7 Best Printer for Cardstock: Handpicked
Printing on standard paper is good if you have a good printer, but sometimes, the traditional paper fails to produce outstanding results. If you want your work to look impressive and textured with a lot of detailing, printing on cardstock is an effective solution.
The search for the best printer for cardstock can be hectic because of the various factors one must consider before buying a cardstock printer.
We bring you the best printers for cardstock after thorough research and analysis. You can be assured that they are the best printer for cardstock.
Contents
Best Printer for Cardstock
1. Brother MFC-J6935DW Inkjet All-in-One Color Printer
The Brother MFC-J6935DW Inkjet All-in-One Colour Printer is Brother’s wireless, auto-duplex-enabled inkjet printer. It belongs to Brother’s popular J69 series of inkjet printers and has many improvements over its predecessor.
It is a micro home-office printer that can print, scan, copy, and fax. Being a heavy-duty printer, it has dual 250-sheet trays, holding up to 500 sheets at a time. It has a maximum printing size of 11” x 17” for all its capabilities. This makes it a good cardstock printer.
One does not need to worry about the ink as the package includes four cartridges in the box, with every cartridge able to print around 3000 black and white pages. This printer supports Brother’s INKvestment cartridges, which are super high-yield ink.
One of the essential features of a printer is its cost of printing. With the INKvestment cartridges, the cost of printing for this printer is less than one cent for one black and white page.
Print speed is another crucial aspect of a printer for cardstock, and this printer offers a print speed of about 20 pages per minute.
Connectivity is essential, and this printer offers almost all modes of connectivity that exist, be it wireless or corded usage. With the increasing use of cloud computing, a wireless printer must support various cloud storage services.
This printer supports AirPrint, Google Drive, Google Cloud Print, and Mopria. It supports Wifi 5.0, WiFi Direct, and NFC, among other wireless connectivity options.
The results produced by this printer are excellent when it comes to text printing, but images created are sometimes smudgy. Sometimes, a scanned image is cut by ¾” from the borders when copied.
Pros:
- Affordable yet good quality printing
- The maximum size of printing is tabloid
- Huge paper holding capacity
Cons:
- Big size and very bulky
- Printing images does not provide consistent results.
2. Canon PIXMA TS9521C All-In-One Wireless Crafting Photo Printer
From the house of Canon comes the PIXMA TS9521C, an all-in-one wireless inkjet printer explicitly meant for printing photographs on cardstock. It comes under the renowned PIXMA series that printers can print on cardstock.
It is a compact, versatile and powerful printer that can print, scan and copy. The printing quality is excellent because of the five individual ink technology from Canon, although, the quality degrades while printing photos of about 1.5’ x 2’.
The durability of the print is the most crucial aspect for a cardstock printer, and this printer offers works on the ChromaLife 100 technology that protects photos from fading for up to 100 years.
The versatility of a machine is a crucial aspect, and this printer offers various ready-to-use modes for different crafting needs and everyday use. The maximum print size is tabloid, while borderless copying is supported up to 12” x 12”.
It has an auto-document feeder for multi-page documents, which reduces the manual effort to a great extent. The printer has two trays with a capacity of 100 pages each, which might be an issue for some users who print photos frequently.
Being wireless, this printer can print through a variety of media. It has support for WiFI 5.0, Bluetooth, and Ethernet.
One does not have to worry if you want to use a memory card for printing because this printer readily supports Micro SD cards.
This printer has support for all the primary cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, and AirPrint when it comes to cloud services.
With the increasing use of voice assistants, this printer works with any Alexa Device.
If you are looking for a printer for crafting and scrapbooking, the PIXMA TS9521C is an excellent option for you.
Pros:
- Compact and versatile
- Excellent print quality as it is exclusively meant for cardstock
- Five Ink tanks so that the printer does not run out of ink frequently
- It readily supports printing from and scanning to a micro SD card and is Bluetooth enabled.
Cons:
- Thick cardstock has to be manually fed to the printer
- Adding a new device takes too long
- Quality degrades to a great extent while printing small-sized photos.
3. Brother INKvestmentTank Inkjet Printer, MFC-J995DW XL
The Brother INKvestment Tank Inkjet Printer is wireless. It is from the higher-end printer series from Brother Industries.
It is a compact, all-in-one printer that can print, scan and copy. It is an auto-duplex printer. Printing quality is excellent on regular paper and good enough on cardstock. This printer offers a maximum print size of 8.5” x 14”.
Print quality is the USP of a printer, and this printer offers brilliant print quality comparable to that provided by a laser printer. The black ink on photos and documents is rich and deep.
