Whatever your small business, the simple fact of the matter is that you’ll probably need a printer.
Frankly, there’s no getting away with not having one, whether it's old-fashioned letters, paperwork for filing, proofs for checking, or labels for posting parcels, some form of inking machine will be required. Naturally, when it comes to small businesses, the printer required is probably going to be used quite heavily and, as we all know, home printers are as reliable as the Great British weather, constantly failing to work when you need them most. You and your small business need to look beyond those designed (to fail) for the home and gaze, instead, at a range of robust printers created exactly with the small business firmly in mind.
What should you look for in a printer for small businesses?
There are many features that you’ll want to take into account. Do you need colour or monochrome? What size do you need? What paper sizes does it need to print? What ink technology does it need to utilise? It needs to be fast, efficient and with printer ink costing more than gold (when measured by the ounce), it is important to look at how cost-efficient it is too.
Other factors you may want to consider include how you can connect to it, whether Wi-Fi, wired or both, whether it features a digital display, and whether it is simple enough to operate that even Jane who comes in to do the accounts every other week can work it without, somehow, screwing the whole thing up and forcing you to ‘turn it off and on again’.
As someone with ample experience with printers of all types, such as colour laser printers, 3D printers, and even portable photo printers, I was the man for the job when it came to tackling the slightly bigger beasts. As such, welcome to my pick of the small business printers…
Best printers for small businesses at a glance:
- Best for compact and competent full-colour prints: Epson ET-3850 - £319, Amazon
- Best for small to medium-sized businesses: Canon MAXIFY GX6050 - £518.99, Canon
- Best for low-price pro-printing: Epson XP-8700 - £159, AO
- Best for monochrome printing productivity: Canon i-SENSYS MF465dw - £378.30, Canon
- Best for ultimate speed and eco-efficiency: Kyocera ECOSYS P3155DN - £828, Amazon
- Best for general daily office demands: Lexmark MC3224i - £289, Lexmark
Epson ET-3850
Best for: Compact and competent full-colour prints
Currently sat on my kitchen table, churning out page after page of high dpi notes, images and courier labels at a rapid 15.5ppm (pages per minute), the Epson ET-3850 is a petite powerhouse of an A4 multifunction printer that offers print, copy and scan functions, plus excellent cost-efficiency.
With the ‘ET’ of the title standing for EcoTank, the printer’s high-yield ink bottles and refillable tank can save up to 90 per cent on costs, pushing out 7500 pages in black and 6000 colour pages from full.
Connecting over Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct and Ethernet, you can easily operate it from mobiles, laptops, desktops and tablets over the accompanying Epson Smart Panel app and/or the 6.1cm colour LCD screen at the front.
With a scanner bed up top, capable of a resolution up to 1200 x 2400dpi (Horizontal x Vertical), you can scan and copy all your vital docs and images in an instant.
Well-built to boot and, although the expression ‘as pretty as a printer’ does not exist, it is oddly easy on the eye too, because, just because your place of work is a place of work, it doesn’t mean you have to endure ugly appliances.
- Ink technology: Pigment black and dye colour inks
- Printing resolution: 4800 x 1200dpi
- All-in-One functions: Print, scan, copy
- Number of colours: x4
- Printing speed: Up to 15.5ppm mono, 8.5ppm colour
- Dimensions: 375 x 347 x 231mm (W x D x H)
- Weight: 6.7kg
Buy now £319.00, Epson
Canon MAXIFY GX6050
Best for: Small to medium-sized businesses
Another compact option that’s ideal for the office, this 3-in-1 printer/scanner/copier has a maximum resolution of up to 600 x 1200dpi, which may seem somewhat low in comparison with the other models here assembled, but for most small business needs it should prove more than ample.
A particularly zippy option, the MAXIFY GX6050 can shuffle out pages in mono at 24ppm and colour at 15.5ppm, so no excuse for slacking off and chatting while waiting – save that for the office water cooler.
