3D print cost calculator, material, machine time, depreciation and energy, priced separately
Counting only filament is the most common way to lose money on a print. Enter the material used and the print time, from your slicer or from the G-code Analyzer, then set your own material price, energy rate, and printer purchase price and expected lifetime. The calculator returns the cost broken down by component, material, machine time, depreciation and energy, plus the final price, and updates instantly when you change a parameter.
Open the print cost calculator Pro plan, 15 EUR/month. The interface is in English.How it works
Three steps: enter the part, set your rates, read the breakdown.
Enter the part
Fill in the material used and the print time for the job, taken from your slicer's own summary or, for a more exact figure, from G-code Analyzer, which reads both directly from the finished file's actual commands.
Set your rates
Enter material price per kilogram, or per gram or millilitre for a resin process, your energy rate, and your printer's purchase price and expected lifetime in prints. This is a one time setup: the same rates carry over the next time you price a job.
Read the breakdown
The calculator returns cost by component, material, machine time, depreciation and energy, next to the final price. Change any single parameter, a different material, a longer print, a cheaper machine, and every figure updates immediately.
Reference
Cost inputs: material, machine, energy
| Parameter | Value | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| machine price (FDM hobby) | 400 | EUR |
| power (FDM hobby) | 0.2 | kW |
| electricity rate | 0.15 | EUR/kWh |
| labor rate | 15 | EUR/hour |
Default values of the tool
Four cost lines, not one guess
Material, machine time, printer depreciation and energy, each shown on its own line before they are added together.
Built to include what filament-only math leaves out
A printer is not costless to run and it is not costless to own. Leaving either cost out of a quote means the quote is wrong before the job even starts.
Priced per technology, not one template
FDM, resin and other processes do not share a cost structure: resin is priced by volume rather than filament length, and post-processing time differs by technology. The calculator lets material price and consumption be entered the way each technology actually measures them, per gram or per millilitre, rather than forcing everything through a filament shaped template.
Depreciation stops the printer looking costless
A printer that cost real money to buy is not costless to run just because the electricity bill is small. The calculator spreads the purchase price across the printer's expected lifetime in prints, so every job it produces carries its share of that cost instead of the calculation quietly assuming the machine appeared for nothing.
Material and time can come straight from the file
Typing in a slicer's on screen summary works, but G-code Analyzer reads filament length, weight and print time directly from the file's own commands, and those figures can be carried straight into this calculator instead of retyped, removing one place a number can drift from the file that actually produced it.
A breakdown you can defend in front of a client
The final price is shown next to the four costs that produced it, material, machine time, depreciation and energy, so a client questioning the number gets an answer broken into parts they can check, rather than a single total with no visible working behind it.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly does the cost include?
Material, based on the real amount used rather than a rough estimate, machine time at your own hourly rate, printer depreciation, your machine's purchase price spread across its expected lifetime in prints, and energy at your own electricity rate. Labour or profit margin are not built in automatically; add either as your own line on top of the four the calculator computes.
Where do I get the material usage and print time?
Your slicer's own summary screen gives both, but it is an estimate made before the file was exported. G-code Analyzer reads the same two figures directly from the G-code's actual commands after export, which is the more exact source if the two numbers disagree.
Why include printer depreciation at all?
A printer that cost money to buy loses value and eventually needs replacing, whether or not that cost is written into any individual job. Spreading the purchase price across the machine's expected lifetime in prints turns that unavoidable cost into a per print figure, so a quote based only on material and electricity is not quietly underpricing every job by the cost of the machine itself.
Does this work for resin printing as well as FDM filament?
Yes. The calculation is per technology: for resin, set the material price per gram or per millilitre and your own machine's power draw and cycle time, rather than a filament price per kilogram. The four cost lines, material, machine time, depreciation and energy, stay the same regardless of which process produced the part.
Can I compare two materials or two machines against each other?
Change any single parameter, a different material's price, a different printer's purchase price or lifetime, a different quantity, and the breakdown and final price update immediately, so two scenarios can be compared side by side by editing one field at a time rather than starting a new calculation from scratch.
How much does it cost to use?
The print cost calculator is part of the Pro plan (15 EUR/month). The same EduFacturing account, once upgraded to Pro, opens the rest of the tool set.
Other tools
Part of the EduFacturing tool set for 3D printing.
The rest of the tool set
This tool is part of the Pro plan (15 EUR/month). It is one of a set of more than a hundred engineering tools on EduFacturing: cost calculation, G-code analysis, material reference and the rest. Most of them sit behind a free account.
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