It can also print posters with razor-sharp detailing. Printing maps, postcards, and DIY cards are possible with excellent results on this printer.
Scanning works very well on this printer. The quality of scanning can also be adjusted easily. For artists and teachers, this printer is an excellent option.
With the INKvestment Tank technology, printing becomes cheap, and the user does not have to worry about frequently refilling, even on heavy use.
It is an advancement over the regular cartridge system as tanks are easier to replace and last longer than regular cartridges.
Printing speed is another crucial aspect of any printer, and this printer offers a printing speed of about 10-12 pager per minute. While printing colored photos, it tends to get a little slower and even slower when printing on cardstock.
This printer is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Android when it comes to connectivity. It is a wireless printer that supports WiFi 5.0, WPS, and SSID.
Printing can be done directly through your phone via Brother iScan and iPrint application, which offers to edit your media before printing.
Brother offers up to two years of ink in the box which is a considerable advantage as printing ink is expensive.
Also, it has the Brother intelligent Page Gauge that informs you about the quantity of ink left in the tank.
Pros:
- Compact size and versatile
- Print quality is brilliant for most users
- Reduces inconvenience as it uses an ink tank system instead of a regular cartridge
- Works well on paper as well as cardstock
Cons:
- It is a bit noisy when working with cardstock
- Brother customer care service is not up to the mark
- The printer sometimes jams while using heavy cardstock
4. Epson EcoTank ET-4760 Wireless Color Printer
Being marketed as a business printer, the Epson EcoTank ET-4760 Wireless Printer is fast, affordable, and easy to use. It comes from the house of Epson, a well-known brand in the printer industry.
It is a very compact and light-weighted all-in-one printer. Almost all modern printers come with the new ink tank technology, and so is the case with this printer.
The Epson “Supertank” is a cartridge-free high capacity tank that ensures that you can print on this printer without worrying about replacement ink.
Also, refilling these ink tanks is pretty easy, thanks to Epson’s exclusive EcoFit bottles.
Printing cost is reduced drastically as one color page costs around one cent on paper. The tray size is also significant, with each tray having a capacity of about 250 sheets. The maximum printing size is 8.5 x 14 inches, while it can print any user-defined size.
This printer offers extraordinary printing quality on more expensive paper. The detailing is super sharp and rich on cardstock.
Being a heavy-duty printer, this printer can print continuously for a long time, without a drop in print quality.
This is a heavy cardstock printer that can print on plain paper and glossy photo paper. Print speed is fast, at 15 pages per minute, suitable for an office printer.
Although for someone who wants a printer for casual use, this printer will not be a good option because you will have to clean the print heads to print in color. This printer is excellent for regular users like artists or teachers or office purposes.
This printer offers support for WiFi 5.0, Ethernet, and USB when it comes to connectivity. Wireless connectivity works well on this printer, with very few issues. It is compatible with macOS and Windows.
Pros:
- Compact and easy-to-use
- Very affordable printing cost
- Faster than average printing speed
Cons:
- Performs poorly as a fax machine
- The display is a small 1.4” display which is just not sufficient
5. HP OfficeJet Pro 6230 Wireless Printer
The HP OfficeJet Pro 6230 is a wireless printer offered by HP. It is cheaper than many other printers on this list because of the limited features it provides, but for a heavy cardstock printer, it serves its purpose quite well.
It is a very lightweight and compact printer, specially made for small offices and homes. It is not a heavy-duty printer because it comes with a single tray that holds about 250 sheets. HP recommends a monthly volume of just 200-800 pages, which is relatively low.
Being a small-sized printer, this is based on ink cartridges that produce good results. It supports HP High-yield cartridges, which increases the ink capacity that the printer holds and decreases the printing cost to an extent.
It is a versatile printer that supports printing on plain paper, high-resolution paper, glossy photo paper, envelopes, and cardstock.
The printer offers a standard maximum print size of 8.5” x 14” and a wide range of paper size support. Printing quality is good for the price, and results are astonishing when printing photos on high-resolution paper and cardstock.
The standout feature of this printer is its print speed. It can print at about 18-20 pages per minute for black and white on any kind of paper.
Connectivity is essential for an office printer, and this printer is compatible with Windows, macOS, Android, and even Linux.
It has support for WiFi 5.0, WPS, and Ethernet. Setting up the printer is effortless, and all connectivity options work effectively.
Overall, this printer offers excellent value for money, but it is a very old model. It is a good option for someone who just needs a printer for cardstock—moreover, frequent complaints about the print head going bad when put under a heavy workload.
Pros:
- Affordable and easy-to-use.
