Price prints, custom parts and batch orders from your own costs
You enter what your print shop costs to run once. After that, every print, part and wholesale batch is priced from your own numbers, not from the slicer's gram count or the cheapest listing.
- Know what your hands-on time really costs Space, insurance, software, listings and wages, yours included, become one break-even rate for every minute someone touches an order.
- Price the whole part, not just the filament Filament with a failure buffer, printer hours, inserts, hardware, outside parts and packaging each get their own line.
- Quote by the piece at four quantities One quote shows the price each at the quantity asked for and three others, so a buyer sees why 100 cost less each than 10.
- Stop printing test parts and logo changes for free Reprints, CAD changes and the approval print sit on a checklist that has to be answered before the quote is ready.
- Send a professional quote the same day A one-page customer quote with the quantity table, deposit and printing terms, ready to print or save as a PDF.
- Find out which products and orders paid The Job Log tracks every quote, won or lost, and the real hours each order took.
- One-time payment, no subscription
- Instant download
- Excel and Google Sheets
How it turns grams, print hours and hands-on minutes into a batch quote
The file has six tabs. You set up the shop once, update filament and hardware prices when your suppliers change them, and make one quote per order.
- Start HereWhich yellow cells to fill in before your first print quote; setup takes about one evening.
- Shop SetupYour yearly costs, you and any helper, and your printer fleet, turned into a hands-on break-even rate and a cost per print hour for the printers.
- Price ListFilament by the kilo (PLA, PETG, TPU, silk), inserts, bolts, knobs and packaging, each with the date you last checked it.
- QuoteType the grams and print hours from your slicer, time the hands-on steps, add bought-in parts, answer the checklist, and it prices the order at four quantities.
- Customer QuoteThe one page your customer sees: the quantity table, deposit and 3D printing terms, like test print approval and who owns the logo or model.
- Job LogOnce the order ships, type in the hands-on hours it really took and see whether the batch paid.
What is a break-even rate? It is what one hands-on hour has to bring in to cover your wages and every other cost of running the shop, before any profit. The printers get their own much smaller cost per print hour, so machine time and your time are never mixed up. The true hourly rate guide explains the rate in more detail.
Prefilled example built-in
The file comes filled in with a made-up print shop and its $917.69 jig order, so you see a finished quote before you type in your own numbers.
The example shop is an owner and a part-time helper running eight printers, with a break-even of $44.57 per hands-on hour. Its example order is 25 PLA miter saw stop block jigs for a woodworking store, each with six heat-set inserts, a laser-cut aluminum face plate, a T-bolt and knob, and the store's logo on the side, bagged for retail.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Part of the price | Amount |
| 2 | Filament, printer time, hardware, face plates and hands-on labour | $441.55 |
| 3 | Easy-to-miss costs | $207.01 |
| 4 | Markup, cushion and profit | $269.13 |
| 5 | Price to the customer | $917.69 |
That is $36.71 a jig. The $269.13 is kept after every cost, the owner's wage included, and the 9.25 hands-on hours earn about $73.75 each. The same file prices a single jig at $395.48, because the logo work and approval print all land on one piece. The full walk-through is on how much to charge for 3D printing.
$207
That is what the easy-to-miss lines alone added to this one example quote. It is about 4 times what the calculator costs. Miss them once and the file has paid for itself.
- One-time payment, no subscription
- Instant download
- Excel and Google Sheets
Why pricing a 3D print by the gram loses money
A lot of 3D print prices start from the filament weight in the slicer, often multiplied by three. That rule knows the grams and nothing else: not the print hours, the inserts, the bag, the plate that failed, or the person who pulled the parts and cleaned them.
The example jig shows the gap. It uses about $2 of filament, so the times-three rule says about $6. But pulling the part, pressing six inserts and fitting the plate and knob takes about 12 minutes, and 12 minutes at the $44.57 break-even rate is nearly $9 of labour before any hardware, printer time or profit. The file prices it at $36.71 in a batch of 25.
That is why this calculator builds the price from the whole part first, then shows you the price per piece at each quantity. You can still check the per-gram number at the end, but it comes from the job, not the other way round.
Failed plates, logo CAD work and the other print costs it catches
The Quote tab won't mark a quote ready until each of these lines has a Yes, No or N/A:
- Failed prints and reprints, as an allowance on filament and printer hours for spaghetti, warping and layer shifts.
- Purge towers and support waste, so a multi-colour part is priced on everything the printer uses, not just the part.
- CAD changes to the customer's logo or file, which rarely take the five minutes they sound like.
- The test print the customer approves, which ties up a printer and your time before the order is confirmed.
- Marketplace fees, when the sale comes through Etsy or another shop platform.
- Bed cleaning, clogs and troubleshooting time. Left as No in the example on purpose, so the warning stays until you set your own number.
Exactly what you get
One spreadsheet file, sent as an instant download the moment you pay. It opens in Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. No subscription, no app and no login.
- The six-tab calculator, ready for your own numbers.
- A complete example print shop, with a finished 25-jig order you can study before you start.
- 3D printing customer terms you can edit, covering ownership of logos and models, and changes after the test print is approved going on a signed change order.
- A Job Log that shows your win rate and which orders ran over their hands-on hours, the habit covered in job costing.
How it compares
Most owners price a job one of these ways. Here is what each one gives you.
| Copying another company's price | A free estimate template | Estimating software | This calculator | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starts from your own costs | No | No | Varies | Yes |
| Makes you answer the easy-to-miss costs | No | No | Varies | Yes |
| Shows which jobs made money | No | No | Varies | Yes |
| Works in Excel and Google Sheets | – | Yes | No | Yes |
| Cost | Free | Free | Usually a monthly fee | $49.95 once |
Who it's for: print farms, Etsy sellers and custom part shops
It fits owner-run print shops and farms of about 1 to 15 people selling products, custom parts or print-on-order work, Etsy and market sellers who price by filament weight today, and anyone quoting a wholesale batch who needs a price each at several quantities. One printer in a spare room or a rack of thirty, a single keychain or 500 brackets, it works the same way, because the grams, hours and costs in it are yours.
It is not for hobbyists printing the odd gift who don't need to pay themselves, industrial bureaus with instant online quotes for SLS or metal, or anyone who wants a price read straight from an STL file. It does not read slicer files; you type the grams and print hours in. Want your hands-on rate first? The free true hourly rate calculator works it out from your own numbers.
Stop pricing prints from the slicer's gram count. Price every part and batch order from your own costs, catch the reprints and logo work that usually get missed, and see which orders made money.
3D Printing Pricing Calculator
$49.95 one-time
Buy now and download- One-time payment, no subscription
- Instant download
- Excel and Google Sheets