Start with one successful part
Get material consumption and print time from your slicer. Include supports, purge, brims, and other consumed material. The calculator uses grams per attempt, hours per attempt, and a number of identical finished parts.
If a plate holds ten parts, divide the plate totals by ten before entering per-part values. This is an allocation estimate. A failed plate can affect multiple parts together, while this model assumes independent failures.
Account for your machine and your time
Machine cost per hour is (purchase price − expected resale value) / productive service hours + maintenance reserve. Service life and resale value are assumptions, not promises.
Electricity cost is hours × average watts / 1,000 × your price per kWh. Setup labor is charged once per order. Finishing labor is charged per successful part. Include your labor even when you are the person running the printer.
A worked single-part example
The starting example uses 120 g at $24/kg, six print hours, a $0.30 hourly machine allocation, 120 average watts, and electricity at $0.20/kWh. With a 10% independent failure probability, expected material, machine, and energy costs total $5.36.
Add 35 minutes of labor at $30/hour ($17.50) and $10 of packaging, delivery, and other costs. Modeled cost is $32.86. At a 40% margin with no payment fees, the required price is $32.86 / 0.60, rounded up to $54.77. These are illustrative inputs, not recommended market rates.
Use the result as a cost-aware starting point
The model does not estimate demand, competitor prices, or what a customer is willing to pay. It tells you what your entered costs imply. Review taxes, refunds, licenses, financing, customer acquisition, and any overhead not already included.
After the job, turn on reconciliation and enter actual material, total machine time, and total hands-on time across all attempts. Compare each cost driver with the estimate before quoting a similar job again.
Build an input sheet before accepting the order
Record the model revision, material, orientation, supports, quantity and finish the customer expects. Slice that exact version. A price for a draft with no supports is not a price for a revised part printed in another orientation. Keep a copy of the input snapshot with the quote so changes have a visible cost basis.
Use the paid spool price, including delivery if you allocate it there, divided by its usable weight. Measure average printing power over a representative job rather than entering the printer power-supply rating. Choose productive service hours for machine allocation, not the hours the machine could theoretically remain switched on. Avoid counting the same delivery or maintenance expense in two fields.
Add fees to the worked quote
For the single-part example above, material is $3.20 after the failure allowance, machine time is $2.00 and electricity is $0.16. Setup is $7.50 and finishing is $10.00. These five lines plus $10.00 fulfillment produce the $32.86 production cost.
With an illustrative 3% transaction fee and $0.30 fixed fee, the price becomes ($32.86 + $0.30) / (1 - 0.40 - 0.03) = $58.1754, rounded upward to $58.18. Fees at that selling price are $2.0454. Contribution is $23.2746, approximately 40.00% of revenue. Check your own provider agreement and fee base; this example is not a current provider tariff.
Decide what to do when the quote exceeds the customer budget
First compare the cost lines rather than reducing every rate. In this example, hands-on labor costs $17.50 and electricity only $0.16. Reducing finishing or combining setup across a legitimate batch can matter much more than shopping for a slightly lower electricity tariff. Change the scope only with the customer agreement and reslice when geometry or print settings change.
A lower market price does not make the original cost disappear. You can decline the job, agree a simpler finish, change the delivery arrangement, or knowingly accept a lower contribution. Check the entered selling price after each change. A target margin is a business choice, not evidence that a customer will buy.