Three toner tiers share this Brother color platform — TN331, TN336 and TN339 — and a single drum unit, the DR331CL, serves all seven machines that run on it. The puzzle this family sets a buyer is printed on its own price tags: on the five base machines, the standard-yield TN331 and the high-yield TN336 carry exactly the same prices, cartridge for cartridge and set for set, although Brother rates the TN336 for 1.6 times the black pages and well over twice the color pages. A sticker cannot separate tiers that cost alike; only arithmetic can. This guide does that arithmetic in the open, walls off the two machines that accept TN339 and nothing smaller, and prices every cartridge on the shelf that a reader can actually order.
The short answer: if your printer is one of the five base machines, start with the TN336 4-color set at $64.70 — the same money as the TN331 set, with about 14,500 rated pages in the box against the standard set's 7,000. The TN331 set remains on this page in full, as the standard-yield option for lighter duty at identical prices. If your machine is the HL-L9200CDWT or the MFC-L9550CDW, skip both tiers: Brother lists TN339 alone for those two printers, and the TN339 section below is written for you. Whichever tier you run, one genuine drum — the DR331CL at $233.21 — covers all seven machines; no compatible drum exists for this platform.
Let the machine choose the tier group, then let the per-page figures choose inside it. Base-machine owners: the TN336 4-color set at $64.70 is the default buy — a full-color page works out to roughly 1.85¢ from that box, against roughly 4.31¢ from the identically priced TN331 set. Flagship-pair owners: the TN339 set at $124.24 is your only tier and a long-lived one, at roughly 2.07¢ a full-color page. Every machine on the platform also carries the same drum cost in the background, about 0.93¢ a page for the genuine DR331CL. Against the genuine shelf, the compatible TN336 set undercuts Brother's own TN336 set on our OEM shelf ($514.11) by about 87%.
Seven machines, two groups, three tiers
Brother's lists divide the platform cleanly. The five base machines — the HL-L8250CDN, HL-L8350CDW, HL-L8350CDWT, MFC-L8600CDW, MFC-L8850CDW — are listed for both the standard TN331 and the high-yield TN336, and those two tiers go nowhere else in the family. Everything those five printers need from this page sits in the first two tier sections, and every model link inside them points at one of the five categories above.
The remaining two machines, the HL-L9200CDWT, MFC-L9550CDW, form a group of their own. Brother's “works with” lists for both printers name the TN339 codes and the DR331CL drum — and nothing else from this family. The MFC-L9550CDW even leaves the factory carrying TN339-grade toner in the box. Owners of the pair should read the TN339 and drum sections as theirs and treat the TN331 and TN336 sections as background: no price in them, however low, fits their printers.
One caution belongs in print here, because our own catalog contradicts Brother on it: every TN331 listing we sell is also shelved under the HL-L9200CDWT category, ten listings are named for that machine or its non-T variant, and the standard tier's own description copy claims both flagship printers. Brother's lists say the pair takes TN339 only, and an order should follow Brother. Where store shelving and Brother disagree, this guide sides with Brother and says so — which is why the flagship categories are linked only from the TN339 and drum passages, the places they belong.
For the platforms around this one: the color workgroup family one step up is covered in Best Brother TN431 Toner Cartridges; the compact color family below it in Best Brother TN229 Toner Cartridges; and the heavy monochrome platform in Best Brother TN920 Toner Cartridges. Brother cartridges never cross between families — the model check comes first on every one of these pages, this one included.
Three tiers, one table
Every yield below is Brother's own published rating, measured to ISO/IEC 19798, and every price is the live shelf price of the cartridge named. The last column prices a fully colored page when the four cartridges arrive as a set: such a page draws on all four at once, the color cartridges set the length of the cycle, so the set figure divides the set price by the color rating. Bought as four singles instead, a full-color page costs about 6.80¢ in TN331 and about 3.13¢ in TN336. TN339 has no from-singles figure at all — no compatible cyan single exists to complete that sum, for the reason its section explains.
| Tier | Black yield | Color yield | Black single | Cost per page | Color single | Cost per page | 4-color set | Full-color page from the set |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TN331 (standard yield — 5 base machines) | About 2,500 | About 1,500 each | $27.24 | About 1.09¢ | $28.57 | About 1.90¢ | $64.70 | About 4.31¢ |
| TN336 (high yield — 5 base machines) | About 4,000 | About 3,500 each | $27.24 | About 0.68¢ | $28.57 | About 0.82¢ | $64.70 | About 1.85¢ |
| TN339 (super high yield — flagship pair only) | About 6,000 | About 6,000 each | $33.15 | About 0.55¢ | $50.92 | About 0.85¢ | $124.24 | About 2.07¢ |
Set against the genuine shelf, the gap widens further: on our OEM shelf a genuine TN336 black runs about 2.58¢ a page and each genuine color about 4.76¢, where the compatibles carded below run 0.68¢ and 0.82¢. Three genuine codes were also priced at Brother's own store for comparison, and on all three our shelf sits higher — TN331 black $91.19 here against $67.79 there, TN336 cyan $166.75 against $135.99, the DR331CL drum $233.21 against $183.29. Anyone committed to genuine supplies for this platform should check both shelves before ordering; every genuine figure on this page is our price, labeled as ours.
