3D Print Cost Calculator
Add up the whole print, not just the plastic. Filament, machine hours, electricity, a failure allowance, your own time and packaging — then a price once your margin and selling fees are included.
Everything a print costs
Six cost lines plus your margin and fees. Nothing is sent anywhere.
What this calculator adds up
Six lines go into a part cost, and the price you charge sits on top of all six. The calculator never hides one behind an average:
machine = print hours × machine cost per hour
electricity= (watts ÷ 1000) × print hours × tariff per kWh
subtotal = filament + machine + electricity
failure = subtotal × failure rate
labour = (hands-on minutes ÷ 60) × your hourly rate
cost per part = subtotal + failure + labour + packaging
price = cost × (1 + margin) ÷ (1 − platform fee − payment fee)
Note the order of the last line. Fees come out of the sale price, so you cannot simply add a percentage to your cost — the fee has to be grossed up, which is why the division is there rather than a plain addition.
Why machine time is the line everybody forgets
Filament is visible. You buy a spool, you watch it empty. Machine time is invisible, because the printer is already bought and paid for and the electricity bill arrives as one number at the end of the month.
The test is opportunity cost. A printer running a 14-hour job cannot run anything else for 14 hours. If you could sell that same machine hour for $0.20 on another job, then this job consumed $2.80 of capacity whether or not any money changed hands during it. That is the number the machine-hour field is asking for.
The common failure is pricing a light, long print from material alone. A 12 g model that takes 9 hours looks like a 26-cent part. Add the machine hours, the electricity and a failure allowance and it is closer to a $3 part. On long prints, material is usually the smallest of the three big costs.
Worked example: a 45 g phone stand
Using the calculator's own defaults — a $22 spool of 1000 g, a 45 g model, 12% waste, 4.3 hours on a machine costed at $0.20/h drawing 120 W at $0.30/kWh, an 8% failure rate, 6 minutes of your time at $12/h and $0.35 of packaging:
The interesting number is the last one. A 30% margin sounds like it should leave about a dollar on a $3.84 part, and it does — but only after the $0.55 of selling fees has been absorbed. Price from cost plus margin without grossing the fees up, and you keep $0.65 instead.
How to set your machine-hour rate
There is no industry figure to look up here, and any site that gives you one is guessing. Three defensible ways to arrive at your own:
- Opportunity cost. The rate you are already paid for that machine hour on other work. If your order book is full, this is the correct number.
- Replacement. Printer price divided by the hours you expect it to run before you replace it, plus an allowance for nozzles, belts, wheels and the occasional board. A $600 printer you expect to run 4000 hours before replacing is $0.15/h before parts.
- Floor. What you would have to charge to fund the machine out of this job alone. Useful for one-off quotes on equipment you bought specifically for a customer.
Whatever you pick, put it in the field and keep it consistent between jobs. A number that changes per customer is not a rate, it is a markup.
What to leave out of a per-part cost
Design time, photography, listing fees, advertising and your phone bill are real costs, but they are costs of running the shop, not of producing one part. Folding them into a per-part figure makes the part look expensive and hides the fact that your shop overhead is the problem.
Keep them separate: a per-part cost that covers material, machine, power, failures, labour and packaging, and a monthly overhead you recover through the margin. That way, when a customer asks you to justify a price, you can show them six lines they can check.
Important assumptions
The defaults are examples chosen to be plausible — a $22 spool, 4.3 hours, 120 W, $0.30/kWh, an 8% failure rate. They are not measured averages, and filament, electricity and marketplace fees all move. The labour rate is a placeholder for your own time, not advice about what to charge.
The calculator assumes one print per job and that your failure rate applies uniformly. Neither is quite true: a failure on a 14-hour print costs more than a failure on a keyring. If you are quoting something long, raise the failure allowance for that quote specifically rather than permanently raising it for everything.
Questions
How do I work out what a 3D print costs to make?
Add six lines: filament used including waste, machine hours at your own hourly rate, electricity in kilowatt-hours, an allowance for failed prints, your hands-on time, and packaging. On a 45 g print with the site's defaults that comes to about $3.84. Filament alone would have been $1.11, which is why pricing from the spool sticker fails.
Should machine time be included if I already own the printer?
Yes. Ownership is a separate question from consumption. A printer running one job cannot run another, so every print has an opportunity cost equal to the machine hours it occupies. If you leave it out, long light prints price below cost and you will not notice until the nozzle needs replacing.
What is a reasonable failure rate to use?
Use your own, measured: count the prints you scrapped last month and divide by the total you started. For a dialled-in printer on a familiar material 5% to 10% is common. While you are tuning a new filament or pushing a difficult geometry, 15% or more is realistic. Never set it to zero — a rate of zero means you have not counted.
Why can't I just add my margin to the cost?
Because selling fees are charged on the sale price, not on your cost. To keep 30% after a 10% total fee you have to divide by (1 − 0.10), not multiply by 1.30. On a $3.84 part the difference is $0.50 of profit per unit, which compounds fast across a batch.