How much would you charge someone to print something for them?

3D Printing
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1

How much would you charge someone to print something for them? Would you do it by weight? By time? Realistically, the cost of the PLA isn’t that spendy, but it’s always nice to make a little scratch on the side. How much is too much?

2

let them choose the price what is it worth to them.

3

Time + filament length + setup.

4

@Ulrich_Baer yeah. I tried to have them tell me what they wanted to pay, but they keep putting it back on me to give them a price. Realistically, the print probably cost me 3 bucks in plastic and 16 hours on the printer.

5

@Mr_Bonce but how much do you charge for each of those things?

6

Filament length should be the real world cost of the filament used, time would be the estimated cost of actually running the print (electric usage) and setup to cover consumables and time spent making the print run ready and also your personal time in setting up and removal + cleanup (removing supports etc)

7

@Daniel_Jackman you should visit a bazaar … this cost 50 … hm i ll give you 30 - nooo at least 40 … ok 35

8

@Ulrich_Baer hahah! Yeah. I’ve been to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. I’m horrible at negotiating. I had someone throw me out of their shop because I tried to go too low too fast

9

@Daniel_Jackman
$1.50/part
$0.28/material cm3
$0.21/machine cm3
shapeway price … remove 30-50% and it should be fine for both.

10

I guess it depends on what you’re printing and who it’s for. If it’s a close friend, maybe $10?

11

If you like to have it in realistic prices, you need to calculate a bit more.
The points wich you need to calculate in are:
Repair costs
Electricity
Usage / wear
Material costs
Aditinal used tools
Programming and Programm costs

Than you got a realistic pricing.
But in private just have a look at your costs and calculate over your thumb.

12

Unless it’s a large amount of print, your time might be the most costly part. Just getting the data, checking that it’s ok, sending it to your printer, getting the result to the printer, and handling shipping can take quite a while, depending on how streamlined your setup is. If you calculate a decent but not extreme wage like $20, it doesn’t take a lot to have that surpass all the other costs.

Of course, it’s up to you how much you charge for your time, but if your time is worth nothing, then so are you. See https://luminous-landscape.com/selling/ for the equivalent question in photography. If you’re going to have this as a source of income rather than something you do occasionally for friends, the materials are the smallest part.

13

@Lars_Clausen1 ​ That’s a great read! Really enjoyed! Thanks

14

For commercial prints I charge:

  • 2x the price of the used filament by weight
  • $2 an hour on the machine : I usually just double the estimate the slicer gives me.
  • $15 per plate: For example, if I have enough to print on two beds, this would be $30.
  • Any color changes or swapping is $15 per swap, since this takes my personal time.
  • If I have to do any out of the ordinary cleanup and prep I charge $50 an hour to deal with that (and will split it in half hour chunks).
    • shipping $
      So for example, if I had one plate that took 20 hours and used .25kg of material I purchased for $20 a spool, that would come to $15+$40+$10 = $65 + shipping.

For friends:

  • 1x the price of the used filament by weight.
  • .50c an hour on the machine. I usually just double the estimate the slicer gives me.
  • $5 per plate, $5 per filament swap
  • wave any prep costs, they’re friends after all :wink:
    • shipping $
      Same example for friends would be $5+$10+$5 = $20.
15

I charge by the gram based on the print resolution and time gets automatically factored in. Never less than $0.25 a gram minimum for a “mercy” print. Your skills and expertise are worth something. For a high resolution precision print I will charge $0.95 per gram. Most prints will fall somewhere in between.