3D Printing Cost Calculator: Filament, Machine Time, Labour and Margin

This 3D printing cost calculator works out what a print actually costs: filament, machine time and electricity, your labour for preparation and finishing, fixed costs, a profit margin and VAT. It began as a spreadsheet used in the early days of a 3D printing service and was turned into this calculator for the project threedom.de.

How to calculate the cost of a 3D print

1. Print details: enter a job name, choose the currency for the display and enter the print time in hours and minutes plus the filament the slicer reports in grams.
2. Filament: enter the spool price and the spool weight. The calculator derives the price per gram and the filament cost of the job.
3. Machine costs: enter the purchase price of the printer, the depreciation period in years, the average daily use in hours, the power consumption in watts and your electricity price per kWh. The calculator turns this into an hourly rate.
4. Labour costs: add the time and rate for preparation and post-processing, such as removing supports and sanding.
5. Other fixed costs: add rows for anything else, for example packaging or shipping material.
6. Margin and VAT: set a profit margin in percent and pick the VAT rate of your country or enter a custom rate.
7. Result overview: the total appears at the bottom. Share it as a link, export it as CSV or download it as PDF. A job name is required for the CSV and PDF export, PDF export is limited to 10 per printer profile and day, and the PDF is currently produced in German.

Printer profiles

Save the values that stay the same from job to job, such as printer price, wattage, spool price and spool weight, as a profile. For the next calculation you load the profile with one click and only enter a job name, print time and filament used. Profiles are stored locally in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

What drives the price

• Daily use sets the hourly rate: a printer that runs two hours a day costs far more per hour than one that runs twelve, because the purchase price is spread over fewer hours.
• Labour is the part most hobby calculations leave out. Preparation, support removal and finishing are real time, whether or not you charge for it.
• Failed prints are not a separate field. Add an allowance to the margin or as a fixed cost if failures are a regular part of your work.

Data and privacy

The calculation runs in your browser. Printer profiles and your current entries are kept in your browser’s local storage, and a shared link carries the entered values in the link itself so the recipient sees the same calculation. Nothing is stored on minoka.de.

Questions or suggestions are welcome via the contact form.