The Best Supertank Printers in 2026, Ranked by Cost per Page

Updated June 18, 2026

A supertank printer flips the inkjet bargain on its head: you pay more for the machine and almost nothing for the ink. Instead of cartridges, it fills from bottles that can last one to two years, which is why these printers exist at all — to end the cartridge tax that makes a cheap printer expensive to own. We rank them the way the savings actually arrive: by cost per page, included-ink runway, and the one risk a tank carries that a cartridge machine softens — clogging when it sits idle. Sticker price is the last thing that matters here.

Our top pick is the cheapest honest way into bottle ink — the ET-2803. But the right supertank depends on whether you need office speed, an automatic document feeder, or simply the lowest entry price. Here is the shortlist, ranked.

1. Epson EcoTank ET-2803 — best value: the cheapest way into bottle ink, same machine as the ET-2800.
2. Canon MegaTank G3290 — best non-Epson: bottle economics with up to two years of ink in the box.
3. Epson EcoTank ET-4950 — best for a home office: ADF, fax, and the fastest rated speeds here.
4. Epson EcoTank ET-2850 — best step-up: a larger color display over the entry models.
5. HP Smart Tank 5101 — the HP option: a route out of Instant Ink, but the weakest pick here.

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1

Epson EcoTank ET-2803

4.1 Households or hobbyists printing weekly or more — roughly 100 to 200 pages a month — who want to stop buying cartridges and will run enough pages to keep the nozzles wet.

2

Canon MegaTank G3290

4.2 Households that print most days and want refillable-tank running costs without paying supertank-premium prices

3

Epson EcoTank ET-4950

4.4 Home offices that use the ADF, fax and touchscreen, not just print

4

Epson EcoTank ET-2850

4.2 Home and small-office buyers who want EcoTank refill economics plus auto-duplex and a wireless setup that connects on the first try

5

HP Smart Tank 5101

3.8 Specific buyer fit

Quick Picks at a Glance

1. Epson EcoTank ET-2803 — Best Value Entry

The ET-2803 is the cheapest honest entry into Epson’s EcoTank line, and it is the printer most people picturing a supertank should buy first. It is the same machine Epson also sells as the ET-2800 — we explain why in our ET-2803 vs ET-2800 comparison — so shop those two on price alone. It prints, scans and copies, fills from bottles, and skips the extras (no ADF, no fax) that drive the price up elsewhere on this list. For a household escaping the cartridge tax, it is the obvious starting point. Read our full ET-2803 review.

2. Canon MegaTank G3290 — Best Non-Epson

Epson does not own bottle ink. Canon’s MegaTank G3290 makes the strongest non-Epson case in the category, with the same refillable-tank economics and Canon’s own claim of Up to 2 years of ink included in the box. It earns a higher owner rating than the entry Epsons and prints clean text and color. If you would rather not buy into the EcoTank ecosystem — or you simply find the Canon cheaper — it is a genuine alternative, not a consolation prize. Read our full Canon G3290 review.

3. Epson EcoTank ET-4950 — Best for a Home Office

Where the entry EcoTanks stop, the ET-4950 keeps going: it adds an automatic document feeder and fax, and it is the fastest printer on this list. Epson rates it to Prints up to 15.5 pages per minute (ppm) in black and 8.5 ppm in color. — roughly half again the speed of the budget tanks — while keeping the same cheap bottle ink. If you run a working home office and push real document volume, this is the supertank that keeps up. The slightly cheaper Epson EcoTank ET-4850 carries the same ADF, fax and Ethernet stack if you do not need the ET-4950's extra speed. Read our full ET-4950 review.

4. Epson EcoTank ET-2850 — Best Step-Up

The ET-2850 is the entry EcoTank with a nicer face: a larger color display makes setup and reprints easier than the bare panel on the ET-2803. The printing is the same bottle-fed engine and the same economics, so the step-up is about the control panel and a slightly higher owner rating, not output. Worth the small premium only if the screen matters to you. Read our full ET-2850 review.

5. HP Smart Tank 5101 — The HP Option

For owners desperate to escape HP Instant Ink without leaving HP, the Smart Tank 5101 swaps cartridges for a refillable bottle tank. It is the honest weak link on this list: a lower owner rating and the same HP setup software that frustrates DeskJet owners hold it back. It exists here for HP loyalists and for the one buyer who specifically wants HP’s tank — most people are better served by the Epson or Canon above it. See our refillable inkjet printers guide for how HP’s tank stacks up against the Epson and Canon systems.

One step-up we tracked but kept off the ranked list: the Epson EcoTank Pro ET-5800, a heavier-duty bottle-fed supertank built for an office that prints in real volume rather than a home desk.

