Best Affordable Printers for Homeschool
One of the hallmarks of good homeschooling is printable worksheets, project instructions, and other printable things. My kids print worksheets daily. They print step-by-step instructions for science projects and recipes. They print coloring sheets and templates for paper airplanes.
If you can’t tell, we use the heck out of our printer!
We love our printer, but it took a lot of trial-and-error to find the right printer for our needs.
We needed a printer that met the following criteria.
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Print more than 1,000 sheets before needing a refill.
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Print fast with minimal delay so the kids’ workflow isn’t interrupted.
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Connect wirelessly and work with Apple AirPrint because our kids use iPads for their school.
We don’t need color printing or scanning/copying or faxing. Many printers have those features, but since we don’t need them, we could opt for a printer that costs less.
Our Top Pick for Homeschool Printer
Brother HL-L2370DW – Basic, Fast, Affordable
This Brother laser printer is our absolute favorite printer for homeschool. It’s a monochrome (black/white) laser printer that can print over 700 pages out of the box and a new toner cartridge and print 2400 pages before refilling. It connects wirelessly and support AirPrint. And it’s fast!
It took some effort to setup, but it didn’t require an app to be installed, so that was a plus.
We paid $105 on sale at Office Depot.
Other Great Printers for Homeschool
Xerox B210 – Like the Brother HL, But More Expensive
This Xerox monochrome laser printer is almost a feature-for-feature match with the Brother printer we chose as our top pick. The only difference is that it’s more expensive. But, if you prefer the Xerox brand, go with this one. It’ll cost you maybe $50 more, but you’ll have that warm fuzzy feeling of having a Xerox in your home.
We paid about $160 at Walmart.
HP ENVY 6055e – Workhorse, Scanner/Copier, Color
The HP Envy is a workhorse of a printer. It’s quiet and reliable, like most HP products. It includes a scanner/copier function that we just don’t need, but if you need those features, then this printer is my recommendation for you. And, of course, it prints in color.
It was difficult to setup and required an app to run it, neither of which worked well. Worse, the inkjet cartridges that were included in the box only printed about 25 sheets before needing to buy more. That was a big bummer for us in the middle of the second week of school.
We paid $149 at Walmart.
Epson EcoTank ET-3760 – Print Forever Before Refill
The Epson EcoTank has two things going for it: tons of ink and Shaq. Only one of those things is useful.
If. you prefer inkjet and you don’t want to think about refilling ink before Jesus comes back, go with the EcoTank. You’ll be raptured before the ink runs out.
If that’s not important to you, then consider that it’s expensive, hard to setup, and probably has more features than you need.
We paid about $400 on Amazon before returning it for a refund.