- Compact, light-weight and versatile
- It gives above par print results for the price
Cons:
- Absence of modern machinery as it is a very old model
- Print head goes bad frequently
6. HP OfficeJet Pro 8035e Wireless Color All-in-One Printer
HP OfficeJet Pro 8035e is another affordable business printer from HP. It is a new OfficeJet Pro model with modern technology and improvements over the previous models while maintaining the unique selling point of this series, affordability.
It is a very compact and light-weighted printer with a decent input capacity of 225 sheets. This printer offers fax, scan, copy, and printing on paper, cardstock, glossy photo paper, and envelopes.
HP provides a one-year subscription for HP Instant Ink for free. So, one does not need to worry about refilling for the first year of use at least.
It does not use Ink Tanks and works on standard cartridges. Results are excellent when it comes to printing on cardstock. Photos printed are sharp and crisp, with a decent amount of detail.
This printer offers a print rate of up to 20 pages per minute, even on cardstock, which is just amazing. However, this rate decreases when the printer is used continuously for a long time.
Since it is a modern printer, it has excellent connectivity features. It supports WiFi 5.0 and has Wi-FiTM enabled, which detects and solves connectivity issues on its own.
There is support for Wifi-Direct, USB cable, and Ethernet. It also supports cloud services like Apple AirPrint and Google Drive.
With the increasing number of Operating Systems every day, a printer must support all major operating systems.
In addition to Windows and macOS, this printer is compatible with Chrome OS, Android, and Mopria certified.
It is ideal for small businesses and home offices where a printer is needed but not used frequently.
Pros:
- Best-in-class print speed
- One of the most affordable cardstock printer
- Excellent connectivity with support for almost all operating systems
- Easy to set up and use
Cons:
- Not suitable for users with a high workload
- Build quality is not up to the mark
7. Canon imageCLASS MF445dw
The imageClass MF445dw is a wireless, all-in-one laser printer from Canon. It is the only laser printer for cardstock included in our list. It can print on plain paper as well as cardstock.
Being a laser printer, it is large, so it takes up quite a bit of space. It is meant for office as well as home purposes. It is designed for small print jobs. Print quality is the highlight of laser printers, which does not disappoint either.
Since it is a monochrome printer, it supports only black and white printing. Photos are printed with great detail and texture.
Blacks are deep and rich. The maximum print size is 8.5” x 11” while the sheet size is 8.5” x 14” max.
This printer offers excellent connectivity methods. One can use wireless printing without any external router as the printer creates a Direct WiFi hotspot that creates a direct connection with all the compatible mobiles. Also, it can connect directly to any Android, Windows, and macOS device.
Overall, it is an excellent laser printer for cardstock for someone who wants to work on black and white pictures.
Pros:
- High paper capacity of up to 900 sheets.
- Excellent quality of printing
- Perfect for people who need to work with black and white printouts
Cons:
- Too expensive for a monochrome cardstock printer
- There is no automatic document feeder
Things to Consider While Buying a printer for Cardstock
Paper type
While buying printers that can print on cardstock, one must keep in mind that not all printers support printing on cardstock. There are printers available that are designed for craft purposes. These support printing on heavy cardstock.
The best printer for cardstock must support cardstock of all weights and sizes. Also, many printers print on glossy paper but not on cardstock, so one must thoroughly check a printer’s print medium before buying.
Print Quality & Speed
Since a heavy cardstock printer is majorly used to print photos, the printer’s print quality is of utmost importance.
A cardstock printer must deliver realistic and textured results. The best printer for cardstock shall be able to publish pictures of various sizes.
The printer’s print speed is also essential because printing photos on cardstock takes time.
For a heavy cardstock printer, a rate of about 10-12 pages per minute is decent, while the best printer for printing on cardstock may offer up to 17 pages per minute.
Connectivity
Time is a precious possession, and to save time, a printer must provide various connectivity options.
The best printer for cardstock should be wireless, with support for various cloud services. Support for an SD card is an added advantage.
Almost all printers today have support for all major operating systems. Still, compatibility with various devices must be checked.
Size
The size of the printer is an essential factor because real estate is expensive these days. A compact printer with various features is preferred over a bulky one.
Also, the size should not be so small that its tray barely fits fifty sheets. The best printer for cardstock must have enough tray size while not being too oversized for a printer.
Verdict
All the printers listed above have their pros and cons, but, in my opinion, the best printer for cardstock is the Canon PIXMA TS9521C.
The Canon PIXMA is a range of printers that can print on cardstock. It is suitable for almost all sizes and weights of cardstock.
The print quality is the best for its price range, and it is ideal for home and office purposes. Every printer has its flaws, but for the PIXMA TS9521C, its flaws are easily overpowered by its features.
