A slicer can estimate consumed filament and printing time, but those quantities are not a complete job price. This calculator separates the costs you enter, then optionally shows the consequence of failed full-cost attempts. It supplies no printer power, material density, local tariff or observed failure-rate database.
Filament print job cost
Use the slicer’s consumed mass, your spool price and measured energy inputs. Keep one currency throughout.
100 g from a 20/1,000 g spool plus 2 hours at 100 W and 0.20/kWh gives 2.04 before extras. Values are editable examples; entries stay in this page.
Run the calculation to see your result.
Use the slicer total, not only the finished part
Enter consumed filament mass including supports, purge and other material already counted by the slicer. Material cost is consumed grams × spool price ÷ net spool grams. Select kilograms in the advanced section if the spool quantity is labeled that way. Exclude packaging mass and use your actual paid price in one currency.
In the example, 100 g from a 1,000 g spool costing 20 gives 2.00 in material cost. Two hours at a measured average 100 W use 0.2 kWh. At 0.20 per kWh, electricity adds 0.04, giving 2.04 before other inputs. These are hypothetical round numbers, not a tariff or measurement of a named printer. A zero electricity rate produces zero energy cost.
Measure average power for the relevant job
A power supply’s maximum wattage is not the same as average draw. Use your measured average or a complete job energy reading converted consistently with its duration. Warmup, the bed, chamber and printing conditions can affect the actual total. The calculator multiplies average watts divided by 1,000 by hours and price per kWh; it cannot establish those inputs for your machine.
Active labor minutes are separate from printer hours. Preparation or finishing that needs your attention can have a different cost from a printer running while you do something else. Other cost is an explicit per-attempt amount for your own consumables or wear allocation. None of these defaults claims an operating expense or professional wage.
Understand the failure scenario
With a user-entered full-cost failure share F, repeated-attempt cost per success is cost per attempt ÷ (1 − F). This assumes attempts repeat at the same cost and a failed attempt incurs every entered item, including labor and other cost. A failure early in a print, recovered material, partial batches or one-time design labor can make that assumption inappropriate. Keep those records separately rather than treating the output as an observed average.
At 100% failure there is no successful-output cost to calculate. At 0%, the repeated-attempt answer equals the per-attempt total. The tool does not predict failure or guarantee a sale, margin or return on a printer. Taxes, customer pricing and any expense not entered remain outside the calculation.
Check the separate decisions
For liquid resin, use the resin consumption worksheet so bottle volume, supports and accepted parts are handled explicitly. For printer selection, the bounding-box fit checker answers a different question. A low entered cost does not establish that a part fits, is reliable or is safe for its intended use.
Method and source
This is original reader-input arithmetic, not a print test or business forecast. Prusa’s explanation of printing costs distinguishes material, electricity, preparation and machine operating costs. Source checked October 15, 2026. Its historic illustrative rates, printer prices and depreciation choices are not presets in this tool.