TN336: the same price as TN331, more than twice the color life
Ordinarily a guide explains a high-yield tier by what it costs over the standard one. Here there is nothing to explain: TN336 singles are $27.24 for black and $28.57 for each color, the black 2-pack is $38.40 and the 4-color set is $64.70 — every figure identical, to the cent, to the TN331 shelf below. What Brother rates differently is the fill: about 4,000 pages from the black and about 3,500 from each color, against 2,500 and 1,500 for the standard tier. Identical money for 1.6 times the black life and about 2.3 times the color life is not a close call, and this page does not pretend otherwise — on any of the five base machines, TN336 is the tier to buy by default. Each slot takes its own cartridge and its own suffix, TN336BK, TN336C, TN336M and TN336Y, and the cards below price each one separately, because colors empty one at a time and are reordered one at a time.
This set is where base-machine money does the most work on the platform: one box renews all four slots for $48.25 less than the $112.95 its four cartridges total bought singly, and its rated life more than doubles the standard tier's at no extra cost. On our OEM shelf a genuine Brother TN336 4-color set is $514.11 — more than seven of these compatible sets combined.
Shop the TN336 4-Color Set →
Bigger configurations follow the same per-cartridge pattern: a CMY 3-color set (colors only) at $53.54 — $32.17 under the three color singles bought separately — a black 3-pack at $49.56, a black 5-pack at $71.88, a 5-color set at $75.86, a CMY 6-color set at $91.00 and an 8-color set at $113.32. Several TN336 offers also exist as second-generation duplicate listings at identical prices; each card above is built on a single verified listing for its offer.
TN331: the standard-yield tier, honestly placed
TN331 is the tier this platform is named for, and its cartridges are perfectly sound: Brother rates the black at about 2,500 pages and each color at about 1,500, the same five base machines accept them, and the cards below give the tier the full treatment — set, four singles, black 2-pack — because a guide that hid the standard tier would be selling, not guiding. What honesty requires alongside the cards is the comparison the shelf itself sets up: since TN336 costs exactly the same and is rated for substantially more pages, TN331's case rests on fit and habit rather than value. A lightly used machine that takes a year to empty a standard cartridge loses nothing by staying standard; a purchasing system keyed to the TN331 code reorders without friction. Any machine that empties cartridges regularly, though, is paying TN336 money for TN331 pages, and the section above is the better buy for it. The codes follow the family pattern — TN331BK, TN331C, TN331M, TN331Y — and each color is its own cartridge with its own card.
The set is the standard tier in its most economical shape: all four slots renewed for $48.25 under the $112.95 the four singles total. It earns its place for genuinely light duty — a machine that prints occasionally, where a shorter-rated cartridge still lasts many months — and for buyers standardizing on the tier their purchasing records already name. Note that genuine Brother sells no TN331 4-color set on our shelf at all (its largest bundle is a CMY 3-color set at $272.89), so this compatible set is also the only set-shaped way to buy the standard tier here.
Shop the TN331 4-Color Set →
The same larger sizes are shelved for TN331: a CMY 3-color set at $53.54, a 5-color set at $75.86, a CMY 6-color set at $91.00 and an 8-color set at $113.32. One oddity is printed exactly as the shelf shows it: the black 3-pack ($71.88) and the black 5-pack ($71.88) carry the same $71.88 price — at that figure the 5-pack holds two more cartridges for the same money, and black-heavy buyers should take it. TN331 also exists as 85 model-named listings — the same five core offers titled by printer model, at identical prices; the cards above are built on the code-named listings, and nothing about the offer changes if you arrive through a model-named page instead.
TN339: two machines, one tier, the longest ratings
Every TN339 cartridge is rated at about 6,000 pages, black and colors alike — the tier these two departmental machines were built around, and the one the MFC-L9550CDW carries from the factory. Its black single, at $33.15, delivers the cheapest black page in the family (about 0.55¢), and each color single runs about 0.85¢ a page at $50.92. The singles carry the codes TN339BK, TN339M and TN339Y below — three cards, not four, and the missing one is a real gap in the shelf rather than an omission on this page.
For the two flagship printers this box is the whole compatible story in one purchase: the longest-rated cartridges on the platform, all four slots at once. Genuine Brother TN339 is sold here as singles only — black at $103.04 and each color at $158.03, $577.13 for a full set of four — with no genuine set offered at any price. This guide prints no SAVE figure on the set, because a set-versus-singles saving needs four compatible singles to sum, and no compatible cyan single exists (see the note under the cards).
Shop the TN339 4-Color Set →
Extended sizes for heavy flagship duty: a black 3-pack at $67.31, a black 5-pack at $101.46, a CMY 3-color set at $93.74, a 5-color set at $141.32, a CMY 6-color set at $171.41 and an 8-color set at $232.41 — the last of those undercuts two 4-color sets bought separately by $16.07.
