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Cost & quoting

3D printing cost calculator

The full cost of one good print — plastic, electricity, machine hours and the ones you throw away — plus the price to charge so your margin survives contact with reality.

Parameters checked 2026-10-23·Dataset sources are listed here; enable JavaScript to load the live list.
JavaScript is switched off. The calculator below needs JavaScript. The formulas and the worked example further down still print correctly, so you can follow the maths by hand.
How do you know the size of the model?
Slicers report one or the other. Pick whichever you already have.
Cura: Volume under the model info. PrusaSlicer: Volume in the sliced statistics.
Density decides how heavy a volume is. Sourced densities, not guesses.
Use your slicer's estimate. If you do not have one, estimate it here — it is accurate to about ±20%.
Sets the wattage used for electricity and the machine-hour defaults.
Official average household rates, dated. Override the number if your bill differs.
Share of prints you bin and reprint.
On the selling price, not a markup on cost.
Fill it in and the margin below becomes the margin you would actually earn.
Display only — the maths is identical in every currency.
Machine cost, electricity rate, material price, your own time
What you paid, not what it is worth now.
Printing hours before you replace it.
Nozzles, beds, belts, bearings — spread over the hours.
Overrides the regional average.
The dataset ships with example prices. Put in what you actually paid per spool.
Slicing, setup, support removal, sanding.
Leave at zero if you only want machine costs.

How the numbers are built

Five lines, in this order. Nothing is hidden in a magic “3D printing cost” constant.

LineFormulaWhy
Materialweight_g ÷ 1000 × price_per_kgWeight comes from the slicer, or from volume × density.
Electricitywatts ÷ 1000 × hours × price_per_kWhMeasured average draw, not the power-supply rating.
Machine time(printer_cost ÷ life_hours + maintenance_per_hour) × hoursDepreciation and wear only accrue while the machine runs.
Failure amortisationsubtotal × f ÷ (1 − f)To deliver one good unit at failure rate f you must print 1/(1−f) units.
Unit costsubtotal ÷ (1 − f)Subtotal plus the failure line, which is the same thing.
Suggested priceunit cost ÷ (1 − margin)Margin is a share of the price, not a markup on cost.

A 30% margin is not “cost × 1.3”. Cost × 1.3 gives a 23% margin. The difference is the entire point of quoting properly.

Worked example, checked by hand

100 g of PLA, 5 hours, entry-level printer, US average household electricity, 10% failure rate, 30% target margin. Every number below is read from the shipped dataset at build time, so this table and the calculator cannot drift apart.

LineWorkingAmount
Material0.100 kg × $14.99/kg$1.4990
Electricity0.125 kW × 5 h × $0.1831/kWh$0.1144
Machine time($279.00 ÷ 8,000 h + $0.0035/h) × 5 h$0.1918
Subtotal$1.8053
Failures at 10%$1.8053 × 0.10 ÷ 0.90$0.2006
Cost per good unit$2.0058
Price at 30% margin$2.0058 ÷ 0.70$2.8655
Profit per unit$0.8596

The same inputs loaded into the calculator produce those figures to the cent. If your numbers differ, one of the six inputs is different — the arithmetic does not have a second mode.

What this calculator deliberately does not do

  • It does not add packaging, shipping or payment fees. If you sell through a marketplace, those come out of the price you set here.
  • It does not know your scrap rate better than you do. Measure twenty prints, then set the failure rate to what actually happened.
  • It does not model multi-material or purge towers. Add the purge weight to the material weight.

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