If you’re running a 3D printing business or printer farm, or are even thinking of starting one, knowing the running costs of the business is a necessity. Of course, a key part of any 3D printing business is the cost to produce each printed part. Even for hobbyists, it can be useful to get an idea of the costs involved before undertaking a huge printing project.
Luckily, there are 3D printing cost calculators. These calculators take in a range of different parameters with the goal of calculating a competitive price and leaving you with profit.
Here, we’ll present our favorite 3D printing cost calculators. But first, we’ll look at how they work and what parameters they generally take into account.
How It Works
Let’s take a look at the common parameters to consider when calculating the cost of a 3D print.
Material Cost
When it comes to fused deposition modeling (FDM), there’s the cost of the filament; for resin 3D printing, it’s the cost of the… resin. The starting point of each calculation is to see how much filament, for example, was used to make a part. This part of the job is easy: If you bought a 1-kg spool of PLA filament for $30 and used 100 g for a print, the material cost is $3 (100 g / 1,000 g x $30).
Print Time
Another basic parameter that plays a big role in calculating the price of a 3D print is print time. 3D printing businesses charge a certain amount per hour the printer is operational. Each 3D printing business sets its own hourly cost.
If the business paid $2,000 for a 3D printer with an expected life span of 2,000 print hours, they may charge around $1 per hour. (Keep in mind that this example is just for explanation purposes and is highly unrealistic.)
Post-Processing (Manual Labor)
As you’d expect, each 3D print requires at least some post-processing to make it ready for the customer. This cost includes the usual post-processing methods, like support removal and sanding the parts.
Still, there’s more to manual labor than just the post-processing of parts. 3D printing businesses also have to pack the parts and send them to customers, so that’s also included under manual labor.
Additional Profit Percentage
What’s usually the last stage of calculating the price of a 3D print is adding a certain percentage on top of the price of the material, print time, and manual labor combined. For example, if the combined cost of the material, print time, and manual labor is $20 and your markup percentage is 10%, the total price of a print would be $22, giving a profit of $2.
Advanced Parameters
The abovementioned parameters are the basic ones. Some advanced parameters that make the price even more accurate include the additional running costs (e.g. electricity and internet) and the printer’s failure rate. Some of the calculators below include these, so keep an eye out for the special features if you’re looking for something in particular.
A few calculators below have the option to factor in electricity costs, an important expense that new 3D printing businesses often overlook. For the most accurate estimate, it may be worth investigating your 3D printer’s power consumption and hourly electricity rates in your area (an extra hassle if you have time-of-use pricing!).
The average hobbyist 3D printer uses 50 watts an hour, which is similar to an incandescent lightbulb and may not break the bank, but keep an eye on electricity costs if you’re running professional or industrial 3D printers.
And now, let’s get to the calculators!
Prusa Calculator
Prusa is one of the most well-known names in 3D printing, thanks in part to its treasure trove of resources. One valuable free resource is the Prusa Calculator.
Prusa’s calculator remains easy to use while offering more inputs than many other basic calculators, like machine upkeep, electricity, and labor costs. It also comes with easy preloads for common material costs like PLA, PETG, or ASA filaments. Or you can manually calculate and add numbers to any field.
One reason this calculator is so easy to use is that while offering all kinds of parameters to help you get an accurate estimate, most inputs are optional and can be hidden under drop-down bars.
If you have even more parameters to consider, you can also utilize the “other” column for costs without a dedicated option. This is a great spot to factor in packaging or shipping costs. You can label these extra parameters yourself and add as many as you need.
And for the international community, Prusa’s calculator has nearly 100 different currency options. So, no matter where your shop is located, you can turn to this calculator to set your desired markup and determine what you should be charging for your 3D printed goodies!
- User level: Basic
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: Many currencies, optional cost drop-downs, preloaded filaments, and user-defined “other” parameters included in this calculator.
3D Print HQ
Visually, this “3D Print HQ” online calculator might look dated, but don’t let that fool you. The tool is regularly improved, and over the years, it has proven to be a great 3D printing cost calculator.
It’s one of the easiest to use, and, for most people, it’s all they’ll ever need. Among the usual parameters, you can also tweak the printer purchase price and the printer failure rate. Those exist for the purpose of providing the most accurate calculations possible.
The calculator is free to use, but the author also gives users the ability to order a spreadsheet containing the 3D printing cost calculations – this optional service is ∼$6.
- User level: Basic
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: Hovering with a mouse over each of the variables reveals a brief explanation of what the variable means, which is quite helpful for beginners.