Also on the radar: more bottle-fed tanks we tracked

Five more refillable tanks earned a place on our radar without making the ranked five. We list them honestly: each fills from bottles like the picks above, but the owner record on every one is still thin, so we point you at the brand guides rather than pretend to a verdict the reviews cannot back. If one fits a need the ranked picks miss, it is worth a look — but most buyers are still better served by the Epson or Canon higher up the page.

• HP Smart Tank 5000 — the entry HP tank, the cheapest way into HP's bottle-ink line for an owner who specifically wants to stay with HP. The owner rating runs below the Epson and Canon entries above. Check Price on Amazon · More on HP's tank line →
• HP Smart Tank 6001 — a mid-tier HP tank a step above the 5000, aimed at the HP household that wants a fuller all-in-one without leaving the ecosystem. The review base stays shallow, so treat it as a fit for HP loyalists rather than a category contender. Check Price on Amazon · How HP's tanks compare →
• HP Smart Tank Plus 651 — an older HP bottle-tank all-in-one for the buyer who finds it on the shelf and wants HP's tank economics. Like the rest of HP's tank range here, the owner record is thin enough that we send you to the brand guide before any ranking. Check Price on Amazon · More on HP's tank line →
• HP Smart Tank 7602 — the top of HP's home tank range here, a heavier unit (HP lists it around 17 lb) with the fuller feature set HP reserves for its higher tanks. It carries the steepest sticker of HP's tanks on this radar, and the same thin review base, so it suits the HP buyer who wants the most-equipped tank in the family. Check Price on Amazon · How HP's tanks compare →
• Canon PIXMA G6020 (MegaTank) — a Canon bottle-fed MegaTank for the buyer who wants Canon's tank economics in a more-featured body than the ranked G3290. The owner record is still light, so we keep it on the radar rather than the ranked list, but it is a real non-HP alternative if Canon is your brand. Check Price on Amazon · More on Canon's MegaTank line →

How We Chose

We do not run a print lab. We read the owner record closely — the verified Amazon reviews, the community threads — and we price the cost of ownership the box leaves off. For supertanks specifically, that meant scoring three things the brand pages bury: real cost per page once the in-box ink runs out, the included-ink runway, and clog risk under light use.

That last one decided several rankings. A supertank’s economics only hold if the heads stay wet, and the owner record is candid about what happens when they don’t — one EcoTank owner reports Misprinting occurred every 500 or so pages at the start, recovered only by running regular print-head cleanings. Independent testing backs the cost case: RTINGS’ lab-tested inkjet printers and Consumer Reports’ inkjet printers ratings both put bottle ink far below cartridge cost-per-page. We grade every model against the full owner record in our inkjet printers evidence hub.

Buying Guide: What to Look For

Three numbers decide a supertank, and none of them is the sticker price. Read them in this order.

Cost per page and included ink. This is the whole reason to buy a tank. Epson’s inkjet printers specifications rate the entry model’s in-box ink as that’s enough to print up to 4,500 pages black/7,500 color, and the bottles that follow cost a fraction of cartridge ink per page. A supertank front-loads its savings into a higher purchase price, then pays them back over months of printing. The more you print, the faster it pays.

Brand and lock-in. Epson’s EcoTank line is the deepest, but it is not the only bottle-ink game — Canon’s MegaTank and HP’s Smart Tank fill from bottles too, and every manufacturer warns that non-genuine ink can void the warranty. If escaping a subscription is the whole reason you are here, confirm the tank you pick does not simply trade one ecosystem for another. The per-page economics are similar across the three brands, so buy on price, the features you need, and how much you trust each model’s owner record.

Clog risk under your real usage. Every printer here is an inkjet, so idle weeks invite dried nozzles and ink-wasting cleaning cycles. If you print in color most weeks, a supertank is the cheapest machine you can own. If you print twice a year, it is the wrong category entirely — buy a color laser. Clogging is the headline entry in the downsides of an Epson EcoTank, and we track the full idle-clog pattern in our comparison criteria for inkjet printers.

Features you will actually use. Only the ET-4950 on this list has an automatic document feeder and fax; the rest are flatbed-only print-scan-copy machines. Pay for the office extras only if you need them — they raise the price without lowering the cost per page.

Photos versus documents. Every pick above is a four-ink document supertank. If pictures are the point, the six-ink Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8500 is the photo-first model — it adds two inks for smoother gradients and borderless prints, at a steeper sticker that only pays back if you print photos in volume. Buy a document tank for text and labels; pay the ET-8500 premium only when borderless color is the job.