Brother MFC-J5010DW Ink Cost Per Page: Color Costs Far More Than Black
The Brother MFC-J5010DW is a color ink tank printer that prints, copies, scans, and faxes, with automatic duplexing, Wi-Fi, and a touchscreen, and it sells for $280. Running costs land at $1.67 in black and $9.37 in color per 100 pages. The black figure comes from its LC506XXLBK cartridge, $83 for a 5,000-page yield.
Within Brother's own lineup, the MFC-J5855DW is a $330 step up that cuts running costs to $1.23 in black and $6.06 in color per 100 pages, a real drop on both. The MFC-J1365DW is a $160 step down that drops fax and the touchscreen and lacks Ethernet, with running costs climbing to $3.89 in black and $14.38 in color per 100 pages. The MFC-J4555DW sits just below the J5010DW in running cost, and the MFC-J5110DW just above it.
The Canon PIXMA G3270 is the running-cost floor among the 30 ink tank printers InkTax tracks, at $0.38 in black and $0.97 in color per 100 pages for $249 — reached without fax, duplexing, a touchscreen, or Ethernet, and at 11 ppm against the J5010DW's 28. The J5010DW itself ties for 24th of 30 ink tank printers on both black and color cost per page, a tie of six.
For black-only printing, the HP LaserJet Pro 4006dw is a mono laser at $400 with print only — no copy, scan, or fax — and toner running $2.23 per 100 pages against the J5010DW's own $1.67 in black. It also prints far faster, at 47 ppm. Across the 97 printers of every type InkTax tracks, the J5010DW's black cost per page ranks 26th.