One drum for all seven machines — and it is genuine only
Where the toner tiers split the platform in two, the drum unites it. The DR331CL is the drum for every machine in this family — the HL-L8250CDN, HL-L8350CDW, HL-L8350CDWT, MFC-L8600CDW, MFC-L8850CDW, HL-L9200CDWT, MFC-L9550CDW — and Brother sells it as a Drum Unit Set, in Brother's own words, “with Approx. 25,000-Page Yield.” No compatible version of it exists on our shelf, so it carries no card here: it is a genuine Brother part, priced at $233.21 on our OEM shelf. Brother's own store lists the same unit at $183.29; ours is quoted as ours, as every genuine price on this page is. Spread over its rated life, the drum adds about 0.93¢ to the cost of each page, whichever toner tier runs above it.
Two things about this drum are easy to get wrong, so both are stated plainly. First, Brother publishes a single approximate figure for it — about 25,000 pages, with the note that drum life is approximate and varies with the type of use — and no split by job size of the kind some other Brother drums carry. This page prints the one figure Brother gives, rather than borrowing a dual rating from a different family's drum. Second, our catalog shelves the drum under the five base machines' categories only, although Brother lists it for the flagship pair as well; that is why this section links all seven categories above — both machine groups need the same part, and both should be able to reach it from here.
When the printer calls for a drum change — typically announced by streaks or repeating marks that survive a toner swap — the replacement is this one part; the counter reset that follows the swap is walked through on the Brother color reference page linked in the next section.
Chips and firmware — what the record actually shows
No cartridge in this family is presented on this page with a fitted-chip claim, and the restraint is documentary. Across all 158 listings on the platform, the word “firmware” never appears at all. “Chip” appears in 111 of them, always inside one repeated sentence about how the cartridges are built — new parts throughout, with “a smart chip” named among the OPC drums, wiper blades and other internals. A component named in a parts list is not a promise about recognition behavior, the newer listing generations dropped the sentence entirely, and a claim cannot be built on a boilerplate line. That one sentence is the whole of what the record supports.
On the wider question, Brother's own published position is that its firmware updates are not used to block third-party cartridges. What owners actually meet on this generation — the drum counter and its reset, toner-level reporting, recognition prompts after a swap — is collected on our Brother Color Toner & Drum Compatibility page. This page's brief stops at fit and arithmetic.
The pre-order checklist for the TN331 platform
Frequently asked questions
On the five base machines, TN336, unless your printing is genuinely light. Both tiers post identical prices at every size, but Brother rates the TN336 black at about 4,000 pages against the TN331's 2,500, and each TN336 color at about 3,500 against 1,500. The same $64.70 set therefore buys roughly twice the rated life in TN336. TN331 remains a reasonable choice where a cartridge lasts a year or more in the machine, or where a purchasing system is keyed to the standard code — its section above cards it in full.
Brother does not list either tier for those machines. Its “works with” lists for both printers name the TN339 codes and the DR331CL drum only — the MFC-L9550CDW even ships with TN339-grade toner. Our catalog currently shelves every TN331 listing under the HL-L9200CDWT category as well, and names ten listings for the flagship machines; that shelving is ours, and Brother's list outranks it. Order TN339 for those printers.
Because the shelf simply does not stock one — in neither listing generation does a compatible TN339C single exist; the slot it would occupy is empty. Cyan for the HL-L9200CDWT and MFC-L9550CDW comes inside the TN339 4-color set or the CMY sets listed in that section. The only standalone TN339 cyan on the shelf is the genuine Brother cartridge at $158.03, and this guide does not card genuine products.
All seven machines on this platform take the same drum: the DR331CL, which Brother sells as a Drum Unit Set rated at about 25,000 pages. No compatible version of it is sold here — the one listing is a genuine Brother part at $233.21. Our catalog shelves it under the five base categories only, but Brother lists it for the HL-L9200CDWT and MFC-L9550CDW as well, and the drum section above links all seven machines for that reason.
Because that is all Brother publishes for this unit: one approximate figure, about 25,000 pages, with the note that drum life varies with the type of use. Some other Brother drums carry separate ratings for short and long average jobs; the DR331CL does not, and this page prints Brother's single figure rather than borrowing a second number from a different drum.
The standard tier is listed 85 extra times under model names — the same five core offers (4-color set and four singles) titled for individual printers, at identical prices and with identical stock figures. Some of those titles name machines Brother does not list for this platform in the US at all. The guide cards one code-named listing per offer and treats the model-named pages as duplicates of it; whichever page you order through, the cartridge and the price are the same.
No claim is made here, because the listings do not support one: firmware is mentioned in none of the family's 158 listings, and the single chip reference anywhere is a parts-list sentence in the older listings naming “a smart chip” among the new components. Brother's published position is that its updates are not used to block third-party cartridges. For what this generation actually shows its owners — recognition prompts and the drum-counter reset — see our Brother Color Toner & Drum Compatibility page.
Compatible cartridges carry our own cover: a 1-year warranty, and a return window of the same full year — anything that is not right comes back to us. Genuine Brother items are covered by the manufacturer's warranty instead, with OEM returns running 30 days. Orders ship from the closest of our four warehouses — Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia, California — and support answers 9 AM to 5 PM Central on weekdays.