Brother HL-L2400D Cost Per Page: Drum Wear Baked Into the Ink Tax
The Brother HL-L2400D is a mono laser printer that only prints — no copy, no scan — but it duplexes automatically and runs at 32 ppm. It costs $120 and runs $4.33 per 100 pages in black, a rate that already folds in wear on its $158 drum, good for 15,000 pages, on top of the $98 TN830XL cartridge's 3,000-page yield.
The closest rival from outside Brother is the HP LaserJet M209d, $159 up front against the Brother's $120, running $4.37 against the Brother's $4.33 per 100 pages in black — essentially even. Neither model offers Wi-Fi or Ethernet.
Within Brother's own range, the HL-L2405W holds the same $120 price but drops automatic duplexing for Wi-Fi. The HL-L2460DW adds Wi-Fi and Ethernet for $160, and the HL-L2480DW adds copy, scan, a touchscreen, Wi-Fi and Ethernet for $220. All three match the HL-L2400D's black cost per page, tying it for 7th of 23 mono laser printers on that metric — a rate held by eight models in total, four more beyond these three.
The running-cost floor among mono laser printers is the HP LaserJet Pro 4006dw, at $2.23 per 100 pages black, far cheaper to run than the Brother's own rate. It costs $400 up front, well above the Brother's own price, and adds Wi-Fi, Ethernet and a touchscreen; it prints at 47 ppm.
HP's own range shows a similar shape: the M209dw brings Wi-Fi and Ethernet at $199, and the M234dw goes further with copy, scan, Wi-Fi and Ethernet at $239, yet all three HP models run at $4.37 per 100 pages — a wash against the Brother's own cost per page.