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True Trade Cost

CNC Machining Price Calculator: Price a Drawing by Setup and Cycle Time

Updated

Twenty-five 6061 aluminum motor mount brackets with clear anodize come to $2,616.00, or $104.64 a part, at a $72 break-even shop rate with 20% profit. Type your own hours, cycle time and stock into the boxes and the order price, the per-part price and the break table all redo themselves.

This CNC machining price calculator works from the drawing the way a shop does: hours you pay once, minutes you pay on every part, stock per part, then the anodizer and the machine. The starting numbers are a trimmed version of the bracket quote in the Machine Shop Pricing Calculator spreadsheet.

1. The order
hrs

CAM, fixturing, first-article check, ordering and emails. The same for 1 part or 100.

min

Every op's cycle time plus deburr, inserts and packing, per part.

$

Saw-cut blank, inserts, box. Price it from your last metal invoice.

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

Shop labour only. Machine running cost has its own line below.

%
%

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

25 parts$2,616.00 · $104.64 each

Two clocks on every drawing: the order clock and the part clock

A machined part has two kinds of time, and a CNC price is wrong whenever the two get blended into one per-part number. The order clock runs once: CAM, soft jaws, proving out the first part, checking it, ordering bar stock, the emails about a tolerance. In the example that is 7.5 hours, or $540 at $72.

The part clock runs 25 times. Saw cut, two ops on the VMC, helicoils, deburr and packing add up to 26.5 minutes a bracket, so 11 hours for the order. Put them in separate boxes and the calculator does the sharing for you.

Why one bracket is $1,337 and a hundred are $66 each

The break table under the price shows the same bracket at 1, 10, 25 and 100 pieces. One part comes to $1,337.28, ten come to $181.68 each, and a hundred come to $66.12 each. The order clock does almost all of that: the program and fixture cost the same whether they make one part or a hundred.

The anodizer works the same way. A lot charge means 25 parts cost $300 to finish, about $12 each, and a single part would pay most of that lot charge by itself. When a customer asks for "just one to test", the honest answer is the first row of that table.

Getting cycle time right before the first chip

Take the minutes per part from CAM's estimated cycle time, then add what the CAM never shows: tool changes it underestimates, loading and unloading the vise, flipping for op 2, blowing off chips and measuring. A part the simulation calls 9 minutes often runs longer once a person is standing at the machine.

Each extra minute a part on this order adds about $1.44 at $72 with profit, or $36 across 25 brackets. Cut the per-part box from 26.5 to 20 minutes and the bracket drops to $95.28, which shows how much a fixture or a better toolpath is worth before you spend the money.

Where the spreadsheet's $112.61 bracket differs from this one

The quick version stops at shop labour, stock, three named costs and profit. The spreadsheet prices each machine by its own hourly cost per operation, marks up the anodizing, walks through eleven costs machine shops forget and keeps a job log of quoted against actual hours. That is why its version of the same order comes to $112.61 a bracket instead of $104.64.

The $72 here is the example shop's break-even rate, not yours. Work out your own with the free true hourly rate calculator, see how the sample shop gets to $71.72 on the machine shop hourly rate page, and read the CNC pricing guide before you send a number. If you want to check a quote after the parts ship, the job costing guide shows how.

How the math in the Machine Shop calculator is checked

Every version of the machine shop 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, $71.72 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 ($112.61 each (25 pcs)) has to earn more per labour hour than it costs to run the business. It earns $115.59 an hour against the $71.72 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: Machine Shop passed, along with 39 of the other 39 trades. The example job and the list of easy-to-miss costs come from research into 11 videos of machine shop owners explaining how they price. More on how the calculators are built.

Questions owners ask

How do I calculate the cost of a CNC machined part?

Split it into time paid once per order and time paid per part. Add both at your break-even shop rate, then stock, outside finishing and machine running cost, then profit. The example bracket is 7.5 hours once plus 26.5 minutes a part and comes to $104.64 each at 25 parts.

Why does one CNC part cost so much more than a batch?

Because the one part carries all the setup. In the example, a single bracket comes to $1,337.28 and the same bracket at 100 parts comes to $66.12 each. The spindle minutes barely change; the programming and fixturing get shared.

Is this machine shop estimator free to use?

Yes. It runs in your browser with no sign-up. Copy link keeps your numbers in the address bar so you can come back to a quote, and Print gives you a paper copy for the job folder.

Should machine time be in my hourly rate or separate?

Separate, if you can. The $72 rate here covers people and overhead; the CNC mill's own running cost goes in its own line, $135 on this order. That way a bandsaw hour and a VMC hour don't get charged the same.

Can I quote a repeat order for less?

Yes, if the program and fixture already exist. Take those hours out of the once-per-order box. Dropping 2 hours there takes the example from $104.64 to $97.73 a part at 25 pieces.