There is a calculation everyone buying a home printer should run, and almost no one does. The £30 inkjet from Argos that looks like the obvious budget choice will, across five years of typical home use, cost £400-£700 in replacement ink cartridges. The £200 Epson EcoTank that looks expensive at the till will cost £75-£150 across the same five years, because its ink-bottle refill costs about £15 for a year's worth of typical home printing.
The five-year total cost of ownership inverts the apparent savings. The "cheap" printer is the most expensive way to print at home; the "expensive" ink-tank printer is the cheapest. The reason the cheap printers dominate Currys and Argos isn't because they're better — it's because they're priced as loss leaders that recoup the manufacturer's margin on the consumables. Once you understand that, the home printer market makes structural sense and the right choice becomes clearer.
For most UK households, the right printer is either an Epson EcoTank or a Brother mono laser, both of which sit around £130-£250 at purchase and run cheaply for years afterward. The cheap inkjet earns its place only for very low-volume users who'd otherwise use it twice a year.
The ink economics, properly
The structural pattern of the home printer market:
| Printer type | Hardware cost | Annual ink/toner cost (typical home) | 5-year total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheap inkjet (£30) | £30 | £80-£150 | £430-£780 |
| Mid-range inkjet (£80) | £80 | £60-£100 | £380-£580 |
| Mono laser (£130) | £130 | £30-£60 | £280-£430 |
| Ink-tank (Epson EcoTank, Canon MegaTank, HP Smart Tank) (£200) | £200 | £15-£30 | £275-£350 |
| Colour laser (£250) | £250 | £80-£150 | £650-£1,000 |
The pattern: ink-tank printers and mono lasers dominate on lifetime cost. Cheap inkjets only win for genuinely low-volume use (under 10 pages a month).
Within the inkjet category specifically, the cartridges are the trap. Manufacturer cartridges for cheap inkjets cost £25-£40 for a set that prints 200-400 pages. A typical UK household printing 50 pages a month goes through 1.5-2 sets a year, sometimes more if the printer is intentionally bad at warning before cartridges genuinely run dry. The maths puts the ink at 12-20p per page, which for any volume turns the £30 printer into the most expensive equipment you own.
The ink-tank revolution started by Epson around 2015 and now matched by Canon (MegaTank), HP (Smart Tank), and others, replaces ink cartridges with refillable bottles. £15 of bottles refills the printer for 4,000-6,000 pages of mixed printing. The per-page cost drops from 15p to under 1p. The maths inverts.
When ink-tank wins (most cases)
The Epson EcoTank, specifically the ET-2870 at around £200-£280 in 2026, is the genuine best-buy in the UK home printer market for most households. The case:
Annual ink costs of £15-£30 versus £80-£150 for traditional inkjets.
Three-year manufacturer warranty (longer than typical inkjet warranties).
No cartridge failures or partial-cartridge wastage — the bottles refill the tanks completely.
Wireless, scanner, copier, mobile printing all included at the price.
Build quality is decent, not exceptional.
The case against the EcoTank approach:
Higher upfront cost (£200 vs £30) is genuinely off-putting at the till.
The print speed and quality are good but not the absolute best in class.
Photo printing is acceptable but not at the level of dedicated photo printers.
For typical UK households printing 20-100 pages a month — which is most households once you account for kids' homework, occasional letters, online forms, recipe printouts — the EcoTank wins comfortably on five-year cost. The only households where it loses are very low-volume users who'd actually struggle to use the ink before it dries out.
When mono laser wins (text-heavy printing)
For UK households whose printing is overwhelmingly text documents — bills, letters, school worksheets, work paperwork — a mono laser printer often beats even ink-tank inkjets.
The Brother HL-L2350DW at £130-£180 is the standard recommendation. Mono only (black text), wireless, double-sided printing, decent speed, very reliable.
The maths:
A toner cartridge at £30-£50 prints 2,000-3,000 pages. For a household printing 50 pages a month of text, one toner lasts 3-5 years. Total ink cost across five years: maybe £30-£60.
The hardware is built for higher duty cycles than home inkjets. Brother lasers regularly last 5-10 years of home use without significant problems.
No "ink dries out from disuse" issue that occasional inkjet users hit. Toner is a powder; it doesn't dry up.
The case against mono laser:
No colour. If you regularly print colour documents (kids' artwork, brochures, photos), this rules out the category.
Photo printing isn't possible. For photos, an inkjet or dedicated photo printer is needed.
Slightly higher hardware cost than budget inkjets, though similar to ink-tank.
For UK households whose printing is 80%+ text-only: mono laser is often the right answer.
For UK households needing colour: the ink-tank inkjet (EcoTank or equivalent) covers both colour and text without compromise.
When cheap inkjet still earns its place
The £30-£60 inkjet with HP Instant Ink subscription, or similar low-cost-of-ownership setups, is occasionally the right answer.
The Instant Ink subscription specifically is interesting: HP charges £3-£15/month based on page volume, not cartridge purchases. Ink is delivered automatically before the cartridge runs out. Effectively a "printing as a service" model that can work out cheaper than buying cartridges if you'd be buying HP brand cartridges anyway.
The cases for this:
Very low-volume printing (under 10 pages a month). The £3.50/month HP Instant Ink "Light" tier covers 50 pages/month for users who'd never approach that. Total cost £42/year, plus £30-£60 for the printer. Across five years: £240-£270, which is actually competitive with the EcoTank.
Households who specifically value the convenience of not thinking about ink. Instant Ink delivery is genuinely zero-effort.
Apartment or small-space living where the smaller cheap inkjet's footprint matters.
The cases against:
Without the Instant Ink subscription, the per-page cost of cartridge inkjets is punitive. Buy the printer and the subscription, or skip the cheap inkjet entirely.