MakerShop
MakerShop’s free calculator generates a quote from an STL file uploaded by the user, automatically calculating print time, the amount of filament needed, and even maintenance costs. Other variables entered manually include print speed, infill percentage, and layer height, but keep in mind that this is only for a single STL file and will change when you print something different.
Unlike other cost calculators that rely on catchall “other” fields, MakerShop also offers specific sections for costs like bed adhesion, packaging, shipping, or setup fees – expenses that 3D printing businesses know are essential to track to generate a profit.
MakerShop also lets users calculate a final price and net profit considering their desired markup after all costs are considered, not only the price of the materials.
- User level: Basic
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: You can upload an STL and calculate costs including ancillary parameters like bed adhesion, equipment maintenance, packaging, and shipping.
Omni
Omni is an online platform with hundreds of calculators for different purposes, like science and finance. The platform hosts over 2,000 calculators with different purposes, from the basic to the bizarre. And one of those is for calculating the cost of 3D printing jobs.
The user interface is modern and easy to use. The calculator itself is rather simple, but at the same time effective. In the first section, the user enters the price of the filament and the length of filament needed to make the part. Your slicer software estimates the length of filament needed to complete a certain part, so just copy and paste that value into the calculator.
The second section is used for calculating the price of labor based on print time, while the final section is where the markup percentage is added.
- User level: Basic
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: It’s a dedicated calculator website with a modern interface.
3dpcalc
3dpcalc is a community-made website that allows anyone to calculate 3D printing prices in their browser.
The website is completely free to use and provides a decent bit of depth in its calculations, including power consumption, labor fees, and markup, should you want to sell your prints. The final output will show you the model cost, additional costs, profit, and total value to make things easier. All of this can then be exported to a PDF file so you can reference individual print statistics later on.
The biggest downside to 3dpcalc is the requirement for an internet connection. Luckily, user jkga has made the entire program open-source on GitHub, allowing literally anyone to make changes and improvements where they see fit. This means you can download the source files and run the program offline if needed. Note that only two currency options are available: USD and PHP.
- User level: Intermediate
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: Option to add individual price increases per print, such as setup, packaging, and delivery fees.
Shatter Box
Shatter Box is a knowledge base website that was born around game development. It also hosts other items, like a 3D printing cost calculation tool.
This free software is available to download directly from Shatter Box. In terms of how the tool itself works, there’s nothing new here. You can manipulate the usual parameters that play a role in price calculation for 3D printing like print duration, material cost, profit margin, and others you’ve surely been introduced to up to this point. All in all, there’s no lack of important parameters – it’s all there!
A significant way this calculator stands out from other options on this list is that it doesn’t require an internet connection. Instead, it’s a downloadable tool that you can use offline, if needed.
The other feature that earned this calculator a place on the list is the possibility to have multiple profiles for different printers. This is a very important feature for 3D printing businesses using several different 3D printers for their work. This feature saves time, as it stores information about each printer’s power consumption as well as other details like the electricity price, profit margin, currency, and so on.
- User level: Intermediate
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: Users can save profiles based on different 3D printers.
PowerShell
The next calculator on our list comes from GitHub user sudo-kraken, who created a PowerShell script for a versatile calculator with just about every parameter you need, including options to change between EUR, GBP, and USD currencies.
The project can be found on GitHub and is free to download. You can use the PowerShell script as intended or download the executable version from GitHub for a more user-friendly experience. Both produce an in-depth calculation that should be satisfactory for most users.
If you’re fluid in PowerShell, you can also customize this script to add any parameters you need for your print jobs. While this calculator is geared toward those looking to sell their prints, outputting a recommended price for prints based on the parameters, it’s still a great calculator for hobbyists.
- User level: Intermediate
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: Offline functionality that can be extended with experience in PowerShell.
CNC Kitchen
CNC Kitchen has provided a lot of valuable insights for the 3D printing community, especially through their informational YouTube videos. They also released an in-depth spreadsheet that serves as a great way to calculate print time, energy, and costs, especially if you’re looking to start your own 3D printing business.
The file itself can be found on GitHub as a free download. As this is just a spreadsheet, you’ll be required to manually enter all of your details and may need to change some of the parameters if they don’t line up with what you want out of your calculations. Aside from that, this sheet is a great alternative that, in the right hands, can provide more customizability than any other entry on the list.
It comes with all of the parameters you would expect, plus a few extra entries, such as the time needed to prepare and slice your model and the time needed to change filament colors before starting your print. All of this information is then put into a pie chart that is a nice visual aid to help you quickly take in the entered values.
- User level: Advanced
- Pricing: Free
- Special features: User have advanced customizability options as well as the pie chart visual aid to quickly see costs at a glance.
License: The text of "The Best 3D Printing Cost Calculators" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.