Brother MFC-J1365DW Ink Cost Per Page: Cartridge-Fed, Not Bottle-Fed
The Brother MFC-J1365DW is an ink tank multifunction that prints, copies and scans, with Wi-Fi and auto-duplex printing on board. It sells for $160 and runs $3.89 per 100 pages in black and $14.38 in color. The black figure traces to the $58 LC504XLBK cartridge, good for 1,500 pages.
Brother's tank line still loads from cartridges rather than refilling from a bottle, the way most ink tank printers do — the LC504XLBK feeds an internal reservoir rather than being the reservoir itself. That distinction is about how the ink gets in, not what it costs to run.
Among the 30 ink tank printers InkTax tracks, the Canon PIXMA G3270 holds the running-cost floor at $0.38 black and $0.97 color per 100 pages, for $249 up front — though it skips auto-duplex, a feature the J1365DW has. The Brother sits at the opposite end of that same class: last on black cost per page, and last on color cost per page as well.
Within Brother's own tank lineup, ink costs drop: the MFC-J4355DW, at $210, and the MFC-J5010DW, at $280, both run $1.67 in black and $9.37 in color per 100 pages, well under this printer's $3.89 and $14.38. Both add fax over the J1365DW; the J5010DW also adds Ethernet and a touchscreen, and prints at 28 ppm against the J1365DW's 16 ppm.
For black-only work, the HP LaserJet Pro 4006dw undercuts the Brother's rate at $2.23 per 100 pages, using toner rather than ink, but it prints only, without the copy and scan this Brother offers, for $400 up front. It's also far faster, at 47 ppm against 16 ppm, and carries a touchscreen and Ethernet.