OnSumoTools

3D Print Cost Calculator

Price a print with filament, power, machine wear, failed jobs, and your service markup.

Filament

Print time and power

Machine and pricing

Cost per unit

$3.19

Total (1)

$3.19

Sale price

$4.15

Sale per unit

$4.15

Cost breakdown

Filament
$2.20
Electricity
$0.07
Depreciation
$0.60
Failure buffer
$0.32
Base before failure
$2.87

Sensitivity: at $30/kg filament (same grams and settings), cost per unit is $4.08.

Break-even prints to recover printer purchase via depreciation on this job: about 500 prints at 4 h each.

Figures are estimates for planning. Labor, shipping, and post-processing are not included unless you add them to markup.

How does the 3D Print Cost Calculator work step by step?

Enter the weight of filament used (from your slicer), the print duration, your electricity rate, and your printer's purchase cost and expected lifespan. The calculator computes four cost components, adjusts for your failure rate, and returns the per-unit cost plus a sale price at your target markup.

What does a typical 3D Print Cost Calculator result look like?

Inputs: 100g PLA at $22/kg, 4-hour print, 150W printer at $0.12/kWh, $300 printer with 2,000-hour lifespan, 10% failure rate, 30% markup, quantity 1. That $4.15 is the minimum honest price for one unit. Scale it to 50 units and the total sale value is $207.50.

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Frequently asked questions

  • What is the typical cost to 3D print something?

    Most hobbyist FDM prints fall between $1 and $10 in true cost when you include filament, electricity, and depreciation. Larger prints, specialty filaments like PETG or TPU, multi-material setups, or high failure rates push costs higher. Resin prints tend to cost more per gram than PLA.

  • Why include a failure rate?

    FDM printing fails regularly due to adhesion problems, warping, filament tangles, or power interruptions. A 10% failure rate means roughly 1 in 10 jobs requires a full reprint, consuming another set of materials and machine time. Including this in your base cost means failed prints do not come out of your margin.

  • Does this work for resin printers?

    The calculator handles any print where you can enter resin volume (in grams), printer wattage, and cost per kg. The formula is the same. Resin typically costs $30-$80/kg vs. $20-$25/kg for PLA, so filament cost dominates more in resin jobs.

  • What markup should I charge for a print service?

    30-50% is a common starting range for covering labor (setup, removal, post-processing), packaging, and a basic profit margin. Complex prints, customer-specific supports, post-processing like sanding or painting, and rush orders justify higher markups. The sale price output here covers materials and machine cost, labor is separate.

  • How accurate is the electricity cost calculation?

    The calculation uses your rated printer wattage and actual print time. In practice, printers do not draw full rated wattage for the entire print (heating, idle, movement vary). Use 80% of rated wattage for a closer estimate of actual draw, or check your Kill-A-Watt meter if you have one.

  • Does quantity affect per-unit cost?

    The per-unit cost stays constant with the default inputs, depreciation and electricity scale with hours and quantity proportionally. The total cost field multiplies by quantity. Batch printing multiple parts per build plate would lower per-part cost, but that optimization requires entering adjusted times and weights per part.

What does a print really cost?

Most people count filament and stop. That's about half the story. Your printer uses electricity, wears out over time, and sometimes a print fails and the filament goes in the bin. Leave those out and you'll underprice anything you sell.

The calculator adds them all up: material, power, machine depreciation and a failure buffer. If you sell prints, it also adds your markup and gives a sale price.

The cost parts

Material cost is the weight of filament used times the price per gram. Get the weight from your slicer. Spool price divided by spool weight gives the per-gram price.

Electricity depends on printer wattage, print time and your local rate. A typical hobby printer draws less than you'd expect once it's at temperature, so enter a realistic average and not the peak figure on the label.

Depreciation spreads the printer's price over its working life. If a $400 machine lasts about 4,000 hours, that's ten cents per hour. Add a little for nozzles and belts.

Why include failure rate

Prints fail. Spaghetti, bed adhesion, a clog at hour six. If one in ten prints goes wrong, you've paid for ten and sold nine. A failure buffer of a few percent spreads that cost over everything you sell. Be honest about your own number, and watch it drop as your printer gets tuned.

Resin printers

The method works for resin as well. Enter resin weight and cost per gram in place of filament, and add the cost of isopropyl alcohol, gloves and wash time as extra costs. Resin tends to cost more per gram and needs more cleanup labor.

Setting a sale price

Markup is where profit lives. A common starting point for a print service is two to three times the raw cost, because you also pay for your time, design work, packaging, platform fees and support. Check what similar sellers charge and see if the numbers work.

Don't forget labor. Post-processing, sanding and painting can take longer than the print itself. If you count your time at zero, you're working for free.

Quantity and sensitivity

Per-unit cost drops a little for batches, since setup and failure risk spread across more pieces, but the material and power costs stay linear. A sensitivity view shows how changes in filament price or print time shift the total, so you can spot what matters most.

A pie chart breaks down where the money goes. For many prints, material is the largest slice. For long prints on a power-hungry machine, power and wear grow.

The calculation runs in your browser and your numbers aren't stored.