3D print cost calculator

What a 3D printing cost calculator should include

Most calculators stop at filament, which is why their answer is always too low. A print costs you four things, and the last two are the ones people forget:

• Filament — grams used divided by 1,000, times the price per kilo. The one everybody gets right.
• Electricity — printer wattage times hours, divided by 1,000, times your kWh rate. Usually small, and worth knowing rather than guessing about.
• Machine wear — the printer's purchase cost spread over its realistic service life in hours. A $300 printer over 3,000 hours is 10c an hour.
• Failures — if one print in ten fails, every successful print effectively carries about 11% more cost. The failure allowance field handles this.

Add labor and a margin on top if you're selling. The full reasoning, with a worked example, is in what does a 3D print actually cost.

Where to find each number

• Grams used — your slicer reports it after slicing. Add about 5% for purge and skirt, or work it out from length with the filament calculator.
• Filament price per kg — what you paid, not the sticker price, and include shipping if it was significant.
• Printer wattage — 100-150 W is typical for a mid-size FDM machine with a heated bed; the electricity calculator goes deeper.
• Electricity rate — on your bill, per kWh.
• Machine lifetime hours — 2,000-5,000 hours is a fair range for a hobby printer that gets maintained.

Nothing you type here is uploaded, stored, or logged — the maths runs in your browser, using the same engine that ships inside the app.