Simplicity itself to set up, the Canon features both Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity, so all your essential office computer-based equipment, be it Windows, Apple or Android, can connect to send to print or, thanks to the built-in flatbed scanner receive scans of up to 1200 x 1200dpi.
Akin to the Epson covered above, the Canon comes packing a capacious refillable MegaTank, driving down usage costs by a staggering degree, which will keep Jane happy when she’s doing the running costs accounts.
Featuring a 2.7-inch colour LCD touchscreen panel, the Canon is also easy to operate with largely intuitive options to stab your finger at, or simply run the whole print/scan/copy show using the app, and it even supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Finally, with quite a small footprint at 39.9 x 41 x 25.4cm, the MAXIFY won’t take up too much space, while the rear tray’s capacity of 100 sheets and the main cassette’s 250 sheets mean you won’t have to refill the thing constantly either.
- Ink technology: Refillable ink tank
- Printing resolution: Up to 600 x 1200dpi
- All-in-One functions: Print, scan, copy
- Number of colours: x4
- Printing speed: Up to 24ppm mono, 15.5ppm colour
- Dimensions: 399 x 410 x 254mm (trays retracted) (W x D x H)
- Weight: 11.6kg
Buy now £518.99, Canon
Epson XP-8700
Best for: Low-price pro-printing
Small but perfectly formed, the XP-8700 from Epson has the honour of winning ‘Best Looking Small Business Printer 2024’ in the competition I’m running. I mean, look at it. But it’s not just a looker, either. In fact, with a print speed up to a remarkable 32ppm, plus a maximum resolution of a staggering 5760 x 1440dpi, the little Epson is powerful too.
An inkjet option with six ink cartridges (Black, Cyan, Light Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Light Magenta) to eke out realistic colour in photos, business reports, proposals and publicity material will be at its sharpest and brightest, limited only by your own skills and imagination.
A 3-in-1, it also scans at 1200 x 4800dpi, and the Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct connections mean you can print over the ether from your devices and also scan right back to them, should you wish, which is a world of convenience for the small business-person on the go.
Capable of coping with all the usual paper and envelope sizes, you can also print directly from a USB stick and a variety of memory cards, the paper tray is good for 100 sheets of standard 300g/m², a neat 4.3-inch colour touchscreen display lets you get hands-on and all software comes included.
Now, going back to aesthetics, incredible performance aside, what I absolutely, childishly love about the Epson XP8700 is this: when you print. The main front fascia pushes out and upwards allowing the motorised output tray to appear from inside, ready to deliver your hot prints. Frankly, it’s something I’d never tire of watching.
For all these reasons, plus the remarkably affordable price tag, the XP7800 does the business for small businesses.
- Ink technology: Inkjet
- Printing resolution: 5760 x 1440dpi (max)
- All-in-One functions: Print, scan, copy
- Number of colours: x6
- Printing speed: Up to 32ppm
- Dimensions: 349 x 340 x 142mm (W x H x D)
- Weight: 6.8kg
Buy now £159.00, AO
Canon i-SENSYS MF465dw
Best for: Monochrome printing productivity
A decidedly well-priced printer for small-bordering-medium businesses in need of a multi-purpose machine that eschews expensive colour ink for solely monochrome, the i-SENSYS MF465dw from Canon is a laser printer that’s capable of turfing out a huge 40 pages per minute, in well detailed 1200 x 1200dpi.
Boasting a frankly ridiculous 900-sheet paper input, so faffing about with a refill will be a rarity.
Producing some 256 levels of greyscale, capable of double-sided printing, the canny Canon also scans and copies at 600 x 600dpi, plus, should this ever come up outside of time travel back to the 80s and 90s, fax at up to 400 x 400dpi, so stick that in your Filofax and page it.
With a cassette and multi-purpose tray to handle all sizes and shapes the modern office could ever require, the Canon comes with a 5-inch colour LCD touchscreen, features connection over Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct, plus USB.
