3D printing cost & price calculator

3D Printing Cost Calculator

Price a 3D print properly. Add material, electricity, machine time, labour, a failure reserve, overhead and platform fees, then solve a sell price at your target margin — with every line of the arithmetic expanded so you can show a customer exactly how the number was built. Free, no signup, and nothing is uploaded.

Itemised cost basisMargin & markup solved back through fees Quantity tiers

The tool works in two modes, switched at the top:

Quick quote — one-off pricing for a single print: every cost layer itemised, and a sell price solved at your target margin after platform fees.
Job workspace — saved printer, material and business profiles, multi-part jobs rolled into one price, and a printable customer quote that never exposes your costs.

Start from a file

Processed locally — nothing is uploaded

Drop the slicer’s G-code to pull in its own time and filament estimates, or an STL for a rough geometry estimate of the material.

Drop a .gcode or .stl file here, or

1Material

Filament usedfrom slicer or scale

Spool price

Spool weight

Spool wastetail, tangles, purge

2Printer, time & energy

Print timeslicer estimate

Average power drawmeasured beats nameplate

Electricity rate

$ / kWh

Printer cost

Residual valueresale at end of life

Lifetime maintenance

Useful lifeyour assumption

3Labour & failure

Labour rate

$ / h

Setup & slicingonce per order

min

Post-processingper unit

min

Packingper unit

min

Failure rateexpected-value reserve

Layers wasted on a failed print

4Overhead, fees & margin

Overhead model

Overhead per order

Overhead per unit

Packaging / extras per unit

Fixed extras per order

Platform fee% of final price

Fixed listing fee

Pricing methodmargin ≠ markup

Target marginprofit ÷ price

Quantity

pcs

Currency

Recommended price

$26.73for 1 · $26.73/unit

Cost / unit: $16.67
Batch cost: $16.67
Take-home (payout): $24.69
Profit: $8.02
Margin: 30.0%; profit ÷ price
Markup: 48.1%; profit ÷ cost
Fees paid: $2.04
Failure reserve: $0.18; ≈ 1.09 attempts

Price solved so that after the platform fee your payout still covers cost at the target margin. An estimate, not a guarantee.

Cost per unit by quantity

Cost per unit by order quantity
Quantity	Batch cost	Cost / unit	Setup / unit
×1	$16.67	$16.67	$8.17
×2	$25.18	$12.59	$4.08
×5	$50.70	$10.14	$1.63
×10	$93.23	$9.32	$0.82

Itemised cost basis

Itemised cost breakdown per unit
Cost layer	Arithmetic	Per unit
Material (filament)0.050 kg × $26.32/kg	0.050 kg × $26.32/kg	$1.32
Energy0.720 kWh × $0.16/kWh	0.720 kWh × $0.16/kWh	$0.12
Machine time (depreciation + maintenance)6.00 h × $0.11/h	6.00 h × $0.11/h	$0.65
Labour — Setup & slicingper order0.33 h × $20.00/h	0.33 h × $20.00/h	$6.67
Labour — Post-processing0.17 h × $20.00/h	0.17 h × $20.00/h	$3.33
Labour — Packing0.08 h × $20.00/h	0.08 h × $20.00/h	$1.67
Failure reserve (expected value)$2.08 × 8% ÷ (1 − 8%)	$2.08 × 8% ÷ (1 − 8%)	$0.18
Overhead (per unit)explicit per-unit allocation	explicit per-unit allocation	$0.50
Overhead (per order)per orderexplicit per-order allocation	explicit per-order allocation	$1.50
Packaging / consumables / shipping (per unit)per-unit extras	per-unit extras	$0.75
Cost per unitorder costs amortised over 1		$16.67

What goes into the cost of a 3D print?

A defensible price is the sum of distinct, itemisable layers. Most calculators hand you a single number; this one shows each layer and the arithmetic behind it, so the figure holds up when a customer asks how you arrived at it.

Material. Filament is costed by weight at your price per kilogram, with an allowance for spool waste. Resin is costed by volume at your price per litre, with IPA, gloves and FEP wear added as separate consumables.
Energy. Average watts × print hours × your electricity rate, with the kilowatt-hour figure shown so you can check it against a meter.
Machine ownership. Depreciation per hour — (purchase + lifetime maintenance − residual) ÷ useful print hours — so the printer pays for itself over its life.
Labour. Setup, post-processing and packing at your hourly rate, with one-time setup kept separate from per-unit work so batch pricing stays honest.
Failure reserve. An expected-value uplift — repeatable cost × p ÷ (1 − p) — reflecting the prints that genuinely fail. You choose which layers are wasted on a failed attempt.
Overhead. Either an hourly allocation of rent, software and tools, or explicit per-job lines — labelled, never combined invisibly.

How the price is solved

With a target margin, the price is solved backwards so that after the platform takes its percentage and fixed fee, your payout still covers cost at that margin:

price = (cost + fixed_fee) / (1 − percentage_fee − margin)

Margin and markup are not the same operation. Margin is profit as a share of price; markup is profit as a share of cost. The calculator lets you pick either and labels the result, and the pricing guide walks through both with worked numbers.

Quantity changes the per-unit cost

One-time costs — setup labour and per-order overhead — spread across the batch, so the cost per unit falls as quantity rises. The tier table shows this directly, including the margin you would actually make at each tier rather than endorsing a discount.

Related calculators

Filament cost calculator

Cost per gram, per print and per spool, with spool waste factored in.

Resin print cost calculator

Resin by volume plus wash and consumable costs, itemised.

Electricity cost calculator

Watts × time × rate, with the kWh shown transparently.

Print time calculator

Read the slicer's own time estimate from G-code, or convert manually.

Etsy pricing calculator

Solve your list price for a target take-home after Etsy fees.

How to price 3D prints

The full formula, worked examples and the mistakes to avoid.

Frequently asked questions

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

Add up every layer that goes into the part — material by weight, electricity by the kilowatt-hour, machine depreciation per hour, your labour, a failure reserve, and overhead — then solve a price that covers those costs at your target margin after platform fees. The calculator above itemises each layer and shows the arithmetic.

What is the difference between markup and margin?

Margin is profit as a share of the selling price; markup is profit as a share of the cost. A 30% margin prices a $10 cost at about $14.29, while a 30% markup prices it at $13.00. Confusing the two is the most common pricing mistake sellers make — the calculator supports both and labels which one you are using.

How much should I charge for 3D printing?

Charge enough to cover material, energy, machine wear, your time, failed prints, overhead and fees, plus the margin your business needs. There is no universal rate — a $200 hobby printer and a $1,200 workhorse depreciate very differently per hour. Enter your own numbers; the result is a transparent estimate, not a guarantee of profit.

Does this calculator upload my files?

No. G-code and STL files are parsed entirely in your browser and never leave your device. Inputs and saved settings stay in local storage. See the privacy page for exactly what analytics does and does not see.

Can I work out print time from an STL file?

Not reliably. An STL gives geometry — volume and a bounding box — but print time depends on slicer settings an STL does not contain. For an honest time estimate, slice the model and read the slicer’s own estimate from the G-code with the print time calculator.

Every figure here is a transparent estimate based on the inputs you provide. It is not a guarantee of print success, dimensional accuracy, strength or delivery time. The maths, its sources and its limitations are documented in the methodology.