Print quality is generally lower than EcoTank or laser equivalents.
The hardware itself often starts producing reliability issues by year 3-4.
Photo printing, briefly
For specialist photo printing, the standard inkjet isn't quite enough. The right tools:
Canon PIXMA G650 (around £180-£280) — Canon's photo-focused MegaTank. Six colour inks (versus four on most printers), better gradient handling. For households genuinely printing family photos, this earns its premium.
Epson EcoTank Photo (ET-8500 or similar) — Epson's photo-focused EcoTank. Premium pricing (£500+), but exceptional quality for serious photo printing.
For most households who occasionally print a photo: online services (Photobox, FreePrints, Cewe) typically produce better quality at lower cost than home photo printing, with the photos arriving on archival paper.
For households with regular photo printing needs (small business selling prints, hobby photographers): the dedicated photo printer earns its place.
The print-service alternative
A genuinely valid option for low-volume printing: don't own a printer. UK options:
Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda print services. £0.10-£0.50 per page for self-service printing from a USB stick or Bluetooth file. Available in many supermarkets.
Ryman / WHSmith. Similar self-service printing in stationery shops.
Public library. Free or near-free printing in most UK libraries, sometimes capped at small volumes.
Local print shop. £0.50-£2 per page for higher-quality work, larger formats, or specific media.
Office at workplace. If your employer is reasonable about it, occasional personal printing at the office solves the problem at zero cost.
For UK adults printing 5-10 pages a year: don't buy a printer. The total cost of ink-doesn't-dry-out, paper, electricity, and the printer itself exceeds the £5-£20 a year of using print services.
For UK adults printing 50-100+ pages a year: own a printer, pick the right one, accept the small ongoing cost.
What about scanning
Most modern home printers include scanning. The honest assessment of home scanner quality:
Acceptable for documents — receipts, contracts, school forms, anything text-based. The scanned PDF is good enough for sending or filing.
Marginal for photographs — scan quality is decent but not archival.
Slow for high-volume scanning. Each page takes 10-20 seconds; scanning 50 pages of receipts is genuinely tedious.
For occasional document scanning (a few pages a month), the printer's scanner is fine. For high-volume scanning needs, dedicated document scanners (Fujitsu ScanSnap, Epson DS-310) at £150-£300 produce dramatically faster and cleaner results.
For phone-based scanning: the Adobe Scan app, Microsoft Lens, or Apple's Notes scan feature all produce surprisingly good results from the phone camera. Often better than the printer's scanner for occasional use.
Mobile printing
In 2026, every reasonable home printer supports wireless printing from phones via:
Apple AirPrint for iPhone/iPad. Native, works without setup, just hits the printer that's on the same Wi-Fi network.
Mopria for Android. Equivalent universal standard, works without setup.
Manufacturer apps (HP Smart, Epson Connect, Canon PRINT, Brother iPrint&Scan). Add features beyond AirPrint and Mopria, like printing from email, scanning to phone.
The verification step before buying any home printer: check that it specifically supports AirPrint (if Apple household) or Mopria (if Android). Almost all 2024+ printers do, but the rare exceptions cause genuine annoyance later.
Common gotchas
A few specific patterns that catch home printer buyers out:
Ink dries out in occasional-use inkjets. A printer used once a month often has clogged print heads after a few months; the cleaning cycle uses substantial ink to recover, sometimes failing entirely. Mitigated by the EcoTank design (more ink, slower drying); mostly avoided by mono lasers (no liquid ink).
Wi-Fi setup that fails after router changes. Reconnecting a printer to a new Wi-Fi network is sometimes painful. The manufacturer apps are usually the path of least resistance.
Compatible / non-genuine ink that damages printheads. Saving £10 on a third-party cartridge can produce £150 of printer damage. For inkjets specifically, manufacturer ink is the safer choice. Lasers are more forgiving.
Auto-update locking out compatible cartridges. HP has had multiple controversies where firmware updates rejected non-HP cartridges that had previously worked. Brother and Epson have been more permissive but the risk exists.
The "almost out of ink" warning. Many printers warn at 30-40% remaining. The remaining ink is genuinely usable; the warning is partly designed to drive cartridge sales. Print until quality genuinely degrades.
What I'd actually do
For most UK households printing 25-100 pages a month: Epson EcoTank ET-2870 at £200-£280. Total five-year cost is the lowest in the category for typical use; warranty is decent; the colour and text printing both work fine.
For UK households printing predominantly text (bills, school work, paperwork): Brother HL-L2350DW mono laser at £130-£180. Five years of operation at genuinely low total cost, no ink-drying issues, reliable.
For UK households with very low printing needs (under 10 pages/month) and no plans to increase: HP DeskJet with Instant Ink Light tier at £30-£60 hardware plus £3.50/month subscription. Total five-year cost competitive with EcoTank for genuinely-low volume. Or skip the printer entirely and use library / supermarket print services.
For UK households with regular photo printing: Canon PIXMA G650 MegaTank at £180-£280. Six-colour ink-tank specifically built for photos.
For UK households starting from zero with no immediate printing need: don't buy yet. The Argos / Currys instinct of "every house needs a printer" is mostly outdated; many homes function fine with print services for occasional needs.
The lifetime cost calculation is the genuine answer here, and it's available before purchase via straightforward arithmetic. The supermarket-floor pricing produces inverted economics where the cheapest printer is the most expensive, which most buyers don't realise until two years and £200 of cartridges later. The £150-£200 spent upfront on the right printer is recouped within 18-24 months versus the cheap inkjet alternative.
Affiliate disclosure: Morningfold has affiliate partnerships with Epson, HP, Canon, and Brother via UK retailers. See editorial standards.