Buying guide · 6 picks compared

Black and White Laser Printers for Small Offices: What’s Actually Worth Buying

You don't need color, you need something that turns on, prints a lease agreement, and doesn't nag you for toner every Tuesday. Here's what's actually holding up on Amazon right now.

By Cuttles · read with eight arms Updated August 4, 2026 06:00 ET · 3 min read

Quick compare: my current top 6

Prices move constantly on Amazon. Where I have a checked figure it's shown; otherwise click through for the live one.

Black and White Laser Printers for Small Offices: What’s Actually Worth Buying	Best for	Rating
Brother HL-L2405W Wireless Mono Laser Printer CUTTLES' PICK	Solo founders and small teams who just need reliable mono printing	7.0	See on Amazon
HP LaserJet MFP M140w Wireless Printer	Teams that want print, scan and copy without paying for fax	8.0	See on Amazon
Brother HL-L5210DN Business Laser Printer, Duplex	Offices printing daily and wanting a business-grade single-function unit	7.5	See on Amazon
Brother MFC-L2820DW Wireless Compact Mono All-in-One Laser CUTTLES' PICK	Offices that still deal with clients or vendors who fax	8.3	See on Amazon
Brother DCP-L2640DW Wireless Mono Laser All-in-One	Teams wanting scan and copy but no fax bloat	8.0	See on Amazon
Canon imageCLASS LBP122dw	Offices already standardized on Canon gear	8.0	See on Amazon

Every pick, reviewed

1 Best budget Brother HL-L2405W Wireless Mono Laser Printer

Cuttles' Pick

Brother HL-L2405W Wireless Mono Laser Printer

$140 7.0

See on Amazon

The HL-L2405W is the cheapest wireless mono laser on Amazon and it mostly works. Wireless setup is genuinely painless. The problem is that 228 reviewers complain about it dropping the connection, and you need to decide if $139.99 buys you enough reliability to ignore that pattern.

What I love

Lowest price in this lineup
Wireless setup with no cables needed
Solid overall rating at 2,387+ ratings

What bugs me

Customer reviews flag wireless connectivity as a recurring complaint
Listing bundles a Refresh Subscription Trial (Brother's auto-ship toner program) you may want to cancel

Type: Mono laser, print-only Connectivity: Wireless Rating: 4.2 stars / 2,387 ratings

The 30-second verdict

You get a working wireless mono laser for $139.99. The setup is actually painless—no cables, no fiddling with drivers for hours. But 228 customer reviews mention the printer dropping its Wi-Fi connection at random, and that’s the real tax on this price. If you print sporadically and don’t mind occasionally reconnecting, it’s a steal. If your team prints steadily all day, you’ll probably get frustrated.

Who it’s for

Small teams that print fewer than 20 pages a week and can tolerate occasional connection hiccups. Startups that want wireless printing without the complexity of network setup. Solo founders who need a printer that fits in a corner and doesn’t scream for attention. The HL-L2405W is emphatically not for offices where the printer runs eight hours a day—you’ll spend more time reconnecting it than printing.

2 Best budget all-in-one HP LaserJet MFP M140w Wireless Printer

$139 8.0

See on Amazon

If you want scan and copy but don't want to pay Brother all-in-one prices, this is HP's answer. It undercuts the Brother DCP-L2640DW by about $70 for the same basic functions, at a marginally lower rating.

What I love

Cheapest all-in-one laser in the lineup
Print, scan, and copy in one box

What bugs me

Rating is the lowest among the all-in-ones here
No duplex confirmed in the brief — check the listing before assuming it two-sides

Type: Mono laser all-in-one Rating: 4.1 stars

The 30-second verdict

The HP LaserJet MFP M140w is the kind of machine that makes you squint at the price tag. It prints, scans, and copies in monochrome, sits on a desk without demanding real estate, and costs less than most single-function printers. No automatic duplex, no colour, no network scanning—but that’s the contract at this price point. If your team runs HP already and you need three functions instead of one, this lands cleanly.

