3D printing cost calculator
Drop in the model or the G-code, and the filament and print time are filled in for you. Set your own prices and you get the real cost of the print — not only the plastic — and a straight answer on whether printing it yourself or ordering it makes more sense.
The file is measured by your own browser and never uploaded. The prices you type stay on this page and are gone when you close it.
What a print actually costs
Most people count the plastic and stop. The plastic is real, but on a typical home print it is often less than half of the cost, and on a long print it can be much less.
**Filament** is the grams the print uses times the price per kilogram you paid. **Electricity** is the printer’s average power times the print time times your price per kilowatt-hour. **Printer wear** is the price of the printer spread over the hours it prints before it needs rebuilding — nozzles, belts, bed sheets and fans all wear out, and a busy printer pays for itself in parts as well as plastic.
**Failed prints** are the cost that makes the others honest. If one print in ten fails, you pay for eleven attempts to get ten good parts. The calculator adds exactly that share. **Your time** is off by default, because for a hobby print it is not a cost; set an hourly rate if you are pricing work for somebody else.
Where the numbers come from
Drop in a **G-code file** and the filament comes straight from the moves in it, and the time comes from the slicer’s own estimate where the file has one. Those are the best numbers you can get without printing it.
Drop in a **model** — STL, 3MF, OBJ, STEP and the rest — and its volume and surface area are measured, then turned into plastic the way a slicer would use it: a solid skin the thickness of the walls, and the infill percentage of everything inside. That estimate is usually within about fifteen per cent of what a slicer reports. Set the infill and walls to match your slicer for a closer figure.
A model with holes in it has no volume that can be measured. If that happens, one button closes the holes — the same repair the STL repair tool runs — and the estimate appears.
Every estimate can be typed over. If your slicer says 43 grams and 2 hours 10 minutes, put those in and the rest of the calculation uses them.
Print it yourself, or order it?
For a part in PLA or PETG that fits your printer, printing it yourself is almost always far cheaper. A print service has to charge for handling, set-up and shipping on top of the material, and those are fixed costs that swamp the price of a small part.
Ordering starts to win in four situations, and the verdict under the numbers checks your part against each of them. The part is bigger than your printer’s bed. The material needs a hot, enclosed chamber — ABS, ASA, nylon, polycarbonate — and your printer does not have one. You need many copies by a date, and the hours add up to more than your printer can deliver. Or you need a finish a filament printer cannot give: resin for fine detail, or powder-bed nylon for a strong part with no layer lines.
And if you do not own a printer, the question answers itself. Switch off "I have a printer" and the calculator shows what the material alone is worth, which is a useful thing to know when you compare quotes.
The costs people forget
Drying filament. Nylon, PETG and TPU absorb water from the air and print badly until they are dried, which is several hours of a dryer or an oven. On a long print in a humid room, count it.
Supports and waste. The weight a slicer reports includes supports, a brim and a purge line, all of which go in the bin. A model estimate here does not include supports, so add a few grams for a part that needs them.
Finishing. Removing supports, sanding and painting are often more time than the print itself. That is what the hands-on minutes are for.
The next question
Questions
- How much does it cost to 3D print something?
- For a small PLA part, the plastic is usually a small amount of money: 50 grams of filament bought at 20 per kilogram is 1. Electricity for a few hours adds a fraction of that, and printer wear and failed prints bring the real total to perhaps two or three times the plastic. Drop your part in to see the figure for it.
- How much electricity does a 3D printer use?
- An open printer printing PLA typically averages around 80 to 150 watts once it is up to temperature, with more while the bed heats and more for ABS or a heated chamber. The printer’s power supply rating is the maximum, not the average. A plug-in power meter gives you the real number for your machine.
- Why does the calculator ask about failed prints?
- Because you pay for them. At a failure rate of 10 per cent, each good part costs the material, power and printer time of about 1.11 attempts. Set it low for a printer and material you trust, and higher for a long or difficult print.
- How accurate is the estimate from an STL?
- Usually within about fifteen per cent of a slicer’s figure, with infill and walls set the same as in your slicer. It does not know about supports. For an exact figure, slice the model and drop in the G-code instead.
- Is my model uploaded?
- No. The file is measured by your own browser and nothing is sent anywhere. The prices you type stay on the page too, and are gone when you close it.