Again, for those keen to communicate with the 1980s, it also features a permanent fax memory, can send and receive land has a modem speed of 33.6Kbps (up to 3 seconds/page), so feel free to break out the Blue Nun by way of equally outmoded celebration.
A heavyweight at 17kg, the Canon i-SENSYS MF465dw is compatible with Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS and Android, so unless your team still work from Blackberries, you’re all connected. And if they do, then that fax facility is probably really appealing to you, isn’t it?
- Ink technology: Laser
- Printing resolution: 1200 x 1200dpi (max)
- All-in-One functions: Print, scan, copy, fax
- Number of colours: Monochrome
- Printing speed: Up to 40ppm
- Dimensions: 420 x 460 x 375mm (W x D x H)
- Weight: 17kg
Buy now £378.30, Amazon
Kyocera ECOSYS P3155DN
Best for: Ultimate speed and eco-efficiency
So, colour leaves you cold but speed is of the essence? Then point your eyes in the general direction of the ECOSYS P3155DN SW-LASER from Kyocera, a printer for the small business that has a huge print capacity.
Right, first off, a laser monochrome monster, resolution lies at 1200 x 1200dpi, while ppm sits at a staggering 55 per minute, which is what we in the printer game call ‘break-neck’, so productivity on the print-front will be through the roof.
A 3-in-1 that prints, scans and copies, there’s a 500-sheet main tray and a 100-sheet multi-purpose tray, so paper galore without having to reload every 10 minutes. Connection comes via Ethernet and/or USB, and it supports Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print.
Now, I referred to it as a ‘monster’ earlier, which was rather unfair, for although it’s a bit of a beast when it comes to ‘grunt’, it measures a compact 38 x 41 x 32cm in size, so hardly a space-hog considering.
Okay, there’s no built-in Wi-Fi, which is weird, and you’ll have to pay out for an additional module for that, and yes, the price is rather high, but for a well-muscled mono that can more than handle the demands of a busy small-to-medium office without constantly demanding paper refills and toner, the Kyocera ECOSYS P3155DN is a solid inky investment.
- Ink technology: Laser
- Printing resolution: 1200 x 1200dpi (max)
- All-in-One functions: Print, scan, copy
- Number of colours: Monochrome
- Printing speed: Up to 55ppm
- Dimensions: 380 x 410 x 320mm (W x D x H)
- Weight: 16.6kg
Buy now £828.00, Amazon
Lexmark MC3224i
Best for: General daily office demands
Part of Lexmark’s Colour All-in-One 2 Series, the MC3224i is a tidy, compact all-rounder solution for the small business that simply doesn’t have time to mess around. A printer, scanner, copier and cloud fax, here pages are pushed out at 22ppm whether colour or mono, at a resolution of up to 4800dpi.
Wireless and Ethernet connectivity makes setting up a doddle, and the nice 2.8-inch colour touchscreen plus the Lexmark Mobile Print app equally the play of a child, while scans can be quickly and securely saved to cloud services such as Box, DropBox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.
Double-sided printing is supported, a 250-sheet input keeps the prints flowing and, of course, most conventional media sizes flow through the Lexmark like papery water following the path of least laser resistance.
Yielding around 1500 pages with both black and colour cartridges, the Lexmark plays nice with Windows and Linux and does Apple via AirPrint and AirScan, and Android using Mopria Print Service and Mopria Scan.
A great printer for dealing with the daily office print grind, it also comes at a great price currently reduced by 50 English quid to just £289.
- Ink technology: Laser
- Printing resolution: 4800dpi
- All-in-One functions: Print, scan, copy, cloud fax
- Number of colours: x4
- Printing speed: Up to 22ppm both colour and mono
- Dimensions: 344.4 x 411.2 x 394.1mm
- Weight: 19.4kg
Buy now £289.00, Lexmark
