About

Pricing that pays for the whole print, not just the plastic

Why this exists

Most 3D-printing sellers price their work the same way: weigh the model, multiply the grams by a rough cost-per-kilogram, and add a number that “feels right.” It is fast, and it quietly loses money on every order. Filament is only one line on the bill. A single print also burns electricity for hours, wears down nozzles, belts and a hotend that will eventually need replacing, and occasionally fails outright and has to be run again. Then there is the time you spend slicing, cleaning supports, sanding and packing — the part of the job that never shows up on the spool.

When those costs are invisible, the price is too low. Sellers end up working for less than minimum wage, or worse, paying for the privilege of shipping someone else a part. This calculator was built to make every one of those costs visible in a few seconds, so pricing becomes a decision instead of a guess.

How the numbers are worked out

The calculator breaks a print into the cost components that actually matter and lets you adjust every assumption:

• Material — model weight plus optional AMS/multicolour purge waste, costed from your real spool price per kilogram.
• Electricity — printer wattage × hours × your local power rate, or a flat figure if you prefer.
• Machine wear — a small amount set aside each print so nozzles, build plates and the printer itself pay for their own replacement.
• Failure buffer— a percentage that spreads the cost of the prints that don't survive across the ones that do.
• Labour — your time slicing, post-processing and finishing, billed as a flat fee or an hourly rate.
• Packaging & design — boxes, mailers, inserts and any one-off design or modelling fee.
• Profit — applied as a simple multiplier or a target margin, on top of true cost rather than guessed into the price.

Everything is computed in your browser the moment you type, and the same engine powers the saved history, presets and quote PDFs. The defaults are tuned for desktop FDM printers like the Bambu Lab A1 and A1 Mini, but every field is editable, so the tool works just as well for a resin shop or a print farm.

Who builds it

The calculator is made by Cyril Dave Legaspi, a software developer and 3D-printing hobbyist. It started as a spreadsheet for pricing my own prints, grew into something other makers kept asking for, and became this app. It is run as an independent project — not a marketplace, not a reseller — so the advice here has no incentive to push you toward any particular filament, printer or platform.

Free, and staying that way

The core calculator is free to use with no sign-up. Creating a free account adds saved history, reusable presets, filament inventory tracking and cross-device sync. The project is supported by unobtrusive, consent-based advertising and by being genuinely useful enough that people come back — not by selling your data, which we never do (see our Privacy Policy).

Learn more

If you want to go deeper than the calculator, the blog works through the real maths behind pricing 3D prints — material costs, marketplace fees, electricity, and the hidden expenses most sellers miss. Found a bug, have a feature request, or just want to say hello? The contact page has every way to reach us.