Dear Allison - I have three multifunctions. An Epson 810, a Canon 870 and an HP7780. The 7780 uses huge tanks and the generic ink costs $8 and does 1500 pages. The other two, use tanks that cost $28 and do 500 and 600 pages ... The HP costs me $45 a month, the other two over $300.... and they do fewer pages. But, I would not recommend it. It took far too long to set up and has given me problems. Mind you, the Epson and Canon both failed and had to be replaced!!
When I got the HP, I looked at all the reviews and noted that, although it got excellent reviews by the professionals, many of the user reviews noted serious problems. However, looking at the dates indicated that those were becoming fewer, I thought. So, given how cheap it would be to run, I bought it. MISTAKE! It took 27 hours on the phone to HP to get it to work properly and it keeps losing its settings and I have to spend an hour or so to get it to run again. grrrr!
There are some good laser printers and, if you get the high capacity toner drums, they can be down around 2 cents a page. Lexmark has the Pinnacle 901 pro, and it is rated highly by users, and the ink cost is just over a penny a page, and it has a 5 year warranty. My advice? Consider the total cost of ownership (cost of inks, cost of machine, give it a lifespan of 3 years), look at the reviews, narrow down the ones you will consider and then look for ALL the user reviews you can on the machines you are interested in. Ask the salespeople in no-commission stores like Staples about returns. They told me that the Brother multifunction machines were great for people who wanted good results but did not do much printing, but, the printheads often failed if they were heavily used. Good luck!