3D Printing Pricing Calculator: Price One Print From Grams, Hours and Failures

3D printing pricing formula: the six lines of one print

A print's cost is six lines: filament, machine time, a failed-print allowance, hands-on labour, packaging, then margin. The slicer gives you the grams and hours; the rest are your own numbers.

1. Filament = grams (supports and purge included) / 1,000 x price per kilogram.
2. Machine rate per print hour = printer cost / print hours you write it off over + watts / 1,000 x price per kWh.
3. Machine cost = print hours x machine rate.
4. Failed-print allowance = (filament + machine) x (1 / (1 - failure %) - 1): the reprints one good part carries.
5. Labour = hands-on minutes / 60 x labour cost per hour, plus packaging.
6. Price = total cost / (1 - margin).

I build pricing maths; I do not run a print farm. Every price, rate, wattage and percentage here is an assumption. Take grams and hours from your slicer, the filament price from your receipt and the kWh price from your power bill.

The example's machine rate: $750.00 / 4,000 hours = $0.1875 of wear, plus 120 W / 1,000 x $0.16 = $0.0192 of power, about $0.21 an hour.

3D print price calculator (opens on the example part)

Type your slicer grams and hours, filament price, printer cost, power, hands-on minutes, failure rate and margin. It opens on the example and shows $15.70.

Check it: $2.11 filament + $1.14 machine + $0.21 failures + $6.00 labour + $0.75 packaging = $10.21. Divided by 0.65 that is $15.70, or $0.16 a gram.

Does the filament x 3 rule work? Four parts tested

No: the multiple a full cost build needs swings from about 3 to over 25, because labour and machine time do not scale with grams. Each row below is a computed print with the example's rates.

On the small part, filament x 3 is $0.78 against a $4.40 cost. On the long print it is $16.50 against $19.00. Only the heavy, fast part comes out ahead, at $26.40 against a costed price of $24.75. A flat multiple over-prices heavy quick prints and under-prices small fiddly ones.

How much to charge per hour? Answer it backwards. Price per print hour is an output: $9.02 on the small part, $15.70 / 5.5 = $2.85 on the example and $1.46 on the long print. A single hourly rate cannot fit all three.

Machine rate per print hour: printer cost, write-off hours and power

The machine rate is the printer's price spread over the print hours you expect from it, plus power. All three printers below are assumptions; the write-off hours are your own estimate of a printer's working life.

Electricity is small. The example uses 0.66 kWh: $0.11, 0.7% of the price. At half and double the assumed $0.16 a kWh the price is $15.62 and $15.87, a $0.25 swing. For your own figure, use your bill; the U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes a table of average electricity prices by state. Prices change month to month, so none is quoted here.

Failed prints: the allowance at 0, 5, 10 and 20%

Spread failures across the good prints. The allowance covers the filament and machine time of the reprints; your hands-on minutes are counted once.

Why long prints need a higher rate: one failed 20-hour print burns $9.63 of filament and machine time. The small part earns $2.37 of profit each, so that one failure eats more than the profit on 4 of them. Track your own failure rate by print length and use the higher figure for long jobs.

Hands-on minutes, post-processing and custom design

On the example, hands-on time is the largest cost line. Slicing, plate prep, removal, supports, sanding, priming and painting all go in as minutes.

The labour rate is a cost you choose, here $24.00 an hour. If you are self-employed, the IRS says the self-employment tax rate is 15.3%, so build that into the rate you pay yourself.

Custom design or CAD work is not print time. Quote modelling as design hours at your own hourly rate, then add the print priced as above. The freelance hourly rate calculator works out that rate from your income target and billable hours.

Bulk orders: 1, 10 or 50 of a part on shared plates

Set-up is shared across a plate, so the per-part price falls with quantity. Assumed: the small part from the shortcut table, 10 to a plate, 6 minutes of slicing and plate prep per plate and 2 minutes of removal and cleanup per part; print hours and grams scale with the count.

The drop from $6.76 to $2.40 is set-up minutes and packaging spread over ten parts, not a discount. That is the honest basis of a bulk price.

Selling 3D prints online: fees, copyright, trademarks and tax

Fees. A platform or payment fee taken as a percentage of the sale has to be divided out, not added. With an assumed 10% fee, the example needs $15.70 / 0.90 = $17.44. Adding 10% on top gives $17.27, which leaves $15.54 after the fee. Use your platform's own fee schedule. For retail and wholesale pricing of a product line, see the product pricing calculator.

Other people's designs. The U.S. Copyright Office lists the owner's exclusive rights, including to "Reproduce the work in copies" and "Distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale". Before you sell prints of a downloaded model, read its licence: a licence may bar commercial use. Ask the designer or a lawyer when in doubt.

Logos and brand names. The USPTO says a trademark "can be any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies your goods or services." Printing someone else's logo on parts you sell raises that question; get permission or leave it off.

Sales tax rules differ by state. Check with your state's revenue department whether your prints are taxable.

Resin printing uses the same formula: resin millilitres times the price per millilitre in place of grams, and the washing liquid, gloves and filters as consumables in the packaging line.

3D print pricing formulas for Excel or Google Sheets, and the markup mistake

Layout: inputs in B2 to B13 as each note lists them; results in B14 to B16.

The mistake: adding 35% to cost in place of dividing. On the example that charges $13.78 and keeps 25.93% of the price, not 35%: $1.92 short on every print. The markup vs margin calculator has the conversion chart.

Calculator, starter sheet or custom build: where to keep your price list

For one quote, the calculator above is enough. A price list for many parts belongs in a sheet of your own.

If you also quote on-site or design jobs by the hour, the free job pricing calculator prices a job from hours, wage and overhead. It is not a 3D printing tool.

Put on your price list: each printer's machine rate, each filament's price per gram, your failure rate by print length, hands-on minutes by finish, packaging, the plate set-up minutes for bulk orders, fees and a separate design-hour rate.

Step-by-step: 3D Printing Pricing Calculator: Price One Print From Grams, Hours and Failures

1. Read the slicer. Grams including supports and purge, and the print time in hours.
2. Set the machine rate. Printer cost / write-off hours + watts / 1,000 x your kWh price.
3. Add failures. (Filament + machine) x (1 / (1 - failure %) - 1); use a higher rate for long prints.
4. Add hands-on time and packaging. Minutes for slicing, removal, supports and finishing / 60 x your labour cost per hour, plus packaging.
5. Divide by one minus margin. Total cost / (1 - margin); for 35%, divide by 0.65. Divide out any percentage selling fee the same way.

Related guides