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True Trade Cost

3D Printing Cost Calculator: Price Prints by the Batch

Updated

25 miter saw stop block jigs in PLA, each with heat-set inserts, an aluminum face plate and a T-bolt, come to $884.85, or $35.39 a jig, at a $45 break-even rate with 20% on materials and 30% profit. Enter your own part in the yellow boxes and the price per jig moves with it.

This 3D printing cost calculator splits a print job into the printer's hours, which go in materials, and your hours, which go at your rate. Its starting numbers are a trimmed version of the retail jig order in the 3D Printing Pricing Calculator spreadsheet, so you can see a real batch priced before you put in yours.

1. The order
hrs

Logo CAD work, the approval print, slicing, messages and packing the order.

min

Pulling parts, cleanup, inserts, assembly and bagging. Not the print time.

$

Grams of filament, printer wear and power per print hour, plus any hardware.

2. Costs that come with every order

The ones owners leave out most. Put 0 if it doesn't apply.

$
$
$
3. Your rate and profit
$/hr

What each labour hour has to bring in to cover wages and overhead.

%
%

Don't know your break-even rate? Work it out in two minutes with the true hourly rate calculator.

25 jigs$884.85 · $35.39 each

Why the printer hours go in materials and your hands go in minutes

A printer running overnight is not you working overnight. So the calculator treats print time as a running cost: wear, nozzles, belts and power, at cents per print hour, added to filament and hardware. In the example that makes $5.78 of materials per jig, including the cut face plate.

Your time is different. Pulling parts off the plate, cleaning strings, pressing in six inserts, fitting the plate, bolt and knob, then bagging and labeling takes 12.6 minutes a jig. At $45 an hour that is $236.25 for the batch, a bigger number than all the filament in it.

Setup on a print order: logo CAD, approval print and packing

The example carries 4 setup hours. Adding the store's logo to the model, printing one for approval, slicing and loading plates, the messages back and forth and packing the order all happen once, whatever the count. That is $180 at $45.

It is also why a single jig with the same setup prices at $373.60 here. On 10 it is $56.53 each, on 25 it is $35.39 and on 100 it is $24.82. If someone asks for one custom part, you now know what the setup is worth before you open the CAD file.

A repeat batch without the logo CAD work

When the store reorders the same jig, the logo is already on the model and the approval is done. Take 1.5 hours off setup and the 25 jigs come to $797.10, or $31.88 each. That is a fair reorder price you can show with real numbers, rather than a discount picked out of the air.

Keep the one-off boxes honest on a repeat. The cut face plates still carry their own setup charge from the cutting shop, and postage does not get cheaper because the file is old.

What a free print calculator can't see that the spreadsheet does

The $45 break-even rate is the example shop's. Yours comes from your space, printers, software and the hours you really bill: the free true hourly rate calculator works it out. The 20% is a markup on materials, not a margin, and markup vs margin shows why the numbers differ.

The spreadsheet adds an hourly cost for the insert press, a reprint allowance that grows with the batch, a markup on the outside face plates, a 5% cushion, a price list of filament and hardware, a customer quote with three quantities and a job log. Its version of the same 25 jigs comes to $36.71 each rather than $35.39. The 3D printing pricing guide walks through that example.

The $40 minimum stays on. A one-off replacement knob still has to pay for slicing, the plate and the trip to the post office.

How the math in the 3D Printing calculator is checked

Every version of the 3d printing spreadsheet goes through an automatic test before it ships. The test rebuilds the file, recalculates it in a separate spreadsheet engine, and fails the release if any of these is off.

  • The example's break-even rate, $44.57 an hour, is worked out a second time outside the spreadsheet and the two have to agree to the cent.
  • At all four quantities on the quote, the price each times the quantity has to equal the order price, the price each may never go up as the quantity goes up, and the customer quote has to show the same four prices.
  • The example quote ($36.71 each (25 pcs)) has to earn more per labour hour than it costs to run the business. It earns $73.75 an hour against the $44.57 break-even.
  • Then the test tries to break it: every yellow box on the quote emptied, nobody on the crew billable, a material price 400 days old, an order of zero. No cell may show an error, and the checks box has to flag the missing customer name and the out-of-date price.
  • The formulas only use functions that work the same way in Excel and Google Sheets.

Last test run: 3D Printing passed, along with 39 of the other 39 trades. The example job and the list of easy-to-miss costs come from research into 8 videos of 3d printing owners explaining how they price. More on how the calculators are built.

Questions owners ask

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

Add filament, printer running cost and hardware per part to your hands-on minutes per part at your break-even rate, spread the setup over the batch, add one-off costs, then profit. The example's 25 jigs come to $884.85, or $35.39 each.

Should printer run time go in materials or labour?

In materials, as a cost per print hour for wear, parts and power. You are not standing at the printer while it runs, so only your hands-on minutes are priced at your hourly rate.

Why does one custom jig cost $373.60 in the calculator?

Because the 4 setup hours, the face plate setup and the postage all land on one part. At 10 the jig is $56.53 each and at 100 it is $24.82. Most of a one-off print price is the work before the first layer.

Can I use the 3D printing cost calculator for resin prints?

Yes. Put resin, alcohol for washing and gloves into materials per part, and the washing and curing minutes into hands-on minutes per part. Support removal and sanding usually take longer than on filament parts, so time a few.