How much should you charge for 3D printing?

Short answer: your true cost, times a markup. The mistake that sinks most print shops is thinking "cost" means filament. It doesn't — it's six things. Here's the method, with numbers.

The six real costs of a print

1. Material — grams × cost per gram, including purge, supports, and a failure allowance. (filament cost calculator)
2. Electricity — small but real on long prints. (electricity calculator)
3. Labour — slicing, loading, removal, support cleanup. The most under-counted cost, and usually the biggest after material.
4. Post-processing — sanding, painting, hardware, packaging.
5. Machine wear — printer price ÷ realistic lifetime hours, per print hour.
6. Overhead — failed prints, software, the slice of rent/time the job eats.

Then add markup — this is your profit

Sum the six = your cost. Your price = cost × (1 + markup). Typical ranges: 30–50% for custom work, lower for commodity/bulk, higher for design-heavy or rush jobs. If you don't add markup, you've built yourself a job that pays minimum wage with no profit for the risk you carry.

A worked example

A 35 g PLA print, 1.5 h, on a 120 W printer at $0.17/kWh, with 15 min of labour at $25/h: material ≈ $0.84, electricity ≈ $0.05, labour ≈ $6.25, plus a little post-processing and wear — call it ~$7.50 cost. At a 40% markup, you'd charge about $10.50. Price it at "filament × 2" ($1.70) and you just paid the customer to take it.

Quoting clients

Always show per-unit and total, list the quantity, and put your business name on it. An itemised quote wins more jobs — and justifies a higher price — than a number typed in a DM.