3D printer running cost comparison
Pick two printers, a material and your electricity price. The table sets the power and the wear of an hour side by side, and what a month of printing comes to.
| Bambu Lab P1S | Bambu Lab P2S | |
|---|---|---|
| List price | $399 | $549 |
| Average draw | 105 W | 200 W |
| Electricity per hour | $0.019 | $0.036 |
| Wear and upkeep per hour | $0.109 | $0.134 |
| Running cost per hour | $0.128 | $0.171 |
| A month at 200 hours | $25.69 | $34.14 |
| Standby for the rest of the month | $0.57 | $0.77 |
Draws and list prices are the makers’ own. Wear and upkeep use the same assumptions for both machines. Bold is the side ahead on that row.
How it is worked out
An hour’s electricity is the maker’s stated draw for that material, times your tariff. An hour’s wear is the list price spread over the machine’s working life, plus a year’s upkeep spread over the hours it runs. Those two assumptions are the same for every printer, so the gap between two machines comes from their prices and their draws.
Where a maker states no draw for a material, the table uses its PLA figure and marks it with a star. Standby is what the machine draws for the rest of a thirty-day month if you leave it on.
Printers, by the maker's own figures
Popular comparisons
- Bambu Lab P1S vs P2S: running costBambu Lab P1S vs P2S on price, power and wear. On PLA the Bambu Lab P1S costs $0.042 less an hour to run, from the makers' own figures.
- Bambu Lab A1 vs P1S: running costBambu Lab A1 vs P1S on price, power and wear. On PLA the Bambu Lab A1 costs $0.018 less an hour to run, from the makers' own figures.
- Bambu Lab A1 vs A1 mini: running costBambu Lab A1 vs A1 mini on price, power and wear. On PLA the Bambu Lab A1 mini costs $0.016 less an hour to run, from the makers' own figures.
- Prusa MK4S vs CORE One+: running costPrusa MK4S vs CORE One+ on price, power and wear. On PLA the Prusa MK4S costs $0.052 less an hour to run, from the makers' own figures.
- Bambu Lab P1S vs Prusa CORE One+: running costBambu Lab P1S vs Prusa CORE One+ on price, power and wear. On PLA the Bambu Lab P1S costs $0.147 less an hour to run, from the makers' own figures.
Questions
What does a 3D printer cost to run per hour?
On PLA at 18.16 cents per kWh, from $0.094 an hour for the Bambu Lab A1 mini to $0.337 for the Bambu Lab H2D, power and wear together.Bambu Lab wikiBambu Lab storeEIA
Which costs more, the electricity or the wear?
On every machine here, the wear. A printer's price spread over its working life comes to more per hour than the power it draws, so a cheaper machine usually costs less to run even when it draws about the same.
What does the wear figure assume?
That every printer lasts the same working life and takes the same yearly upkeep. Those are the starting assumptions of the Printyard app's demo, not facts about any machine, so the gap between two printers is about their prices and their draws.
Does this say which printer is better?
No. It compares what the machines cost to own and run. Speed, build volume, reliability and print quality are not on this table, and any of them can be worth more than the difference it shows.
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.
Sources
- Bambu Lab Printer and AMS power parameters · Bambu Lab · checked October 30, 2026
- 3D Printers, Bambu Lab US Store (typical price of the base printer, without AMS) · Bambu Lab · checked October 30, 2026
- Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: average price of electricity by sector, August 2026 · U.S. Energy Information Administration · checked October 30, 2026
- Original Prusa MK4S 3D Printer (assembled and kit) · Prusa Research · checked October 30, 2026
- Prusa CORE One+ (Gen 2), assembled and kit · Prusa Research · checked October 30, 2026