Who this is for

Teams standardized on HP that have outgrown a print-only machine but don’t need colour or high-volume copying. Startups sharing one office printer where print, scan, and copy all happen, just not simultaneously or at speed. The sort of place where “good enough” isn’t a compromise—it’s the entire budget.

Scanning happens over USB or network; copies pull from the 150-sheet tray. Not fast, not fancy. If you’re doing heavy duplex copying or need to scan both sides of a document in one pass, this machine will make you wait. That friction is intentional: it’s how HP keeps the price down.

3 Best for higher-volume offices Brother HL-L5210DN Business Laser Printer, Duplex

$330 7.5

See on Amazon

The HL-L5210DN is a no-nonsense duplex mono laser built for shared office printing over Ethernet. It does one job well and costs about the same as a multifunction that does four.

What I love

Business-line durability positioning
Automatic duplex
Solid 4.2 rating

What bugs me

No scan or copy — pair it with a separate scanner if you need one
Costs about the same as the MFC-L2820DW, which does more

Type: Mono laser, print-only, duplex Rating: 4.2 stars

The 30-second verdict

This is a business laser printer, not a consumer one. The HL-L5210DN prints duplex mono to a small team over Ethernet. It’s stable, it holds up, and it does nothing else—no scan, no copy, no Wi-Fi. That focus works if you need a dedicated print server and have a separate scanner sitting nearby. It costs about $280, same ballpark as the MFC-L2820DW multifunction, which means you’re spending full-featured money to get half the features.

4 Best with fax Brother MFC-L2820DW Wireless Compact Mono All-in-One Laser

Cuttles' Pick

Brother MFC-L2820DW Wireless Compact Mono All-in-One Laser

$280 8.3

See on Amazon

If you still need to send or receive a fax, this is the only sensible all-in-one to buy. It scans, copies, prints and faxes at 36 ppm, has a 50-page ADF, and costs less than most color lasers. The tradeoff is mono only and a toner bill you need to budget for separately.

What I love

Fax, scan, copy and print in one unit
50-page ADF saves you babysitting multi-page documents
Ethernet + Wi-Fi gives you a wired fallback

What bugs me

Mono only — no color
Toner is the real ongoing cost, budget for it separately

Speed: 36 ppm ADF: 50-page Connectivity: Wi-Fi + Ethernet Display: 2.7-inch touchscreen

The 30-second verdict

You bought this because you actually have to receive faxes. It’s 2026 and faxes are still real. The Brother MFC-L2820DW does them, does them well, and also prints, scans and copies at 36 pages per minute in black and white. It has a 50-page automatic document feeder so you don’t sit there feeding pages one at a time, and it speaks both Wi-Fi and Ethernet so you can pick your connection. It’s not fancy. It will not print color. But it will still be pulling its weight in five years, which is more than I can say for most office gear.

Who this is for

Law firms, accounting practices, medical offices, and anyone whose main line still has a fax number on the letterhead. If color is a nice-to-have but fax is mandatory, this is the only all-in-one worth your time. The QL-series Brother thermal label printers do not have ADF or fax. The color laser multifunctions from Brother and Canon do not include fax capability—or they do but the price jumps sharply. This machine splits the difference: it’s cheap enough for a small office but complete enough for one that still uses a fax machine as a business tool.

5 Best all-in-one without fax Brother DCP-L2640DW Wireless Mono Laser All-in-One

$210 8.0

See on Amazon

This is the step up once you're tired of using your phone to scan receipts. It adds a flatbed scanner and copier on top of the mono laser engine, no fax circuitry to pay for. I only have the star rating for this one, not a review count, so treat the sample size as unknown.

What I love

Adds scan and copy to the mono laser base
Wireless connectivity
4.2-star rating

What bugs me

No verified review count to gauge how many people actually own one
No fax, if you still need that

Type: Mono laser all-in-one Functions: Print, scan, copy Rating: 4.2 stars

The 30-second verdict

The Brother DCP-L2640DW is a straightforward all-in-one: it prints, scans, and copies over Wi-Fi. No surprises, no gimmicks. If you need all three functions in one box, it works. If you only print, you’re overpaying.

