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Free 3D print cost calculator, No sign-up required

What a 3D print really costs and what to charge for it: filament, electricity, printer wear, failed prints and your time. Type the weight and the time from your slicer, or drop the model or its G-code and they are filled in.

Drop a model or its G-code

  • STL
  • OBJ
  • PLY
  • GLB
  • glTF
  • G-code

Fills in the weight and the time. Nothing is uploaded.

Type the weight and the time your slicer shows. No slicer to hand? Drop the model for an estimate, or the sliced G-code for the exact figures.

Your costs

Your time is the hands-on part: slicing, removing supports, packing. Extras are whatever you buy per print, like magnets, a box or postage. The rates are remembered in this browser.

How to calculate 3D print cost

Filament is the part everyone counts, and usually the smaller part. Take a 100 gram print that runs for five hours. At $20 per kilogram the filament is $2.00. A printer averaging 120 W uses 0.6 kWh in that time, $0.10 at 17 cents per kWh. A $400 printer that lasts 5,000 printing hours costs 8 cents an hour, so $0.40 of it goes into this print. If one print in twenty fails, the nineteen good ones carry it, another $0.13. That is $2.63 to make, before anyone has touched it.

Your time is what moves the number. Fifteen minutes of slicing, support removal and packing at $20 an hour adds $5.00, twice everything else together. Add it under Your time on it, set the markup, and the price to charge follows. The rates are yours to change and are remembered for next time.

3D print cost from an STL or G-code

The weight and the time normally come from a slicer. Without one to hand, drop the STL, OBJ, PLY or GLB: the calculator measures the model, estimates the filament at the size, material and infill you pick, and estimates the time for your printer. PLA, PETG, ABS, TPU and resin each have their own density, and resin is counted solid.

Already sliced? Drop the G-code instead. The slicer’s own filament weight and print time are read from the file, supports included, so the cost is exact rather than estimated.

Will it print

With a model loaded, the calculator also checks what a slicer only tells you later. The model must be closed and manifold, or the slicer cannot tell inside from outside. It must fit the build volume, and often a part that is too tall standing up fits on its side. Surfaces facing down past 45° need support, the first layer needs enough flat contact to hold the print to the bed, and walls under 0.8 mm at the chosen size are flagged, because a slicer drops them or prints them with gaps.

Questions

How do you calculate the cost of a 3D print?
Add up five things. Filament: the grams used times the price per kilogram. Electricity: the printer's average power times the print time times your price per kWh. Printer wear: the printer's price divided by the hours it will last, times the print time. Failed prints: the share of prints you lose, spread over the ones that work. And your own time at an hourly rate. The calculator does this as you type and shows each line.
What is a good price to charge for 3D printing?
There is no single right figure. Start from the full cost, including your own time, and add a markup: 50 to 100% is a common starting point for one-off prints. Then compare it with what similar prints sell for, because buyers compare prices, not costs. If the market price is under your cost, the print takes too long or too much handling to be worth selling.
How much electricity does a 3D printer use?
Less than most people expect. A desktop filament printer averages roughly 80 to 150 W over a print: more while the bed heats up, less once it is warm. At 120 W a five hour print uses 0.6 kWh, about 10 cents at 17 cents per kWh. An enclosed printer with a heated chamber draws more. A plug-in power meter gives your own figure.
How is the weight estimated from a model?
From its volume and its surface. The walls, top and bottom are printed solid, about 0.9 mm thick with a standard profile, so their share is worked out from the surface area: a small or thin part is nearly all wall, a big block hardly any. What is left inside is counted at your infill percentage, and the total is multiplied by the material's density. Supports are not counted. A slicer's figure is exact, so type it in if you have it.
How is the print time estimated?
From the amount of plastic, the height and the printer you pick. Each printer has a typical pace over a whole print, much slower than its top speed because of outer walls, travel and small layers, and every layer adds a few seconds. It is good enough to price a print, not to plan an evening: a slicer knows your speeds and supports, so use its time when you have it.
Which G-code files does it read?
G-code saved as .gcode from PrusaSlicer, OrcaSlicer, Bambu Studio, Cura and Simplify3D. The slicer writes the filament used and the estimated time into the file as comments, and the calculator reads those, so the figures include supports and match what the slicer showed. Cura gives a length of filament, which is turned into grams for 1.75 mm filament of the material you pick. Bambu's .3mf projects and Prusa's binary .bgcode are not read: export plain G-code.
How is the thinnest wall measured?
Rays. From points spread over the surface, a ray goes straight into the model and the distance to where it comes out is the wall thickness there. The check reports the thinnest wall at the size you chose and flags the model when a noticeable share of it is under 0.8 mm, two perimeters of a standard 0.4 mm nozzle. Scaling the print up is often enough to fix it.
What counts as an overhang?
Any part of the surface facing downward more steeply than 45°, which is where most FDM printers start to droop without support. The figure is a share of total surface area, so 5% is a few ledges and 40% means the part needs a different orientation or a lot of support.
It says my model is metres. Is it broken?
No, just saved in a different unit. glTF and most AI generators write metres; slicers read millimetres. A model under 10 units across is read as metres and set to print at 150 mm on its longest side, or smaller if that would not fit your printer. Change the size, or the units box if the guess is wrong, and everything is re-measured.
Can I download the model at the size I picked?
Yes. Download STL writes the model at the chosen size, in millimetres with Z up, standing the way Lay flat chose, so the slicer opens it ready to slice. Lay flat tries the model on each of its six sides and keeps the one that needs the least support while still giving the first layer enough to hold on to. Turn it off to keep the model as saved.
Do I need an account or to sign up?
No. No sign-up, login or email is required, and there is no limit: the tool runs in your browser, so there is nothing to meter. Use it as often as you like, on as many files as you like.

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