How much to charge for a 3D print: real 2026 pricing (with examples)

The question I get most often, since I launched Stimalo, is always the same: "how much should I charge for this print?". And behind it there's almost always the same fear — charge too much and lose the client, or charge too little and work for free.

There's no magic price list that works for everyone, because the price depends on your printer, your material and your energy bill. But there is a method that keeps you from getting it wrong. Let's walk through it, with three concrete examples.

The method: cost first, then margin

The most common mistake is starting from the price ("I'll say €10, feels about right"). The correct method does the opposite: it starts from the real cost and applies a margin on top.

The real cost of a print is not just the filament. It's the sum of:

• Material (weight × price per kg, with a waste factor for supports and failures)
• Electricity (careful: not the nameplate watts, but the real draw — I cover it in detail in this article on power consumption)
• Printer depreciation (how much of the machine that print "consumes")
• Labor (slicing, setup, removal, post-processing — the line almost everyone forgets)

If you want the full breakdown of each line, I explained it step by step in the guide to calculating the cost of a 3D print. Here we start from the cost already calculated and reason about the price.

Three real examples

1. PLA keychain, 15 g, 40 minutes. Material cost ~€0.30, electricity ~€0.05, depreciation ~€0.40, labor (5 min) ~€1.50 → total cost ~€2.25. With a 45% margin → ~€4. If you print 20 of them on one plate, the price per piece drops because you spread the labor once.

2. Decorative PETG vase, 180 g, 9 hours. Material ~€3.60, electricity ~€0.30, depreciation ~€3.50, labor (15 min) ~€3.00 → cost ~€10.40. With a 45% margin → ~€19.

3. Commissioned ABS-CF technical part, 250 g, 14 hours. Material ~€9, electricity ~€0.50, depreciation ~€5.50, labor (30 min, plus failure risk) ~€6 → cost ~€21. Technical materials and tight tolerances justify a higher margin: 55% → ~€47.

Notice how the price is never "material times two". On small, fast parts the bulk of the cost is labor; on long prints it's machine and energy that weigh.

The mistakes that lose you money

• Pricing at material ×2. It only works by accident on certain mid-size parts; on small parts (lots of labor, little material) you work at a loss.
• Forgetting labor. Your time has value. Put it at an hourly rate and add it before applying the margin.
• Ignoring failures. One print in ten goes wrong: if you don't build it into the cost, you pay for it.
• Changing prices by gut feeling every time. Without a method you never know if you're actually making money.

How I do it (in 2 minutes)

I use Stimalo: I load the G-code (or even the .gcode.3mf file from Bambu Studio), select material and printer, and the calculator gives me the real cost, split into material, energy, machine and labor. Then I set the margin — or type the final price directly and see what margin I'm applying — and generate the PDF to send to the client.

It's free and you don't need to sign up to try it: run your first quote here. If you then want to save it and keep a history of your jobs, create a free account — it's what I use every day to never work at a loss.

And you — how do you decide your prices? If you have a different method, write to me, I'm genuinely interested.