3D Print Cost Calculator

Most people price a print by eyeballing the filament and forgetting everything else. The spool is usually the smallest honest cost line: a five-hour print draws real electricity, puts five hours of wear on a machine that will not last forever, and carries its share of the prints that end up as spaghetti. This calculator adds all four lines — material, electricity, machine wear, and a failure buffer — plus optional labor and consumables, and shows the fully loaded cost per job, per unit, and per gram.

The printer presets fill in a measured average power draw, purchase price, and expected lifetime for common machines — Bambu A1, P1S, and X1C, Prusa MK4S, Ender-3 V3, and the popular Elegoo resin printers. They are starting points: if you have metered your own machine, type your numbers over them and this page will remember your shop profile for next time.

Questions this tool gets asked

How do I calculate the cost of a 3D print?

Add four things: material (print weight ÷ 1000 × spool price per kg), electricity (printer wattage ÷ 1000 × print hours × your $/kWh rate), machine wear (printer price ÷ expected lifetime hours × print hours), and any labor or consumables. Then divide by your success rate to cover failed prints. This calculator does all of that live as you type.

What wattage should I enter for my printer?

Use the average draw while printing, not the power supply's maximum rating. A typical open-frame FDM printer averages 100–150 W once the bed is at temperature; enclosed high-temp printers can average 200 W or more, and MSLA resin printers often average 50–70 W. The printer presets here use measured community averages — treat them as starting points and meter your own machine for exact numbers.

How does the failure buffer work?

If some percentage of prints fail, every successful print has to absorb the cost of the failures. The calculator divides the per-print cost by your success rate — at a 10% failure rate, a $9.00 print really costs $10.00, because one print in ten becomes scrap. The buffer row shows exactly how much the failure rate adds.

What does the machine cost row mean?

Printers wear out: nozzles, belts, fans, rails, screens on resin machines. Machine cost spreads the printer's purchase price over its expected working life and charges this print for the hours it uses. A $400 printer expected to last 4,000 print hours costs about 10 cents per print hour before any repairs.

How much should I charge for a 3D print?

Cost is the floor, not the price. The suggested tiers here add 50% and 100% on top of your fully loaded cost — a common range for functional prints sold on marketplaces once fees and packaging are considered. Unique or design-heavy work often commands far more than 2× cost; commodity prints sometimes less. Charge for the outcome, and never below the At-cost figure.

Does anything I enter leave my browser?

No. All the math runs in this tab, and the page keeps working offline once loaded. Your shop settings are kept in this browser's local storage only, so they are filled in next time you visit — nothing is uploaded anywhere.

How much electricity does a 3D printer use per hour?

Between about half a cent and 4 cents per hour for most machines at the US average rate. An open-frame FDM printer averages 100–150 W once the bed is up to temperature — at $0.17/kWh that is roughly 2–2.5 cents per hour; enclosed high-temp printers can double it, and resin printers run cheaper at 50–70 W. Set your printer's average draw and your local rate in the calculator above and the electricity row shows your exact figure per job.

How much does it cost to run a 3D printer per hour, all-in?

Electricity is the smallest line. Add machine wear (a $400 printer over 4,000 print hours is ~10¢/hour before repairs) and the failure buffer, and a typical hobby FDM machine really costs 15–30 cents per hour before filament. Material still dominates: a 20 g/hour print in PLA adds ~44¢/hour on a $22 spool. The calculator above adds all four lines for your numbers.

How much should I charge per gram for 3D printing?

Hobby marketplaces commonly land between 10¢ and 50¢ per gram for functional PLA prints — but charging by the gram alone underprices slow, low-mass prints, because time drives electricity and machine wear. Compute your fully loaded cost per gram with the calculator above (it is shown under the total), then apply your markup; never price below the At-cost tier.

Is selling 3D prints profitable?

It can be, but only if you price against the fully loaded cost — material, power, machine wear, failures, and your time — not the spool price. A $2.20-of-filament print that really costs $3.90 loaded and sells for $12 is a healthy margin; the same print sold for $4 'because filament is cheap' loses money on labor alone. Run your numbers above, then check marketplace fees against the Shop-rate tier.

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