Print cost estimator

FDM is priced on time more than plastic. The shell is solid and the middle is sparse, so what leaves the nozzle is a fraction of the part's volume; the print takes that fraction divided by a real throughput, plus a few seconds a layer. A tall hollow part costs more than a short solid one of the same weight.

SLS is priced on the room the part reserves in the bed, not on what it weighs. It is wrapped at 4 mm, the spacing a bureau leaves so parts do not sinter to each other, and that wrapped volume divided by the packing density is the bed space it consumes. Powder is charged on the virgin share of the mix, because the rest of the cake is sieved and used again.

Whether you share the bed decides more than anything else. A part in a bureau's shared build pays for its own room. The same part alone on your own machine pays for the whole build, which is why one costs several hundred and twenty-five cost the same each. Both are shown.

Defaults are September 2026 market rates: SLS service pricing of $0.50 to $1.50 per cm3 of part volume (makerstage,in3dtec), PA12 powder at $50 to $100/kg, refresh ratios of 30 to 50% virgin and packing densities of 8 to 15% (Sinterit,MLC CAD). A starting point to overwrite with your own, not a price list.

• Wall thickness is sampled by casting a ray from the middle of each triangle, so a rib crossed at an angle reads thicker than it is, and a mesh past 150,000 triangles is sampled down.
• The narrowest gap is the distance between two faces looking at each other. An open slot measures the same as a trapped channel and depowders fine.
• Holes are found along the three build axes and measured from the triangle corners, so a coarse bore still reads its nominal size. Slots, pockets, holes on a slant and anything past about seven degrees of draft are not counted.
• The wrapped volume grows the convex hull rather than the part itself, so a bracket with a big open middle reserves less bed than the figure suggests.
• Nothing here knows what else is in your build, which on SLS is worth more than every other assumption put together.