Printer shopping is one of the few tech categories where the upfront price is often the least important number — ongoing cost per page usually matters far more over the printer's life.
Inkjet vs. laser
Inkjet printers spray tiny droplets of liquid ink onto paper, and are generally better at reproducing photos and detailed color graphics with smooth gradients. They tend to have lower upfront costs but higher cost per page, especially for color printing, and ink cartridges can dry out if the printer sits unused for long stretches.
Laser printers use toner (a fine powder) fused to paper with heat, and produce crisp, sharp text extremely efficiently — toner doesn't dry out sitting unused the way liquid ink can, and laser printers generally have a much lower cost per page for text-heavy printing. The tradeoff is a higher upfront cost, and while color laser printers exist, they're typically better suited to text and simple graphics than to photo-quality output.
The practical question worth asking before buying either: what will actually be printed most — occasional photos and colorful documents, or high-volume text? That answer usually points clearly toward one type over the other.
The real cost is per-page, not per-printer
A cheap printer with expensive replacement cartridges can cost far more over a year or two of regular use than a pricier printer with a lower cost per page. Manufacturers sometimes price printers low specifically because they profit more from ongoing cartridge or toner sales — checking a specific model's actual cost per page (often published in reviews, even if not obvious on the box) is worth doing before assuming the cheapest printer is the cheapest choice overall.
Subscription ink/toner programs are a real option, not just marketing
Several manufacturers now offer subscription plans that ship replacement ink or toner based on a monitored usage level rather than requiring you to buy cartridges as needed. For predictable, moderate-to-heavy printing, this can lower the effective cost per page compared to buying cartridges individually — but it's worth checking the specific plan tiers against realistic printing volume, since paying for a subscription tier you don't actually use erases the savings.
The one thing people forget
Check whether a specific printer uses individual ink cartridges per color or a single combined color cartridge. With individual cartridges, running out of just one color only requires replacing that one; with a combined cartridge, running out of any single color means replacing the entire cartridge, including ink in colors that weren't actually depleted — a real, ongoing cost difference that isn't obvious from the printer's specs alone.