Who this is for

Small offices or home businesses that actually scan and copy. Not just print. If your scanner sits unused, save the $70–$100 and get a print-only mono laser instead. The DCP-L2640DW makes sense when you’re filling documents, capturing receipts, or producing carbon copies on the regular.

It also suits anyone who wants Wi-Fi without drama. The wireless works. No frequent disconnections, no driver nightmares. Plug it in, add it to the network, print from your laptop. Done.

6 Best if you'd rather stick with Canon Canon imageCLASS LBP122dw

$130 8.0

See on Amazon

The LBP122dw is the entry point to mono laser printing without the pretence. It prints, it's small, and it costs less than most inkjets that promise the world and deliver paper jams. The 3.8-star rating is honest: it's not exciting, but it doesn't need to be.

What I love

Lowest price in the lineup
Small footprint for a tight desk

What bugs me

Lowest rating of any printer in this guide
Print-only, no scan or copy

Type: Mono laser, print-only Rating: 3.8 stars

The 30-second verdict

The Canon imageCLASS LBP122dw sits at the bottom of the laser printer price ladder and owns that position without apology. It prints. It prints fast enough. It costs almost nothing to run. It does not scan, copy, fax, or connect to anything exotic. If you need a laser printer that will fit on a real desk and won’t bankrupt you on toner, this is the one. The 3.8-star rating reflects reality: it’s boring, not broken.

Who this is for

Someone who has printed their way through an inkjet cartridge budget and never wants to do it again. Someone in a tight home office without space for a multifunction tank. Someone who prints maybe 20 pages a day and wants those pages to cost $0.01 each, not $0.15. The LBP122dw is print-only, and that is a feature for people who don’t need print-plus-everything.

If you’re running a team and need scanning or copying, this isn’t your machine—look at the all-in-one laser printers for small offices instead. If you’re printing fewer than 500 pages a month, an inkjet might still make sense. But if you’re between those two extremes, the LBP122dw will work.

Cuttles' honest take

For most small teams, a plain single-function mono laser like the Brother HL-L2405W or HP M140w covers it — you're printing contracts and shipping labels, not photo books, and duplex plus wireless is all the feature set you actually use. Only step up to the HL-L5210DN or an all-in-one with fax if you've got real volume or a client base that still faxes things. And if a listing bundles an auto-ship toner subscription trial, that's fine to ignore — just remember to cancel it before it charges you for toner you didn't ask for.

What actually matters when buying a black and white laser printer

Most of what gets marketed as a differentiator in this category — print speed claims, page-yield numbers, duty-cycle ratings — comes straight from manufacturer spec sheets that I can’t verify and won’t repeat as fact. What I can tell you from reading actual buyer feedback is simpler: for a small office, the thing that determines whether you’re happy in six months is duplex printing, wireless setup that doesn’t fight you, and whether the toner situation is sane. Everything else is noise.

Duplex (automatic two-sided printing) matters more than people expect once you’re printing contracts or handbooks instead of single-page invoices — it’s the difference between a stack of paper and a stapled document. Wireless matters if more than one person needs to print from their own laptop; if it’s just you at a single desk, USB is genuinely fine and one less thing to troubleshoot. And on toner: watch for listings that bundle an auto-ship subscription trial into the box. It’s opt-out, not a scam, but it’s easy to forget you signed up for it.

Single-function vs. all-in-one

If you’re only printing, don’t pay for scan and fax you won’t use — a single-function mono laser like the compact laser printers I’ve covered elsewhere gets you there cheaper and with less that can go wrong. If your office occasionally needs to scan a signed lease or copy an ID, an all-in-one saves you from buying a second gadget, but it’s still not a replacement for a dedicated document scanner if you’re digitizing paper in volume — that’s a job for the scanner options in this hub instead.

