The more you spend for a new printer up front, the cheaper its ink/toner is (generally). And whatever you do, stay away from HP More on reddit.com

brother and canon are the best options. printer market is absolutely destroyed with how terrible pieces of equipment large companies have been pushing out, especially HP. brother offers the best printers out there. they're compact and are really efficient. canon also has good models, but only a few select ones. This list has some of the better options of both, the brother and canon megatank being the best ones. More on reddit.com

The Brother MFC-L2750DW would be a great upgrade for your needs. Since you’re printing a lot for classroom materials, a laser printer is a smart choice, it’ll save you on ink costs and last longer with heavier use. The MFC-L2750DW does it all (print, scan, copy) and has solid features like duplex printing and a document feeder. Plus, it’s super reliable and prints fast, which is perfect for handling high volumes. More on reddit.com

I know this will ruffle some feathers, but I would agree in avoiding a Brother MFC for this -- apart from the scanner IPM speed on their top-end machines, their paper handling and reliability is mediocre at best, usually worse than that in my experience. That said, your print requirements are fairly basic, so most any laser printer should be able to handle that piece without much sweat. It's the scanning, though, that is the wildcard. Most any consumer/SMB-class MFP scanner tops really aren't all that great for higher speeds or handling special-sized media like receipts. Additionally, it isn't really worth overbuying on an MFP machine just to get a "better" scanner top, at least not for what you're looking to do. Instead, I would come at this in potentially two stages. First, start with a single consumer-class MFP, then, if your batch-scanning/receipt needs are significant enough, buy a separate standalone document scanner purpose-built for the job, as you'll get higher scanning speed and way better ability to process receipts and variable-size pages inline, all without needing to employ a flat bed. Or, if you know you're want the document scanner straight away and can do without a flat bed, just buy a single-function laser printer instead of the MFP and use it in conjunction with the standalone document scanner. If you do start with an MFP, I'd recommend a monochrome machine -- you'll get better long-term mechanical reliability, easier refills and lower running cost. I'd go with something like a Canon MF453dw ( $399, Amazon.ca ), which has more than enough printing capability for your very low volume and will scan at a respectable 38 ipm simplex (1 page every 1.4 seconds) at 300 DPI black and white. If you really must have color print/copy, then go with the Canon MF644cdw ( $429, Amazon ), which has the same scanning capabilities, and a slower but adequate 22ppm print speed. If you end up needing to bring in a standalone document scanner, I would buy something like the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 ( $549, Amazon ). If you elect to go with a document scanner straight away and want just a single-function printer, then for black and white, buy something like the Brother HL-L2370DW ( $199, Brother ) or for color, the HL-L3270CDW ( $379, Amazon ) -- either one you could work like a dog until it dies, then just rip and replace the whole box, without disturbing your scanning workflow. So, that's how I'd approach this. Hope that helps. Any questions, feel free. More on reddit.com