Pricing Calculator
Compute an accurate selling price for your 3D printed product
How the 3D print pricing calculator works
Most people price a 3D print by filament weight, or by copying whatever the seller next to them charges — and quietly lose money on every order. This calculator builds your price the honest way: it adds up the true cost of making the print, then applies the profit you choose. Every line updates live as you type, so you can see exactly where each cent goes and what a fair selling price actually is.
What goes into your price
Your true cost is the sum of seven line items. The calculator computes each one from your inputs:
The filament the print actually consumes — your model weight, plus optional AMS purge/poop waste if you print in multiple colors.
charged grams × (spool price ÷ 1000)
What it costs to run the printer for the whole job. Use the auto estimate from printer wattage and time, or type a flat figure.
watts × hours ÷ 1000 × rate per kWh
A small set-aside for nozzles, belts, build plates, and maintenance, so your printer pays for its own upkeep. Charge it flat per print or per gram.
flat amount, or grams × per-gram rate
Some prints fail — and that wasted filament, power, and wear has to be paid for somewhere. A small buffer spreads that loss across every sale.
(material + electricity + wear) × buffer %
Your time has a price: slicing, loading filament, babysitting the print, removing supports, post-processing, and packing. Bill it hourly or as a flat fee.
hours × hourly rate, or a flat amount
Bags, boxes, mailers, labels, and the thank-you card — the unglamorous costs that quietly erode margin if you ignore them.
your packaging cost per order
An optional one-off charge for custom modeling, personalization, or the time spent dialing in a made-to-order request.
flat fee, when applicable
Add those together and you have your subtotal — what the print genuinely costs you to make. Your suggested selling price is that subtotal plus profit: either a multiplier (subtotal × your markup) or a target margin (subtotal ÷ (1 − margin%)). The difference between the two is your profit, shown alongside the margin percentage.
A worked example
Say you print a 45 g PLA model on a $20/kg spool. It takes 3 h 30 m on a 100 W printer at $0.15/kWh. You set machine wear to $0.50, a 10% failed-print buffer, $3.00 of labor, and $0.50 of packaging:
| Material (45 g × $0.02) | $0.90 |
| Electricity (0.35 kWh × $0.15) | $0.05 |
| Machine wear | $0.50 |
| Failed-print reserve (10%) | $0.15 |
| Labor | $3.00 |
| Packaging | $0.50 |
| Subtotal (true cost) | $5.10 |
| Suggested price (× 4 markup) | $20.40 |
That $20 price might feel high for a print that costs five — but it pays for your time, your failures, your machine, and a real profit. Priced at $8 “because it’s only 45 grams,” you’d be paying customers to take your work. For a deeper walkthrough of pricing strategy by product, browse the pricing guides on the blog.
Calculator FAQ
What information do I need to price a print?+
At minimum: your model's weight in grams, the print time, and your spool price per kilo. Everything else — printer wattage, electricity rate, machine wear, failed-print buffer, labor, and packaging — is pre-filled with sensible defaults you can adjust to match your setup.
How is machine wear calculated?+
It's a small maintenance set-aside that keeps your printer self-funding. You can charge a flat amount per print (simple and predictable) or a per-gram rate that scales with how much the job actually uses. Either way it covers nozzles, belts, build plates, and the occasional repair.
Should I use a profit multiplier or a target margin?+
A multiplier sets your price as a multiple of total cost — ×3 to ×5 is common, with higher multiples for custom or complex work. A target margin instead fixes the percentage of the final price that is profit (price = cost ÷ (1 − margin)). Use a multiplier for quick, consistent markups; use margin if you price to hit a specific profit percentage.
Why include a failed-print buffer at all?+
Because failures are a real, recurring cost, not bad luck. If one in ten prints fails, that write-off has to be recovered from the nine that sell. A 5–15% buffer on material, electricity, and wear builds that reality into every quote so a single failed plate doesn't erase your profit.
Does it handle multicolor and AMS purge waste?+
Yes. Enter the purge (poop) weight and toggle whether to include it in the material cost. On small multicolor prints the purge can weigh as much as the model itself, so counting it is the difference between a real price and a guess.
Do I need an account, and what does the price include?+
No account is needed to calculate — it's free and runs entirely in your browser. The suggested selling price already includes every cost line plus your chosen profit, so it's a price you can quote as-is. A free account adds saved calculations, history, inventory, and branded PDF quotes.