Why is cost per gram higher than just the filament price?

Filament is only one of four costs. Electricity to run the printer, depreciation of the machine itself over its rated life, and the cost of failed prints all add real money. This tool sums them so your quotes cover the true cost of goods.

How is machine depreciation calculated?

Depreciation per hour is the printer's purchase price divided by its rated lifetime in hours. Multiplying by the print time gives the wear cost for that job. A 500 unit printer rated for 5000 hours costs 0.10 per print hour.

How does the failure rate change the cost?

Failed prints still consume material, power, and machine time. The tool divides the base cost by (1 minus the failure rate) so that successful prints absorb the cost of the failures. An 8 percent failure rate multiplies cost by about 1.087.

What electricity figures should I use?

Use your printer's average power draw in watts, not its peak heater rating. A typical desktop FDM machine averages 80 to 150 watts. Multiply by hours and divide by 1000 to get kilowatt-hours, then by your per-kWh rate.

Does this include my labour?

No. This is the cost of goods only: material, energy, depreciation, and failures. Add your hourly labour for setup, supervision, and post-processing, plus a profit margin, on top of the figure shown.

3D Print Total Cost Per Gram

Filament price alone badly understates what a 3D print really costs. This calculator adds the three hidden cost drivers — electricity, machine depreciation, and the cost of failed prints — to give an honest, all-in cost per gram you can build a quote on.

How it works

Four costs are combined and then adjusted for failures:

material     = spool price / spool net weight × grams
electricity  = (watts / 1000) × hours × rate per kWh
depreciation = (printer price / rated lifetime hours) × hours
all-in       = (material + electricity + depreciation) / (1 − failure rate)
per gram     = all-in / grams

Dividing by 1 − failure rate spreads the cost of scrapped prints across the ones that succeed, which is the correct way to recover that loss in a price.

Example and tips

A 50 g, 5-hour print on a 500 unit printer rated for 5000 hours, drawing 120 W at 0.25 per kWh, with a 20 unit/kg spool and an 8 percent failure rate, works out to roughly 0.026 per gram all-in — about 30 percent more than the bare 0.02 per gram filament cost. Keep your rated-lifetime estimate realistic: cheap printers rarely exceed a few thousand printing hours, while well-maintained machines can run far longer, which lowers the depreciation component.