3D Print Cost Calculator
Real filament, electricity, machine time & labor cost breakdown · free, no signup
See 3D Print Cost Calculator in action
Free 3D Print Cost Calculator
Filament weighs almost nothing per gram, but a real print also costs electricity, machine wear and your own time — and guessing at a price undercharges most makers selling prints. Enter the real grams of filament used, your filament price per kilogram, the print duration, your printer's power draw and your local electricity price, an hourly machine-time rate (covering depreciation and maintenance) and any labor/post-processing time, and this tool adds up the real, itemized cost.
A waste/failure allowance percentage accounts for the real rate of failed or scrapped prints across a batch, and a markup percentage turns the real cost into a suggested sale price — so the final number reflects what a print genuinely costs to produce, not just the filament.
Key features
Full real cost breakdown
Filament, electricity, machine time and labor shown separately, not just a single total.
Waste/failure allowance
Spreads the real cost of occasional failed prints across every successful one.
Suggested sale price
Applies your markup percentage to the real total cost automatically.
Instant recalculation
Every field updates the real result immediately as you type.
How to use it
- Enter filament grams used and price per kg.
- Enter print time and your printer's wattage and electricity price.
- Enter your machine hourly rate and any labor time.
- Set a waste allowance and markup to see the suggested price.
Worked example
Example
A print using 45 g of $22/kg PLA, running 3.5 hours on a printer drawing 120 W at $0.15/kWh, with a $1.50/hr machine rate and 10 minutes of labor at $18/hr, comes to a real cost (including a 15% waste allowance) of about $10.70 — and with a 40% markup, a suggested sale price of roughly $14.98.
Who uses this tool
Makers pricing prints to sell
Get a real, defensible cost breakdown instead of guessing a round number.
Print farms quoting jobs
Work from real per-job inputs (grams, time, machine rate) instead of a flat per-gram rule of thumb.
Hobbyists curious what a print actually costs
See filament, electricity and machine time broken out separately.
Tips for the best results
- Machine hourly rate should roughly cover depreciation (printer cost divided by its expected lifetime hours) plus maintenance — a common starting figure is $0.50–$2/hr for a typical desktop FDM printer.
- Build a waste allowance from your own real failure rate over recent prints rather than a guess — even a reliable setup benefits from a small buffer.
- For a batch of identical prints, multiply the per-unit filament and time figures first, then run the total through the calculator once, since machine time and labor often don't scale perfectly linearly per unit.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Pricing only on filament weight and ignoring electricity, machine wear and your own time — the real cost of a print is almost always more than the filament alone.
- Using a national average electricity price instead of your actual local rate, which can be off by a large margin depending on region and time of use.
- Forgetting a waste/failure allowance entirely, which means occasional failed prints are quietly absorbed as pure loss instead of spread across successful sales.
Why use AZRS QuickFix?
It is 100% free, needs no signup and has no watermark or usage limits. The tool runs in your browser, so what you type stays on your device, and it works on phones, tablets and desktops. New tools are added every week — bookmark this page or browse the full QuickFix toolbox.
Frequently asked questions
What machine hourly rate should I use?
A common approach is (printer purchase price ÷ expected lifetime hours) plus an estimate for maintenance and upgrades — commonly $0.50 to $2 per hour for a typical desktop FDM printer, more for industrial machines.
Does this include the cost of failed prints?
Yes, indirectly — the waste/failure allowance percentage increases the total to account for the real rate of failed prints across a batch.
Can I use this for resin printing?
The filament, electricity and machine-time logic works the same way for resin cost per gram/ml, though you would enter resin cost and usage in the filament fields.
Is my data saved anywhere?
No, every figure is entered and calculated locally in your browser and nothing is stored or sent anywhere.