Whether you need to print flyers, process office work claims, produce hard-copy documents, or scan records, the best small office printer should be versatile enough to handle a range of daily office tasks. Since multiple employees may need to share the same printer, it should also be reliable, reasonably fast, and affordable to run.
When choosing a printer for your small business, consider:
- Print cost and page yield: Look for a printer that can handle a high page volume without frequent cartridge replacements or high running costs.
- Print speed and quality: A good office printer should produce sharp, professional-looking documents quickly enough to avoid slowing down your workflow.
- Scanning features: If your office regularly scans forms, receipts, or multi-page documents, an automatic document feeder and duplex scanning can save a lot of time.
- Paper handling: Features like duplex printing, multiple paper trays, and support for different paper sizes can be useful if you print a mix of documents, labels, envelopes, or marketing materials.
- Connectivity and sharing: For a shared office printer, make sure it supports the connections your team needs, whether that’s Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB, or mobile printing.
Below are our recommendations for the best small office printers. See our other picks for the best all-in-one printers, the best home printers, the best cheap and budget printers, and the best office printers.
The best small office printer we’ve tested is the Brother MFC-L8930CDW. If you don’t need to print photos, this has everything you’d need for a small business, especially if you need a quick printer. It produces incredibly sharp documents, prints quickly at up to 34 pages per minute (black or color), and requires very little maintenance. The regular toner cartridges yield a large number of prints, and you can get XL cartridges that’ll last even longer. The biggest TN635XXL Super High Yield Toner Cartridges yield up to 7,500 black and 6,500 color prints according to Brother’s estimates. You’ll have to spend extra to replace the drums, though you won’t have to do so often, as they’re estimated to last 30,000 prints. A separate drum unit can also be less wasteful than an integrated one, as you won’t have to throw out the whole toner cartridge if the drum gets damaged.
On the scanner side, you’ll find a Legal-size (8.5″ x 14″) flatbed scanner and an automatic feeder with single-pass duplex scanning, so you can quickly process multi-page and double-sided documents. It offers wide connectivity options, including USB, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet, and can also print directly from a USB flash drive. The only downside is that it’s a massive machine, so you’ll need a fair amount of space to put it. It’s also worth saying that, like the other laser printers on this list, it’s also not well-suited to printing photos.