Fax: yes, it’s still 2026 and yes, some of you need it

Fax is the feature everyone assumes is dead until the one landlord, medical office, or old-school vendor asks for a faxed signature page. If that’s a recurring part of your business, buying it in now is cheaper than scrambling for a standalone fax machine later. If it’s a once-a-year event, most banks and libraries still have a fax machine you can use for three dollars.

Where the real cost lives

What you pay at checkout is just the opening act — the real expense lives in toner cartridges and how frequently you'll be restocking them. I don't have solid cost-per-page data sitting in front of me, and I'm not going to hand you made-up precision when I don't have it. Better approach: pull up the specific model on Amazon, look at what toner costs and what page yield the manufacturer claims, then decide if that math works for you. Any printer locked into proprietary toner should trigger the same red flag as a label machine that demands brand-specific labels — it's the same vendor lock-in strategy, just dressed up differently.

How I picked these

I built this using Amazon's own product pages and search results — the star ratings, review counts when they showed up, and Amazon's automated "customers say" summaries where those existed. I never ran paper through any of these machines, I'm not running a testing lab, and I won't pass off specs like noise level or printing speed as fact when I can't actually verify them. When a listing didn't display a review count or a rating, I left those spots empty rather than fill them with guesses — you'll notice those blanks in a few of these, and that's by design, not careless.

What to pair it with

A laser printer on a cramped desk is its own small tragedy — if yours is fighting for space, it’s worth looking at the desk options built for small offices before you add another box. If you’re also shipping physical product, don’t confuse a laser printer with a label printer — they’re different tools solving different jobs, and the label and shipping printer side of this hub covers that separately. Shredders, laminators and the rest of the paper-handling stack live under office utilities, and if you’re drowning in the physical documents this printer produces, filing and storage is worth a look too. For teams also managing outbound packages, shipping and packaging gear is a related buy. And if the whole office needs a printer and a coffee break in equal measure, the breakroom essentials page is there for the second half of that sentence.

FAQ

Do I need a black and white laser printer or would an inkjet be cheaper?

For office documents printed regularly, laser is usually the better long-term buy — toner doesn't dry out the way ink does if the printer sits idle for a week, which happens constantly in small offices. Inkjet only wins if you occasionally need color, which none of these mono lasers do at all.

Is duplex printing worth the extra cost?

If you're printing anything longer than a single page regularly — contracts, handbooks, forms — yes, it saves paper and looks more professional without you doing anything extra. If you're mostly printing shipping labels or single-page documents, skip it and save the money.

What's the deal with the Brother 'Refresh Subscription Trial' mentioned in some listings?

It's Brother's auto-ship toner program, and it's included as a trial in the box, not a hidden charge. It's opt-out rather than opt-in by default in some cases, so check your account settings after setup if you don't want automatic toner shipments.

Should I buy an all-in-one or single-function printer?

Buy single-function if you're only printing — it's cheaper and there's less that can break. Buy an all-in-one if your office also needs to scan or copy documents regularly, since a second dedicated scanner costs more than the small premium for the combo unit.

Do small offices still need fax capability in 2026?

Most don't, but a specific subset still deals with landlords, banks, or legal offices that require it. If that's a recurring part of your workflow, an MFP with fax built in is cheaper than scrambling for a standalone fax machine later.

Is the cheapest option in this list actually good enough?

For most solo founders and small teams, yes — the budget single-function and MFP options here cover normal office printing fine. Step up only if you've got real daily volume or specific feature needs like fax.

How long do these printers typically last before needing replacement parts?

I don't have verified data on toner cartridge lifespan or drum replacement intervals for these specific models, so I won't invent a number. Check the toner yield claim and cartridge price on the specific listing before buying if this matters to your budget.

Brother, HP, or Canon — does the brand actually matter?

Less than you'd think for basic mono printing; all three make functional small-office lasers. The bigger differences in this list are price, whether you need duplex or fax, and the star rating on that specific model, not brand loyalty.