3D Print Filament Cost Calculator
Enter the grams your slicer reports, your spool price, and how long the print takes. Get a full cost breakdown — material, electricity, and wear on your printer — plus suggested selling prices if you sell on Etsy or locally. Everything runs in your browser, nothing uploaded.
Cost breakdown
Suggested selling prices
Learn more: the real cost of a 3D print
Filament is one of four costs
The calculator adds four costs. Material is grams used times the spool price divided by spool weight. Electricity is printer wattage times print hours times your rate per kWh. Depreciation spreads the machine price over its expected lifetime hours, and waste adds a percentage of the material cost.
With the defaults (45 g from a $22, 1,000 g spool, a 200 W printer for 4 hours at $0.28 per kWh, a $350 printer with a 2,000-hour life and 10% waste), material is $0.99, electricity $0.22, depreciation $0.70 and waste $0.10. The total is $2.01, and material is under half of it.
Depreciation
Depreciation is the price divided by lifetime hours, times the hours of the print. A $350 printer with a 2,000-hour life costs $0.175 for every hour it runs, whatever it is printing. The lifetime is your own estimate, and the calculator defaults to 2,000 hours.
Waste is a percentage of material
The calculator takes waste as a percentage of material cost to cover priming lines, purge material and failed prints. That means it grows and shrinks with the print. In real life some of that overhead is fixed, so a small print wastes a larger share than a big one.
For a 5 g, 30-minute print the material is $0.11 and the waste $0.01 at 10%. Raise the percentage yourself for small parts if you waste a lot on them.
Markup is not margin
If you sell prints, the suggested price is the total cost times your markup. Margin is the profit divided by the price. A 2.5x markup on the $2.01 total gives $5.03 and a 60% margin, and 2x gives 50%. It does not include your design time, post-processing, packaging, fees or taxes.
FAQ
How do I estimate machine lifetime hours?
The calculator cannot tell you, so pick a figure based on how long you expect the printer to last and how many hours you print. A longer lifetime lowers the depreciation per hour, and a shorter one raises it.
Should I use my slicer's print time?
Yes, it is a good starting point. Small differences in time only change the electricity and depreciation lines slightly. Add a buffer if your prints often run long.
What markup should I use if I sell prints?
There is no universal figure. It depends on your market and on how much of your own time you want covered. Work backward from the margin you need: margin = 1 - 1 / markup, so a 3x markup is about a 67% margin.