Brother MFC-L3770CDW: Is It the Right Printer for Your Small Business? (A Cost Controller’s Take)

When I first started managing our office equipment budget, I assumed the best printer was whatever had the highest page-per-minute speed in the spec sheet. It was basically the same mistake I made when buying my first laptop—chasing the one big number while ignoring everything that actually mattered in daily use.

After auditing six years of printing costs across our team, I can tell you: the Brother MFC-L3770CDW is a solid machine, but it’s not the right fit for every small business. Let me break down three common scenarios, so you can figure out if it’s the right fit for yours.

There’s No Single ‘Best’ Printer for Everyone

Honestly, if anyone tells you there’s one perfect printer for every small business, they’re either trying to sell you something or they haven’t managed a real budget. The right choice depends entirely on your volume, your team’s workflow, and—this is the one most people overlook—how you think about total cost of ownership.

We’ll look at three common business types:

• Scenario A: The High-Volume Office (printing 3,000+ pages a month)
• Scenario B: The Design-Conscious Startup (needs color, but can’t afford downtime)
• Scenario C: The Budget-First Business (where every penny counts)

Let’s walk through each.

Scenario A: The High-Volume Office (3,000+ Pages/Month)

Recommendation: This is probably your printer.

The MFC-L3770CDW is a workhorse. It’s rated for a 60,000-page monthly duty cycle, which is overkill for most small businesses, but for a busy office, that means you’re rarely pushing it to its limit. In our office, we hit about 3,500 pages a month (including a lot of forms and invoices). We had two cheaper printers before this one that burned out within 18 months.

What you need to know:

• Speed: 28 ppm is decent. It’s not the fastest in its class, but for a team of 5-10 people, you won’t notice a bottleneck unless you’re printing a 100-page report for a meeting.
• The Drum: This is where most people get tripped up. The MFC-L3770CDW uses a separate drum unit (DR6300), rated for 30,000 pages. That’s a key cost differentiator from some competitors who bundle the drum with the toner, forcing you to replace both at once.
• The Trap: I almost bought a cheaper competitor model until I calculated Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The competitor’s drum was half the life and cost more per replacement. Over 3 years, the MFC-L3770CDW’s consumables were $380 cheaper.

According to Brother’s official consumables page, the TN227X high-yield toner (approx. 4,000 pages) and DR6300 drum (30,000 pages) offer a lower cost-per-page than many comparable color laser printers in the sub-$500 bracket.

Watch out for: The paper tray is 250 sheets standard. For a high-volume office, you’ll want to either buy the optional 500-sheet tray or be prepared to refill it often. I’d actually recommend getting the extra tray from day one—it’s a small investment that saves a lot of annoyance.

Scenario B: The Design-Conscious Startup

Recommendation: Proceed with caution.

If your business relies on proofing color designs—even if it’s just for internal presentations or client mockups—this printer might frustrate you.

The MFC-L3770CDW is a laser printer, and like all laser printers in this price range, it doesn’t do photo-quality color. It’s great for charts, graphs, and solid blocks of color. But for anything with subtle gradients (like a logo on a letterhead), it can be a bit… flat. Let me put it this way: your graphic designer won’t be happy printing proofs on it.

What you should do instead:

• If you need occasional color documents and decent text quality: The MFC-L3770CDW is still a great value. Just plan on sending real design work to a professional print shop.
• If color accuracy is a daily necessity: Look at a business-grade inkjet (like some of Brother’s own ink tank models) or a more expensive color laser. The MFC-L3770CDW is not a design tool.

Everything I’d read said that laser printers always beat inkjets for text legibility. In practice, for our startup, the mid-tier inkjet actually delivered better results for our client-facing pitch decks because the color was richer. You need to know why you need color before you pick a machine.

Scenario C: The Budget-First Business (Under 500 Pages/Month)

Recommendation: Save your money. Get a different printer.

I know this sounds counterintuitive—shouldn’t you get the most capable machine? No. The conventional wisdom is to buy the most robust printer you can afford. My experience with 15+ different office machines over the past 6 years suggests otherwise for low-volume users.

Here’s the problem: you’ll pay about $400-450 for the MFC-L3770CDW. Then you’ll buy a toner set (CMYK) for ~$250. If you only print 500 pages a year, that toner will sit in the machine for years. Laser toner can clump or degrade, leading to poor print quality. You’ll end up throwing away half a $250 cartridge.

What you should do:

• Get a monochrome laser printer (like the Brother HL-L2350DW). It’s $150, and the toner lasts for 1,200 pages. You can get a separate cheap color inkjet for the rare times you need a page in color.
• Calculate your true TCO: The MFC-L3770CDW’s cost-per-page is low—about 3-4 cents per color page with high-yield cartridges. But that math only works if you use those pages within the toner’s shelf life.

I dodged a bullet here. I almost convinced myself to buy the MFC-L3770CDW for our home office, thinking it was a good long-term investment. But I checked our print volume (a whopping 200 pages in the last 6 months), and the math didn’t work. So glad I didn’t pull the trigger.

How to Know If You’re in Scenario A, B, or C

Here’s a simple two-step test I use now:

1. Check your print volume. Go into your printer’s settings or ask your IT person for the page count from the last 6 months. Multiply by 2 to get a rough annual number. If it’s under 1,500 pages, you’re likely in Scenario C. If it’s over 3,000, you’re in Scenario A.
2. Check what you’re printing. Are you primarily printing black-and-white reports with occasional color charts? (Scenario B, leaning toward A). Are you printing photo-rich marketing materials? (Scenario B, with a warning). Are you printing simple invoices and order forms? (Scenario A).

Don’t skip this step. (Should mention: I once spent two weeks comparing specs before realizing I was trying to solve a problem I didn’t even have. The real question wasn’t “which printer is best?” It was “what are we actually printing?”)

The Brother MFC-L3770CDW is a fantastic machine for a specific job. It’s a cost-effective, reliable workhorse for a busy office. But if your usage doesn’t match its strengths, you’re better off with something cheaper or more specialized. That’s not a knock on the printer—it’s just good budget management.