Brother MFC-J6560DW Ink Cost Per Page: A Steep $9.37 Color Tax
Brother's MFC-J6560DW is an ink tank all-in-one that prints, copies, scans and faxes, with a touchscreen and auto-duplex, for $310. Running costs land at $1.67 per 100 pages in black and $9.37 in color. The black figure comes from Brother's LC506XXLBK cartridge, priced at $83 for a 5,000-page yield.
The nearest rival from outside Brother on running cost is Canon's MAXIFY GX1020, priced at $357. It costs $0.57 per 100 pages in black and $1.70 in color, well under the MFC-J6560DW's $1.67 and $9.37. The Canon drops fax and prints at 15 ppm against the Brother's 31 ppm.
Two Brother siblings match those black and color rates exactly: the MFC-J4355DW at $210 and the MFC-J4555DW at $280, both cheaper up front. That black rate ties the MFC-J6560DW for 24th of 30 ink tank printers, a spot five other models share — three more beyond these two. The MFC-J4355DW drops the touchscreen and Ethernet and prints at 20 ppm, well below this printer's 31; the MFC-J4555DW keeps both but also tops out at 20 ppm.
The MFC-J5855DW, a step up in Brother's tank range, costs $330 and cuts running costs to $1.23 in black and $6.06 in color, per 100 pages — a solid drop from this printer's own figures, with a 30 ppm top speed.
The running-cost floor among ink tank printers, Canon's PIXMA G3270, sells for $249 and runs at $0.38 per 100 pages in black and $0.97 in color — well under this printer's own rates. It lacks fax, duplex, a touchscreen and Ethernet, and prints at 11 ppm, far slower than this printer's 31 ppm.