Explained
How much does a 3D print cost?
Published · How we check our guides
Short answer
Mostly the filament: grams times your price per kilogram, so a 120 g print in €20/kg PLA costs €2.40 in plastic. Electricity adds only a few cents an hour on a desktop printer (about €0.03 an hour for a Bambu Lab A1 at EU prices). Wear and failed prints add a little more.
Three real examples
Filament at €20 per kg (Bambu Lab PLA Basic on a spool) and electricity at €0.28 per kWh (the EU household average for the first half of 2026). Power is each maker’s average for printing PLA.
| Filament | Electricity | Materials total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small part: 20 g, 1.5 h on a Bambu Lab A1 (95 W) | €0.40 | €0.04 | €0.44 |
| Medium print: 120 g, 6 h on a P1S (105 W) | €2.40 | €0.18 | €2.58 |
| Large print: 600 g, 30 h on an H2D (197 W) | €12.00 | €1.65 | €13.65 |
Filament is almost always most of the materials cost. Electricity only matters on long prints with big machines, and even then it’s a small share.
Filament: grams × price per kg
Your slicer tells you the weight after slicing (in Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, OrcaSlicer and Cura it’s in the print summary). Multiply by your price per kilogram. Typical prices for 1 kg of PLA in November 2026:
- Bambu Lab PLA Basic: €19.99 on a spool, €16.99 as a refill (EU store)
- eSun PLA+: $15.99, less in multi-packs
- Polymaker Panchroma Matte (formerly PolyTerra): $19.99
- Prusament PLA: €32.99
Don’t forget supports, brims and purge: they’re included in the slicer’s total, and a multi-colour print can waste more filament on colour changes than goes into the model.
Electricity: watts × hours × your price
A printer uses a lot of power for a few minutes while the bed heats up, then much less while it prints. What counts is the average:
| Printer | Average printing PLA | Cost per hour at €0.28/kWh |
|---|---|---|
| Bambu Lab A1 mini | 80 W | €0.022 |
| Prusa MK4S | 80 W | €0.022 |
| Prusa CORE One | 90 W | €0.025 |
| Bambu Lab A1 | 95 W | €0.027 |
| Bambu Lab P1S / X1C | 105 W | €0.029 |
| Bambu Lab H2D | 197 W | €0.055 |
Electricity prices vary a lot. In the US the residential average was 18.16 ¢/kWh in August 2026, and in the UK the price cap for October to December 2026 is 26.32 p/kWh. Across the EU, household prices run from about €0.11 (Hungary) to €0.39 (Ireland). ABS and ASA need a hotter bed and use more power; PLA is among the lowest.
Wear and failed prints
- Wear: spread the printer’s price over the hours it will run. A €600 printer over 3,000 hours is €0.20 an hour, more than the electricity. Add a few cents an hour for parts that wear out: nozzles, belts and build plates.
- Failures: some prints fail and are printed again. No maker publishes a rate; 5–10% is a common allowance. Track your own if you sell prints.
If you sell prints
The machine cost is the easy part. Your time (preparing the file, removing supports, cleaning up, packing) and platform fees usually cost more than the plastic. Add them, plus your margin, on top of the materials.
Work out your own print
The print cost calculator does all of this. Drop a G-code file for the exact weight and time from your slicer, or an STL for an estimate, enter your own prices, and copy or share the result. Your prices are remembered on your device. To see the same numbers layer by layer, open the G-code in the G-code viewer.