3D Printer Cost Per Hour

Electricity, machine wear and filament for 11 popular printers, side by side. Type your own electricity rate and the table updates.

Currency

Electricity · $/kWh

Material · g per hour

Material · $/kg

Printer	Price	Avg draw	Lifespan	Power / h	Wear / h	Machine / h	With material / h
Bambu Lab A1FDM	$299	95 W	4,000 h	1.6¢	7.5¢	9.1¢	53.1¢
Bambu Lab P1SFDM	$399	105 W	4,000 h	1.8¢	10.0¢	11.8¢	55.8¢
Bambu Lab H2DFDM	$1,749	197 W	5,000 h	3.3¢	35.0¢	38.3¢	82.3¢
Prusa MK4SFDM	$799	80 W	6,000 h	1.4¢	13.3¢	14.7¢	58.7¢
Prusa Core OneFDM	$1,299	90 W	6,000 h	1.5¢	21.6¢	23.2¢	67.2¢
Creality Ender-3 V3FDM	$389	120 W^est	3,000 h	2.0¢	13.0¢	15.0¢	59.0¢
Creality K2 Plus ComboFDM	$1,499	250 W^est	5,000 h	4.2¢	30.0¢	34.2¢	78.2¢
Flashforge AD5XFDM	$549	110 W^est	4,000 h	1.9¢	13.7¢	15.6¢	59.6¢
Elegoo Mars 5 UltraResin	$338	55 W^est	3,000 h	0.9¢	11.3¢	12.2¢	56.2¢
Elegoo Saturn 4 UltraResin	$594	65 W^est	3,000 h	1.1¢	19.8¢	20.9¢	64.9¢
Anycubic Photon Mono M7 ProResin	$669	70 W^est	3,000 h	1.2¢	22.3¢	23.5¢	67.5¢

Machine / h is electricity plus wear. With material / h adds 20 g an hour at $22/kg (PLA at this weight; set your own for resin). Prices are the regular US list price on each maker's own store as of September 2026. "est" marks a power draw we estimated because the maker publishes only a maximum rating. Lifespans are our estimates.

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What does a 3D printer really cost per hour?

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Where the money goes in an hour of printing

An hour of printing costs you three things. Electricity is the one people worry about, and it's the smallest. At 17 cents per kWh, the printers here use between about 1 and 4 cents of power an hour. Wear is bigger: every printer wears out nozzles, belts, fans and bearings, and spreading its price over the hours it will run gives you a cost per hour. That's 7 to 35 cents here, depending on the printer. Filament is usually the biggest of all. A print that uses 20 grams an hour of PLA from a $22 spool is 44 cents an hour in plastic.

So the cheapest printer to run isn't the one with the lowest wattage. It's the one that costs the least for the hours it will last. The Bambu Lab A1 comes out lowest in this table at about 9 cents an hour before filament, because it's the least expensive machine and draws under 100 watts. The Bambu Lab H2D and Creality K2 Plus come out highest, mostly because they cost $1,500 to $1,750 to buy.

How the numbers are worked out

Power per hour is the printer's average draw in watts, divided by 1,000, times your electricity rate. Wear per hour is the printer's price divided by the hours we expect it to run before it needs major parts. Machine per hour adds the two. The material column adds your grams per hour times your price per kilogram, so set it to your own filament or resin. For Bambu Lab and Prusa, the power figure is the maker's own published average while printing PLA. For the other printers the maker publishes only a power supply or maximum rating, so we use an estimate and mark it "est". The lifespans are our estimates too. If you know your own printer's numbers, the 3D Print Cost Calculator takes them and works out one print exactly.

Questions this page gets asked

How much does it cost to run a 3D printer per hour?

At the US average electricity rate of about 17 cents per kWh, the printers on this page cost between about 1 and 4 cents an hour in electricity. Wear on the machine adds about 7 to 35 cents an hour, depending on what the printer costs and how long it lasts. Filament is usually the biggest line: 20 grams an hour of PLA on a $22 spool is 44 cents an hour.

Which 3D printer is cheapest to run per hour?

Of the 11 printers here, the Bambu Lab A1 has the lowest machine cost per hour, about 9 cents with electricity and wear at 17 cents per kWh, because it is the cheapest printer and draws under 100 watts. The Bambu Lab P1S is next at about 12 cents.

Is electricity a big part of the cost of 3D printing?

No. Even the hungriest printer here, the Creality K2 Plus at an estimated 250 watts, uses about 4 cents of electricity an hour at 17 cents per kWh. Machine wear and material cost far more per hour than power.

Is a Bambu Lab A1 cheaper to run than a P1S?

Slightly. At 17 cents per kWh the A1 costs about 1.6 cents an hour in power and 7.5 cents in wear, about 9.1 cents in all. The P1S costs about 1.8 cents in power and 10 cents in wear, about 11.8 cents. On a 5 hour print that is a difference of about 13 cents.

Do resin printers cost less to run?

In electricity, yes: the resin printers here draw an estimated 55 to 70 watts, about 1 cent an hour. Their wear cost per hour is similar to filament printers. Resin itself usually costs more per gram than PLA, and resin printers also use consumables like FEP film and isopropyl alcohol.