3D Print Cost Calculator

The 3D print cost calculator starts with one complete printing attempt, then estimates the cost of producing one successful item. Enter the material mass reported by your slicer, including supports, brim, raft and purge that your process consumes. Material cost is used grams divided by purchased pack grams, multiplied by pack price. Alternatively, enter a known price per kilogram. PLA, PETG, ABS and Resin are descriptive labels; choosing one does not insert a market price or change the calculation.

Preparation labor repeats with every attempt. Finishing labor and packaging occur once per successful item. Under a constant 10% full-attempt failure assumption, expected attempts are 1 ÷ 0.90, approximately 1.111111 per success. This is an expected average, not a prediction that the next ten prints contain exactly one failure. If failures stop early or recover material, the full-attempt assumption may overstate their consumption; use measured job history when setting your inputs.

Quantity multiplies the successful-item cost. It represents identical individually printed items, rather than an inferred arrangement on a build plate. The tool does not optimize nesting, shared preparation, batch yield or machine capacity. All monetary inputs must already use the selected currency. Displayed rows round for readability, while calculations retain their underlying precision. Markup and margin suggestions round the final unit selling price upward to a cent; custom prices use your entered amount.

Choose each assumption from your own records, then retain it with the estimate for later comparison.

Start with a saved slicer estimate and your own purchase records. Enter the material consumed per attempt in grams, then either the net pack weight and pack price or a price per kilogram. Exclude the empty spool or bottle from net material weight. Resin volume is not converted to mass here: obtain grams from a measured quantity or another supported estimate. Replace every illustrative starting value before treating the result as your project estimate.

Enter print duration in hours and measured average printer power in watts. A nameplate maximum is a different measurement from average consumption over the job. Multiply the resulting kWh by your applicable electricity rate. Record the rate basis in your project notes if it changes by time or usage. Enter purchase cost, estimated residual value and useful operating hours for printer allocation; this is your costing assumption, not an accounting depreciation schedule.

Next separate active labor from unattended printing. Preparation minutes cover work repeated at the beginning of an attempt. Finishing minutes cover work after a successful item, such as support removal or cleanup. Enter an hourly labor rate, a maintenance allowance and other consumables. Include process-specific washing or curing resources yourself. Enter an explicit zero only when intentionally excluding a cost. A blank input remains unknown and blocks a completed estimate.

Choose quantity and a failure percentage below 100, then inspect the breakdown before choosing a selling price. Compare markup, target margin or a custom unit price. Marketplace fees start excluded. If enabling the Etsy scenario, select the bank-account region, check the currency, fill every required fee field and confirm the item-only scope. UK and Germany require your converted listing allowance; the calculator supplies no exchange rate.

Finally, read the customer estimate separately from the internal analysis. Confirm material label, quantity, unit price and exclusions. The print button opens the browser print dialog for that customer sheet. Check the print preview before sharing any estimate with a buyer.

The table uses one explicit arithmetic example, not observed supplier prices or an industry average. Assume 100 grams per attempt, a 1000 gram pack costing USD 20, four print hours, 120 average watts and electricity at USD 0.20 per kWh. The printer costs USD 500 with USD 50 residual value and 5000 useful hours. Maintenance is USD 0.10 per hour, preparation takes five minutes at USD 18 per hour, and consumables cost USD 0.10 per attempt.

The last three rows assume 10% full-attempt failures, ten finishing minutes and USD 0.50 packaging. They produce approximately USD 8.451111 per successful item before a selling-price decision. Compare unrounded contributions when reproducing the calculation; summing rounded screen values can differ slightly. Your measured material, power and labor inputs may be entirely different. This reference explains the model and supplies no purchasing recommendation, manufacturing tolerance or accepted customer price.

One successful item with a failure allowance

Use the illustrative table above. Its attempt subtotal is USD 4.456, and success rate is 90%. Expected attempt cost is 4.456 ÷ 0.90 = USD 4.951111…. Add USD 3 finishing labor and USD 0.50 packaging to obtain USD 8.451111… per successful item. Five identical items cost approximately USD 42.255556 before a selling-price choice. The failed-attempt allowance is approximately USD 0.495111 per success, rather than 10% of the final cost. Finishing and packaging are not multiplied by the failure allowance. Keep the full precision until the result is displayed.

Markup and margin on the same production cost

Assume a separate job has exactly USD 10 production cost per successful item and quantity four, with fees disabled. A 50% markup gives 10 × 1.50 = USD 15 per item. Revenue is USD 60, production cost is USD 40 and remainder is USD 20. Margin is 20 ÷ 60 = 33.333333…%. Choosing a 50% target margin instead requires 10 ÷ 0.50 = USD 20 per item, giving USD 80 revenue and USD 40 remainder. These two percentages describe different denominators; neither includes costs you left out of the production inputs.

Adding an explicit item-only fee scenario

Keep the four-item job and 50% markup, then model a 6.5% transaction fee, 3% processing, USD 0.25 fixed processing per order and USD 0.20 listing allowance per item. Additional fees are explicitly zero. Percentage fees total 9.5%; fixed fees are 0.25 + 4 × 0.20 = USD 1.05. Required order revenue is (40 × 1.50 + 1.05) ÷ 0.905 = approximately USD 67.458564. Dividing by four and rounding upward gives USD 16.87 per item. Actual modeled revenue becomes USD 67.48, fees USD 7.4606 and remainder USD 20.0194. This arithmetic scenario excludes shipping, gift wrap, sales tax and every unentered charge.

Recheck fee bases against the actual order before turning this internal scenario into a price commitment.

Do not charge your full hourly labor rate for unattended printer hours unless that is your deliberate business assumption. The form separates print hours from hands-on minutes so you can inspect both. Likewise, avoid adding a failure surcharge twice: the successful-item formula already repeats all attempt costs. Entering failure-adjusted material weight and also applying a failure percentage counts the same allowance twice unless the extra weight covers something different.

Check fee bases before interpreting a remainder as take-home profit. This Etsy scenario applies all percentage fees to item revenue. Actual charges can involve shipping, taxes, fee VAT, regulatory charges, ads, currency conversion or deposits. A fixed allowance cannot recreate every charging rule. Presets are editable snapshots; the tool does not contact Etsy for a live account bill.

Keep one-time design work, overhead, delivery and taxes in your final commercial review if they are outside the entered inputs. A customer quote preview is an estimate, not an order confirmation, payment request or delivery commitment. Read its exclusions and the browser print preview together. If sharing a settings link is available, its query values can appear in browser history and server logs; omit sensitive project information.