I just want to be clear, since I realize this morning my prior comment was exhibiting a bit of knowledge corruption:
A reputable dealer can direct a person to a printer which can meet cost expectations for the life of the printer.
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF THE PRINTER OR CARTRIDGES THEMSELVES ALONE!
This is determined by factoring the total cost-per-page.
I had a simple spreadsheet at the time and could factor a printer for comparison to another in just a few minutes, providing an OBVIOUS result for recommendation and to dissuade the customer’s inclination toward a manufacturer’s advertisement.
I’m positive that there are applications which can do the same as my spreadsheet. It’s simple math to calculate total cost/page. Regardless, a reputable dealer to help a business person make even a minor capital purchase can help manage operating expenses to an expectation - or a budget - without the business owner needing to become an expert or expend meager time doing research on what, for all intents & purposes, is a disposable printer.
Again, my recommendation is for any business not producing marketing materials to avoid color. That’s a much more complicated scenario, considering that the 5% coverage figures for color are all BS for factoring costs of operation (NOBODY prints color at 5% coverage). That part of my spreadsheet was the creme-de-la-creme at the time, showing my customers how adding color to their so-called “copier” was a wiser investment than a desktop color printer (for reasons I’m not going into here for a 200-page/month printing need).
In short, if you consider that I could show one client how to save hundreds of dollars over 5 years by buying a b/w laser printer over an inkjet, and show another client how spending $3k more on a ‘coper/printer’ (MFP) would literally save them THOUSANDS over 5 years in a completely different scenario, you can realize there’s some validity to my recommendations.
A reputable local dealer can remove all of the headache and keep expenses in line with budgetary expectations.
One piece of advice to all business owners reading this thread:
Keep a separate expense category in your books for toner purchases (inks if you have them now), NEVER combine purchases for multiple machines if it can be avoided and use the memo to identify the equipment by model or equipment ID. These small things can make analysis of prior outlays easy. Otherwise, just as the manufacturers hope for most businesses, the toner/ink purchases become buried in the books, having succumbed to effective advertising for the original purchase.
That’s not an effective business strategy for managing expenses.
Again, I recommend inkjet for no business. Ever.
But we are dealing here with someone who only prints about 200 pages a month, which a $100 Brother laser copy/scan/printer should work fine for, with replacement toner for under 20.00, versus spending the equivalent of dozens of these printers more.
Again, I recommend inkjet for no business. Ever.
Which presumes there is no need for the OP to print in color, which is simply an unwarranted presumption. And if 11"x17" is not essential but color printing is, then one option is if the poster can get a inkjet in good condition for about 200 which uses 17ml color carts that are less then 3.00 a piece. Or, buying a 300.00 laser copy/scan/printer would be an option.