🖨️ Print Time Cost Calculator

Estimate your full print cost by combining machine/electricity cost per hour with the filament material cost.

Print time (hours)

Machine cost per hour ($)

Filament material cost ($)

Hourly running cost plus material

machine cost = hours × cost per hour
total        = machine cost + filament cost

The defaults are a 5 hour print at $0.15 an hour with $5.00 of filament, giving $0.75 of machine cost and $5.75 in total. Machine time is the smaller half on most prints, and stays smaller until a job runs past about 30 hours.

Where the cost per hour comes from

The $0.15 default is not electricity alone. Build your own figure from three parts:

Component	Working	Per hour
Electricity	120 W average × $0.16/kWh	$0.019
Depreciation	$400 printer over 3000 h	$0.133
Consumables	nozzles, belts, PTFE, bed sheets	$0.02

That totals about $0.17. Note how small the power bill is: a 10 hour print costs roughly 19 cents to run. It is the machine wearing out, not the meter, that dominates. The 120 W is an average - the bed pulls 250-350 W while heating and far less once it holds temperature.

Slicer time estimates run 10-25% under reality on stock Marlin firmware. The slicer models motion using the acceleration and jerk in its own profile, which rarely matches what the firmware enforces, and it ignores heat-up, mesh bed levelling and the purge line - 5 to 8 minutes before the first layer. Time a real print once and apply the ratio to future estimates.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to run a 3D printer per hour?

Around $0.15-0.20 for a hobby machine, of which under 2 cents is electricity. Depreciating the printer over its useful hours is the bulk of it.

How much electricity does a 3D printer use?

About 120 W averaged across a print, so 1.2 kWh over ten hours - roughly 19 cents at $0.16 a unit. An enclosed printer running ABS at a 100 C bed uses noticeably more, closer to 200 W.

Why did my print take longer than the slicer estimated?

The estimate assumes the printer reaches the acceleration set in the profile on every move, which it does not on short segments, and it excludes bed and nozzle heat-up. Klipper's estimates land closer than Marlin's because the motion planner matches the slicer's assumptions more nearly.