1. Material
Take the grams from your slicer, including supports and the purge tower or waste of colour changes. Material cost = grams × price per kilogram ÷ 1000.
2. Electricity
Measure your printer's average power with a plug-in energy meter over a whole print, because the bed heats up hard at the start and then draws much less. Electricity cost = average kW × print hours × price per kWh.
3. Machine time
Spread the printer's price and its wear parts (nozzles, plates, belts, fans) over the print hours you expect from it. Divide by the parts per plate to get a cost per part.
4. Labour
Count the minutes a person spends per plate: removing and checking parts, cleaning the plate, packing. Multiply by your hourly rate and divide by the parts per plate.
5. Failures, packaging and fees
- Divide the production cost by your success rate: at 95% successful plates, every good part carries 1/0.95 of the cost.
- Add packaging per order.
- Add marketplace commission and payment fees, which are a percentage of the selling price.
- Prices for consumers in Poland include 23% VAT; check the rate for your country.
A worked example
Example numbers, not measurements: 40 g of PLA per part at 80 per kg, a 2 h plate with 4 parts, 0.12 kW average at 1.00 per kWh, a printer costing 3,000 over 5,000 hours, and 6 minutes of work per plate at 40 per hour.
- Material per part: 40 × 80 ÷ 1000 = 3.20
- Electricity per part: 0.12 × 2 × 1.00 ÷ 4 = 0.06
- Machine per part: 3,000 ÷ 5,000 × 2 ÷ 4 = 0.30
- Labour per part: 40 × 6 ÷ 60 ÷ 4 = 1.00
- Production cost: 4.56; with a 95% success rate: 4.80 per good part
Then add packaging, fees, VAT and your margin. Electricity is usually the smallest item; material and labour decide the price.
Keep the numbers real
Farmit records slicer grams and print time per file, the result of every job and the failure rate per printer, so you can check your assumptions against what the farm actually did.