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3D printer electricity cost calculator

Pick a printer and a material for the maker's measured draw, or type your own watts from a plug-in meter. Then set your electricity price.

Per hour$0.017
This print$0.10
A month at this pace$4.14
A year at this pace$50.38

A month is thirty days. The maker’s figure is an average while printing; a plug-in meter on your own machine is the better number, and it goes in the field above.

How it is worked out

Watts times hours is watt-hours; a thousand of those is a kilowatt-hour, which is what the bill charges for. The draw in the list is each maker’s own average for that material while printing, not the power supply’s rating, which is the most the machine can pull while the bed heats.

The tariff opens on the US residential average for August 2026, 18.16 cents per kWh.EIA Your bill states your own rate per kWh; use that.

Printers, by the maker's own figures

Questions

How much electricity does a 3D printer use?

By the makers' own measurements on PLA, from 80 W for the Bambu Lab A1 mini to 200 W for the Bambu Lab P2S. An hour of printing uses that many watt-hours.Bambu Lab wiki

How much does it cost to run a 3D printer per hour?

At 18.16 cents per kWh, an hour of PLA on the Bambu Lab A1 mini costs $0.015 and a day of it $0.35. Electricity is rarely the largest line on a quote; machine wear and labour usually are.Bambu Lab wikiEIA

Does ABS use more electricity than PLA?

Yes, by the maker's measurement: the Bambu Lab A1 draws 95 W on PLA and 200 W on ABS, for the hotter bed and chamber.Bambu Lab wiki

Why not use the power rating on the printer?

The rating is the most the printer can draw, mostly while the bed heats up. The Bambu Lab A1 is rated at 350 W and averages 95 W over a PLA print, and the bill sees the average.Bambu Lab wiki

Does a printer use power when it is not printing?

A little. The Bambu Lab A1 draws 5.4 W in standby, by its maker's figure. Left on all month, that adds $0.71 at 18.16 cents per kWh.Bambu Lab wikiEIA

Where do the starting numbers come from?

The electricity price is the US residential average the EIA reports for August 2026, 18.16 cents per kWh. Printer draws are each maker's own measurement and spool prices are each maker's list price. Labour, markup, machine life and upkeep are the same starting assumptions as the Printyard app's demo, so change them to your shop's.EIA

Other calculators

Keep these numbers for every print

Printyard runs this arithmetic on your phone at the machine and on the web: every quote itemised, every roll to the gram, and a month with the fees and the failed prints already taken out.

Price your shopDownload on the App Store

Sources