3D Print Weight & Material Cost Calculator
Enter your model's bounding box, infill, shells, and material to get an estimated print weight and material cost - before you open your slicer. Useful for quick quoting and design review. Nothing uploaded.
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Weight Estimate
Pre-slicer estimates are ±20-30%. Actual weight depends on geometry, support structures, and exact infill pattern. Use your slicer's weight readout for precise values.
Learn more: infill percentage, part weight, and diminishing returns
Doubling infill does not double the weight
A print's weight comes from two separate volumes: the solid shell (perimeter walls plus the top and bottom layers) and the infill that fills whatever interior is left. This calculator works out the solid fraction first, from wall count, nozzle diameter, and layer height, then applies your infill percentage only to the space that remains.
Take a 60 × 60 × 40 mm box in PLA with 2 perimeters and 4 top and bottom layers. At 20% infill it lands at 48.9 g, of which 9.4 g is perimeter wall and 32.4 g is infill. Raise infill to 40% and the total goes to 81.3 g, a 66% increase rather than a doubling, because the shell and the solid layers have not moved.
Strength scales even less than weight does
3DMag's breakdown of infill percentage and strength reports that going from 25% to 50% infill adds roughly 25% more strength, while 50% to 75% adds only about 10%.
Once the shell and the existing infill already carry the load, more infill mostly buys material cost and print time. On the box above, going all the way to 100% infill takes it from 48.9 g to 178.6 g.
Why shell settings matter as much as infill
Wall thickness is perimeter count times nozzle diameter, and the top and bottom layer count adds solid volume on top of that. Both land in the solid fraction no matter which infill percentage you pick.
On the same 60 × 60 × 40 mm box at a fixed 20% infill, moving from 2 perimeters to 4 takes the wall portion from 9.4 g to 18.5 g and the total from 48.9 g to 56.3 g. Small parts skew further that way: wall thickness is fixed, so the interior it encloses shrinks faster than the shell does.
What the estimate cannot see
The figure is built from your bounding box, so expect roughly plus or minus 20-30% on a real part. Hollows and cutouts make it read high, and supports, rafts, and brims are not counted at all. Check the slicer for the number you actually print against.
FAQ
Why does material choice change the weight for the same print settings?
Filaments differ in density: PLA is 1.24 g/cm³ while ABS is lighter at 1.04 g/cm³. The 60 × 60 × 40 mm box at 20% infill comes out at 48.9 g in PLA and 41.0 g in ABS, from the density alone. PETG is 1.27, ASA 1.07, TPU 1.21, and Nylon 1.14 g/cm³.
Is there a point where increasing infill is pointless?
For most functional parts, infill in the 40-60% range already captures the bulk of the practical strength gain. Pushing higher mostly adds weight, filament cost, and print time without a matching return, unless the part is genuinely load-bearing.
Does infill pattern (gyroid, cubic, grid) change the weight estimate?
No. This calculator works from infill percentage alone and does not distinguish patterns, since common patterns use roughly similar material volume at the same percentage. Pattern choice affects strength distribution and print time more than raw material use.