How to choose a simple home printer. Do the subscription deals work out really expensive?

[cinnabunbun]

I'm looking to get a home printer to print basic invoices and about 50 pages or so of written college assignments a month. Probably no more than 60 A4 pages a month, often much less plus a couple of small colour scrap book photos for kids homework.

Printers these days seem really complicated with some super cheap to buy but needing a subscription to HP for £7.99 a month minimum which seems a bit excessive to me. Is ink really that expensive these days?

I haven't owned a home printer in years and have just used copy shops for ad hoc documents and online photo printers or snappy snaps for small batches

What should I buy? Where should I look to find out how long a printer cartridge lasts so that I can make some comparisons?

I have HP instant ink, just about to start paying after free months. Lowest rate is 1.99 for up to 50 pages is good, then next level 3.99 etc up to 7.99. Before this I was very mean with printing and it cost me more as the cartridgs would dry up! You can change the subs month to month. If you get one and want my code for a free month pm me.

Well another option if you don't need much colour would be a laser print with tonner rather then an ink printer. We've gone down this route as it's cheaper then ink and if we need any colour DD can print some at school or DH could print a page or 2 at work.

Yes ink is very expensive, it's where the companies make the money and the cartaged seem to have less ink in them now to.

The on we have is a BROTHER HLL2350DW Monochrome Wireless Laser Printer.

@ginghamstarfish that looks much cheaper! Maybe the monthly options are tied to the discount on the printer I was looking at. Yes good to know there are packages where you can increase/decrease amounts. Do you need to email/call them to request it or is it automatic?

@MigGril I hadn't even looked at laser printers as I assumed they would be really bulky and expensive but perhaps they have moved on since I last worked in an office. Good point about cartridges drying out sometimes. I could totally get away with just black and white document printing and use drop in shops for the odd photos

On the HP site it says colour pages are the same price as B&W. Does that even include photos? How does that work?

We just have a £50 black and white Samsung laser costs bugger all and has run for ever.

I have HP instant ink. It's great. The 50 page one is more than sufficient for our needs and 1.99 is excellent values imo. We no longer get huge printer ink lump sum bills and 1.99 is not an amount I notice. I also don't worry about how much I print. The printing is per page regardless of type. I also don't need to buy printer ink. It's just delivered shortly before it runs out. C happy with it.