The pages-per-minute figure on a printer box is measured after the printer has already started printing. The stopwatch that produces it does not begin until the first set of test pages has finished leaving the tray, which is written into the standard itself. That is worth knowing before comparing hp versus canon printers, because both companies are quoting the same test and neither is quoting your documents.
This is an independent editorial comparison. We are not affiliated with any brand mentioned, and no brand reviewed or approved this article.
HP versus Canon printers: what the published numbers actually cover
Both makers publish speed and yield figures produced by international standards rather than by their own labs’ house methods. The table below is a map of which standard produces which number and what that number leaves out.
| Published figure | Standard behind it | What it measures | What it does not cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Print speed in ppm or ipm | ISO/IEC 24734 | Throughput once the machine is already running, in default single-sided mode on plain paper | Warm-up, the first page, duplex, photo paper, your file types |
| Copy speed | ISO/IEC 24735 | Copying throughput from the glass or feeder | Scan quality, document feeder reliability |
| Ink cartridge yield | ISO/IEC 24711 | Pages from one cartridge printing a fixed test suite continuously on plain paper | Setup ink, nozzle maintenance, photo printing, short jobs |
| Mono toner yield | ISO/IEC 19752 | Pages from a toner cartridge on a monochrome laser system | Quality, reliability, drum life, color |
| The test pages themselves | ISO/IEC 24712 | A fixed set of color test pages used for yield work | Any resemblance to what you print |
ESAT is a throughput figure, not a speed figure
The letters behind a printer’s advertised speed are worth learning, because they describe three different clocks. Brother publishes the clearest plain-English definitions of the three, and all three come from the same test run:
- FSOT, first set out time: “Number of seconds between the initiation of the job to the complete exit of the last page of the first test set.” This is the number that includes waking up and warming up.
- EFTP, effective throughput: the average speed “measured from the initiation of the job through the complete exit of the last page of the last test set.” This one counts the slow start.
- ESAT, estimated saturation throughput: the rate “measured from the complete exit of the last page of the first test set through the complete exit of the last page of the last test set.” This one deliberately does not.
ESAT is the figure that becomes the ppm on the box. Brother says so directly: its advertised ISO/IEC 24734 speeds “are based on averages of the ESAT print speed test in default single side mode.” Epson says its black and color speeds “are determined in default, single-side mode in accordance with ISO/IEC 24734.” Canon states that “ISO/IEC 24734 defines the default print speed measurement methods” and that speed based on the default mode setting “is required when applied as a written specification.”
So the headline number is honest, comparable and measured the same way by every major maker. It is also the number that excludes the part of printing people complain about, which is the wait before the first page appears.
The standard says out loud that it is not the manufacturer’s rating
ISO/IEC 24734 specifies “a method for measuring the productivity of digital printing devices with various office applications and print job characteristics.” It covers single-function and multifunction machines regardless of whether they are inkjet or laser, provided they take A4 or 8.5 by 11 inch media and can collate.
Then comes the scope line that almost nobody quotes: the standard “is not intended to replace a manufacturer’s rated speeds.” The two figures are allowed to coexist and to disagree. A maker can print an ISO number and a marketing number on the same page, and only one of them was produced by a published method.
Canon’s own caveat lists what moves the real result: “Print speed may vary depending on system configuration, interface, software, document complexity, print mode, page coverage, type of paper used etc.” Epson’s is shorter and says the same thing about system configuration, software version and page complexity. Both are accurate, and both are the reason a printer that tests at a given ppm can feel slow on a five-page PDF.
Page yield is a test suite, not your documents
Cartridge yield is the other headline number, and it is built the same way. HP describes its inkjet method under ISO/IEC 24711 as “a standard set of five 8 1/2 x 11 pages” that “is printed continuously until the cartridge reaches end-of-life,” with those pages carrying “a mix of text and graphics, and a mix of black and color.”
Canon describes its own testing in almost the same terms, with one extra detail worth holding onto: “the quoted page yield for a given sample document is based on an average of three identical printers printing each document continuously until the ink runs out,” and “the inks are used immediately after they are unsealed and printing is done continuously.”
