How to price 3D prints, line by line

Most people who sell prints price them the same way. They take what the slicer says the filament costs and multiply it. Three times is the usual number. A seller on the Bambu Lab forum put it the way most of the trade does: “Rule of 3 is a good starting point - Multiple the raw cost of your materials x 3 -annd your in the ball park - doesnt always work”. Bambu Lab forum

It works on a short print in PLA, where the plastic is most of the cost. It fails on exactly the jobs a shop wants to win: long prints, hot materials, multi-colour plates and anything finished by hand. In the same thread, the same seller describes stalls selling dragons with “at least $2 of filament, 5-6hrs print, post porocessing , hand painting eyes and such … for as low as $5 … it just … doesnt compute for me.” Bambu Lab forum

It does not compute because the rule prices the plastic and nothing else. Here is the rest of it.

What a multiplier on the filament leaves out

A print costs more than the plastic that ends up in the part. Each of these is its own line:

• Purge. The prime line, the brim, the flush between colours and the prime tower are filament you bought and threw away. On a multi-colour plate it can outweigh the model.
• Electricity. The printer’s average draw times the hours, at your tariff. A day-long print in an enclosed machine is a real line, not a rounding error.
• Machine wear. The printer’s price spread over the hours it will run, plus a year of nozzles, plates and belts spread over the hours it runs. A printer that sits idle costs more per hour, not less.
• Your hands. Slicing, plate prep, support removal, sanding, packing. The machine prints alone. You do not finish alone.
• The reprint reserve. Some prints fail. The ones that finish have to pay for the plastic and machine hours of the ones that did not.
• Parts, packaging and the marketplace’s cut. Magnets, inserts, the box, the label, and the share the platform keeps.

One print, priced two ways

Take an ABS fixture plate: 480 g, 20 hours on a Bambu Lab P1S. Bambu measures the P1S at 140 W while it prints ABS.Bambu Lab wiki The filament is Bambu ABS at $15.99 for 1000 g,Bambu Lab store the printer lists at $399,Bambu Lab store and electricity is the US residential average of $0.1816 a kWh.EIA

The rest are the assumptions the Printyard demo uses for a US shop, and yours will differ: the printer lasts 6,000 hours with $180 a year of upkeep, 25 minutes of your time at $28 an hour, and a 6% failure rate.

Three times the filament puts the price at $23.03. The print costs $23.51 to make. Sold on Etsy at the rule-of-thumb price, the job loses $3.12 once the marketplace has taken its cut.

Here is where the $23.51 goes:

• Filament: $7.68
• Electricity: $0.51
• Machine wear and upkeep: $2.19
• Your time: $11.67
• Reprint reserve: $0.67
• Consumables: $0.80

The lines the rule never sees add up to $15.83. On a long print the plastic is the smaller part of the cost, and a multiplier on the plastic cannot see the rest.

Markup goes on the landed cost, not on the plastic

Once you know what the print costs to make, the price is that cost plus the margin you want. With the demo’s 60% markup, the same print lists at $37.61 and keeps $10.08 after the marketplace’s cut.

The markup is a decision. The cost is not. You can choose to sell near cost to win a customer, or charge more for a design nobody else has. What you cannot do is choose a price without knowing which side of the cost it lands on. Last in the same forum thread, a seller gives the rule that holds once you do know it: “Set the price by considering the value it delivers to the customer, unless your costs significantly exceed the perceived value.” Bambu Lab forum

Take the marketplace’s cut off the whole order

The platform’s fees come off what the buyer pays, and that includes shipping. Etsy charges its transaction fee on “the price you display for each listing plus the amount you charge for shipping and gift wrapping”. Etsy A price that covers the item’s cost but leaves the shipping fee out of the sums will lose that fee on every order.

So price from the bottom up. Work out the landed cost, add the markup, then check what is left after the fee on the full order, shipping included. If you sell on Etsy, the guide to selling 3D prints on Etsy walks through each fee.

Failures belong in the price

Every shop has a scrap bin, and most never put it on the quote. The fix is a reserve: a percentage applied to the costs a failed print burns. That is the filament, the purge, the power and the machine hours. It is not your finishing time, because a print that failed overnight was never sanded or packed.

Track your own failure rate rather than borrowing someone else’s. A shop that runs mostly short PLA parts and a shop that runs day-long engineering prints will see different numbers, and the reserve should follow yours.

Know your machine and your material

Two numbers decide most of the hidden cost: what your printer draws and what your filament costs per gram. The printer pages give each maker’s measured draw by material, and the material pages turn a spool price into a cost per gram. For a hot material, start with ASA or ABS; for most everyday work, PLA.

Price the next one in ten seconds

Put your own grams, hours, printer and rates into the 3D print cost calculator. It itemises every line above, adds your markup, and shows what is left after the marketplace’s cut. Printyard does the same on your phone at the machine, and keeps the quote, so the price you gave a customer in March is still there when they reorder.