especially when printing photos or graphics. A more expensive inkjet or supertank printer can generally speed and functionality—such as an automatic document feeder, built-in fax, extra paper trays and wide-format printing.
For a home office, a monochrome laser printer will generate higher-quality output at a faster pace. This is ideal for longer documents, printed correspondence, business reports, contracts or proposals, for example. A color laser printer is far more expensive to purchase and maintain than a monochrome laser printer, but it can create professional-looking, full-color documents that are suitable for clients.
How Much Should A Home Printer Cost?
For a dedicated inkjet printer, all-in-one inkjet printer or photo printer for your home, plan on spending between $300 and $400 to get a printer with reasonable print speed and high-quality output.
For a home office, plan on spending between $400 and $800 for a mid- to high-end inkjet or color laser printer that offers a faster print speed and that generates the highest-quality printed output.
A dedicated monochrome laser printer will cost between $200 and $300. The individual toner cartridges are relatively inexpensive, but such printers are limited to black and white printing. Expect to pay significantly more for a color laser printer and the replacement toner cartridges required for these printers.
The cost to purchase the printer is only part of the overall equation. You also want to consider the ongoing cost to maintain the printer, which means keeping it filled with toner or ink.
Which Printers Have The Cheapest Ink?
For all their advantages, inkjet printers can be woefully expensive to maintain because name-band replacement ink cartridges are pricey. If low-cost ink is your overriding concern, consider an inkjet printer with ink tanks or a monochrome laser printer. Again, black laser toner is substantially less expensive than ink cartridges. (Color laser toner cartridges are much more expensive, however.) Replacement ink for inkjet printers that rely on ink tanks continues to be the most affordable (and environmentally friendly) option.
Among inkjet printers that rely on ink cartridges, consider printer models that store each color in its own cartridge. Printers which use combo cartridges are usually a lot more expensive to operate and maintain, because if you run out of any one color, you wind up needing to discard the entire cartridge along with any of its remaining ink. This is not an issue if the inkjet printer uses ink tanks instead of cartridges.
One problem with some inkjet printers is that the ink dries up on printheads and can cause problems which need to be fixed by running a printer head cleaning utility after a period of disuse. For very sporadic printing needs, a monochrome laser printer may be your best option since it uses toner, which isn’t prone to drying out.
Supertank printers with ink tanks are the most economical ink systems. Some printer manufacturers have ink subscription services, which can save money over time.
While some printers will only work with the manufacturer’s ink, some will work with inks and toners sold by independent companies like LD Products. Such inks are less costly than those sold by printer manufacturers.
Which Printer Uses The Least Amount Of Ink?
While manufacturers provide cartridge yield data, the answer here will vary greatly depending on what type of content you’re printing. Most printers offer a “draft” mode that allows the printer to work faster and use less toner or ink, but the print quality to be lesser than in normal mode. This might suffice in some cases, but not if you’re sharing you’re output with clients or colleagues. And if you’re printing full-page, full-color photos, the printer uses more ink than usual.
Printers that rely on ink tanks, as opposed to ink cartridges, will save you a fortune over time.
If you use an inkjet printer only occasionally, preserve your ink cartridges longer (and prevent them from drying out) by removing them from the printer and storing them upright within a sealed plastic bag. The ink should be stored in a cool and dry place. Anytime you purchase new ink, leave it within its original packaging until you’re ready to use it.
Another way to preserve ink when using an inkjet printer is to always turn the printer off (using the power button) when you’re not using it. This will ensure the ink cartridges are returned to a capped position. If you notice print quality drop, use the printer’s built-in maintenance tools to clean and align the printheads, or unclog an ink cartridge.
How To Choose The Right Paper For Your Printing Task
Even if you purchase a top-of-the-line printer, how documents look depends on the type of paper you use with the printer. For most printing tasks, 8.5 x 11 inch 20-pound copy paper works just fine. It comes in reams of 500 sheets and works well with inkjet or laser printers.
Choosing the right type of paper for each printing task will impact the quality of what you're ... [+]
However, if you are using an inkjet printer capable of double-sided printing, consider using thicker, 28-pound paper. The thicker paper will prevent ink from seeping through the page or causing the paper to curl due to the wetness of the ink before it fully dries on the page.
When creating photo prints from your digital images, you’ll achieve the best results (sometimes photo lab quality results, depending on the printer) if you use premium photo paper. This type of paper comes in a variety of popular sizes—such as 4 x 6 inches, 5 x 7 inches, 8 x 10 inches, 8.5 x 11 inches and 11 x 17 inches (which only wide-format printers can accommodate). Premium photo paper also comes in different finishes (such as glossy, lustre or matte). The photo paper you choose can directly impact the look and color of photos, as well as how long prints can last. Any brand of photo paper will work in any traditional inkjet printer.
For your specialized photo printing needs, many companies sell specialty photo papers that work with most inkjet printers. Options include sticker paper, inkjet transfer paper and 100% cotton fine art photo papers.
About The Author
As a consumer tech staff writer for Forbes Vetted, it’s my job to stay up-to-date on the latest printers, computers, mobile gadgets and smart devices. When new consumer tech products hit the market, I typically have the opportunity to use them firsthand, which helps me stay current with the latest features and innovations. And I get to share my most exciting discoveries with the Forbes Vetted readers.
I have been writing about consumer tech for more than 20 years and have contributed thousands of articles to major daily newspapers, national magazines and popular websites. I’ve also authored dozens of how-to books covering a wide range of technologies, including smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and digital cameras.