Continuously is the load-bearing word. A cartridge tested without ever sitting idle never triggers the cleaning cycles that a home printer runs after a week of nothing. HP says this plainly, listing among the things that change real yield the fact that “inkjet printers use some ink to keep print nozzles clear,” that setup ink is not counted in the ISO test at all, and that “actual yield varies considerably based on the content of printed pages, frequency of printing, ink used in printer set-up and other factors.”
The yield standards also fence themselves in. ISO/IEC 24711 covers ink cartridge yield on plain paper and excludes machines whose minimum printable size is A3 or larger and printers “designed or configured to print photos.” The monochrome toner standard, ISO/IEC 19752, is blunter still: “this document is only intended for the measurement of toner cartridge yield. No other claims may be made from this testing regarding quality, reliability, etc.” A high yield figure is not a durability claim, and it was never offered as one. If you enjoy watching a single word do a lot of quiet work in a specification, our look at what the word “free” actually covers in budgeting apps is the same exercise in another category.
Deciding hp or canon printer which is better on paper
Because both makers publish to the same standards, the honest way to settle hp or canon printer which is better is to compare like for like rather than to compare marketing lines. That means three things:
- Compare ESAT to ESAT, not ESAT to a “up to” figure from a different page.
- Compare mono yield to mono yield and color yield to color yield, since a color cartridge tested on a mixed suite cannot be read against a black cartridge tested on text.
- Compare the same duty class. A desktop inkjet and a small office laser are measured by the same method and built for different workloads.
Where the two genuinely differ is in product structure rather than in test results: which lines are inkjet and which are laser, which use a refillable tank and which use a cartridge, and how many cartridges a color model splits its ink across. Those are design choices, and none of them shows up in a ppm figure.
Where a third name changes the question
Searching for hp canon or epson printer widens the field without changing the method, because Epson publishes to ISO/IEC 24734 as well and describes the point of doing so as an “apples-to-apples” comparison across models and manufacturers. Three brands, one standard, and the same set of exclusions on all of them.
That is the useful takeaway from adding a third name. The published figures are already comparable across makers. What is not comparable across makers is anything printed next to the ISO figure in larger type.
What to read on the spec sheet, in order
A spec sheet rewards being read backwards, starting with the footnote. For any hp or canon printer you are weighing up:
- Find the standard number. If the speed figure does not cite ISO/IEC 24734, it is not the comparable one.
- Check whether the figure is simplex or duplex. The standard’s default is single-sided, and a duplex figure is a different measurement.
- Look for a first-page-out number separately. ESAT excludes it by design, so the machine’s wake-up behavior lives somewhere else or nowhere at all.
- Read the yield line for which cartridge it describes, and check whether a starter cartridge ships in the box instead of the full-size one.
- Treat photo output as unmeasured. Both yield standards exclude photo-configured printing, so a photo cost has to be estimated some other way.
Frequently Asked Questions
These questions come up because the printed figures are precise, comparable and narrower than they look, which is an unusual combination on a spec sheet.
Why is my printer slower than its rated ppm?
The rating measures throughput once the machine is saturated, on plain paper, in default single-sided mode, using a fixed office test file. A short job on heavier paper with a complex page will spend most of its time in the part of the process the rating skips.
Does a higher page yield mean the cartridge is better value?
It means more pages of the ISO test suite came out of that cartridge. It says nothing about cost, and the yield standards explicitly bar any claim about quality or reliability from the same test.
Are inkjet and laser speed figures comparable?
Yes, for the speed figure itself. ISO/IEC 24734 applies regardless of print technology, so an inkjet and a laser tested to the standard produce numbers measured the same way. Their consumable figures come from different standards and are not interchangeable.
Why do the test pages look nothing like real work?
They are meant to be fixed rather than typical. A shared, unchanging set of office files is what makes two machines from different makers comparable at all, and the makers say in their own caveats that document complexity will move your result.
Bottom line
The speed and yield figures on both brands come from the same published standards, which makes them genuinely comparable to each other and deliberately narrow. Read the standard number first, treat the figure as a ceiling produced under ideal conditions, and take anything printed larger than the ISO line as marketing rather than measurement.
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