3D Print Cost Calculator
Determine the true manufacturing cost of your 3D printed parts. Fully customize filament price, print time, power draw, machine wear, and profit margins
1 Filament & Resin Material
2 Print Time & Power
3 Depreciation & Labor
4 Risk & Commercial Margin
For the best accuracy: (1) Part weight: use your slicer's estimate including supports and purge, or weigh the printed part on a kitchen scale. (2) Power draw: measure one print with a plug-in watt meter if you can; the default is a placeholder. (3) Machine wear and labor: enter values that match your own machine price and hourly rate. (4) The result is a planning estimate only; your local tax, fee and sales rules are not included.
How to use this tool
- Enter the part weight from your slicer and the price and total weight of the spool or bottle.
- Add the print time, the printer's average power draw and your electricity price per kWh.
- Set machine wear per hour and a fixed setup and post-processing cost.
- Use the failure reserve and profit markup sliders, then read the true cost and the suggested price.
Worked example
A 120 g part from a 1000 g spool that cost 22 uses 120/1000 × 22 = 2.64 of material. Printing 6.5 h at 120 W and 0.22 per kWh uses 0.78 kWh and costs 0.17. Machine wear at 0.25/h adds 1.63, and setup adds a flat 2.50. That is 6.94; a 10% failure reserve adds 0.69, giving a true cost of 7.63. A 50% markup on that gives a suggested price of 11.45. Note that the markup here is applied to cost, so it is not the same as a 50% profit margin on the price.
Methodology
Pricing a print by plastic weight alone is the most common way to under-charge. This calculator adds four direct costs: material (part weight ÷ spool weight × spool price), electricity (average watts × hours ÷ 1000 × price per kWh), machine wear (print hours × a per-hour reserve you choose) and labor (one fixed amount per job). A failure reserve is then added as a percentage of that subtotal, and your markup is applied on top of the resulting cost. With the default inputs (120 g, 6.5 h, 120 W) the true cost is about 7.63 and the suggested price 11.45. All figures are estimates for planning, not an accounting or tax statement.
Where the money goes: five prints, and one batch trick
All rows use the tool’s starting values: a $22 spool of 1000 g, 120 W, $0.22 per kWh, $0.25 wear per hour, $2.50 setup, a 10% failure reserve and a 50% markup. True cost includes the failure reserve; the suggested price adds the markup on top. Your own prices will move every number.
| Part | Material | Power + wear | Setup | True cost | Suggested price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 g / 1 h | $0.33 | $0.28 | $2.50 | $3.42 | $5.13 |
| 60 g / 3 h | $1.32 | $0.83 | $2.50 | $5.11 | $7.67 |
| 120 g / 6.5 h | $2.64 | $1.80 | $2.50 | $7.63 | $11.45 |
| 350 g / 22 h | $7.70 | $6.08 | $2.50 | $17.91 | $26.86 |
| 800 g / 60 h | $17.60 | $16.58 | $2.50 | $40.35 | $60.53 |
Nora’s batch trick. She sells keychains (15 g, 1 hour), which the tool prices at $5.13 each if printed one at a time. Printing 10 on one plate (150 g, 8 hours) is a single job, so the $2.50 setup is paid once: true cost $8.81, or $0.88 per piece, and a suggested $1.32 each. Note the 50% markup is on cost, so the margin on the price is one third, not half. Raising the failure reserve is the cheap way to cover warped or abandoned prints on difficult materials. Estimates for planning only.
3D Printing Essentials
A filament bundle, a digital scale and a filament dryer for 3D printing
SUNLU PLA Filament 1.75 mm Multicolor Bundle (8 × 250 g Spools)
A bundle of eight 250 g spools of 1.75 mm PLA in different colors, according to the listing.
Etekcity High-Precision Digital Scale (Grams and Ounces)
A digital scale in grams and ounces with a tare function, according to the listing, for weighing printed parts and leftover filament.
Comgrow SH01 Active Filament Dryer Box & Dehydrator
A filament dryer box that heats spools during printing, according to the listing, for materials that absorb moisture such as PLA, PETG and TPU.
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Frequently asked questions
Why is my real 3D print cost higher than the slicer estimate? ▼
A slicer estimates filament for the model, and many also count supports and purge towers (check your settings). It does not know your electricity, machine wear, the time you spend on setup and clean-up, or the prints that fail and must be redone. This calculator adds those, so its total is normally higher than the slicer's material figure.
How much electricity does a 3D printer use per hour? ▼
It varies widely with the model, bed temperature, enclosure and ambient room temperature. Open-frame printers are often reported in the region of 100 W average while printing and enclosed machines with a heated chamber noticeably more, but those are only ballpark figures. The reliable method is a plug-in watt meter: note the kWh used for one full print, then divide by the print hours to get your own average watts.
What is the difference between markup and margin? ▼
Markup is added to cost, margin is the share of the selling price that is profit. With the default inputs a cost of 7.63 and a 50% markup gives a price of 11.45; the profit of 3.82 is only 33% of that price. To keep a 50% margin you would charge 7.63 ÷ 0.5 = 15.26, which is a 100% markup. Marketplace fees, payment fees, packaging and taxes come out of the profit, so check them before choosing a number.
How does the failure risk reserve work? ▼
The reserve adds a simple percentage of the subtotal: 10% of 6.94 is 0.69. If you actually reprint failed jobs, the exact overhead is p ÷ (1 − p): 1 failed print in 10 is 11.1%, and 1 in 5 is 25%. The slider is therefore slightly optimistic at high failure rates. Track your real failures for a month, then enter that percentage.