Filament is only part of what a print costs. This free 3d print cost calculator adds up the four numbers that decide the real price of a job in Australia: filament, electricity, machine wear and failed prints. Enter the figures from your slicer, adjust the defaults to match your printer and power bill, and the result updates as you type.
True cost of this print: $10.95
- Cost per gram: $0.03
- Filament cost: $4.50
- Electricity cost: $0.45
- Machine wear: $5.00
- Prints per spool at this size: 6 prints
Defaults are starting points, not quotes: set the electricity rate from your own power bill and the wear rate from what you actually spend on nozzles, build plates and belts.
How This 3D Print Cost Calculator Works
Filament cost is the spool price divided by the spool weight, multiplied by the grams your slicer reports. A $30 spool of 1,000 g costs $0.03 per gram, so a 150 g print uses $4.50 of filament. Spool size matters more than sticker price: a cheap 500 g spool can cost more per print than a full 1 kg spool.
Electricity cost is printer wattage divided by 1,000, multiplied by print hours and your rate per kWh. Ten hours at 150 W is 1.5 kWh — $0.45 at $0.30 per kWh. Power is real, but for most hobby prints it is the smallest line in the budget.
Machine wear spreads the cost of nozzles, build plates, belts and eventually the printer itself across print hours. Failure allowance then inflates the subtotal by your chosen percentage, because failed prints consume filament, power and time too.
Worked Example
With the defaults above — 150 g of filament from a $30 spool, a 10-hour print at 150 W, a $0.30/kWh rate, $0.50 per hour of wear and a 10% failure allowance — the 3d print cost calculator returns: filament $4.50, electricity $0.45, wear $5.00, and a true total of $10.95. Change any input and watch which line moves most; for long prints, time-based costs quietly overtake the plastic.
Keep this 3d print cost calculator open while you slice: run every job through it before you quote a price or start a long print, and your spool, power bill and printer will all last longer.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I calculate the filament cost of a 3D print?
Divide the spool price by its weight in grams to get the cost per gram, then multiply by the grams your slicer estimates for the print. This 3d print cost calculator does that maths for you and adds power, wear and failures on top.
Where do I find how many grams a print uses?
Every major slicer — Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer, PrusaSlicer and Cura — reports the estimated filament weight in grams after slicing. Enter that number, plus the estimated print time, into the calculator.
What should I charge other people for a print?
Start from the true cost above, then add your time for slicing, setup and finishing, plus a margin. Our guide to pricing 3D printed products in Australia walks through the full method, and the guide to buying filament in Australia helps you lower the biggest input cost.