Most people who sell 3D prints guess the price. They add filament cost, double it, and hope. Then a failed print or a marketplace fee eats the profit. Here is a simple formula that covers the real costs.
The formula
cost = (filament + power + machine wear + labor) x (1 + failure allowance)
price = cost x (1 + markup), then add the marketplace fee so it does not shrink your margin
Each part
Filament: grams used x price per gram. A 1 kg spool at $20 is $0.02 per gram. Your slicer shows grams for every sliced file.
Power: printer watts x print hours / 1000 x your price per kWh. A 150 W printer for 5 hours at $0.15 per kWh is about $0.11. Small, but it adds up across 50 prints.
Machine wear: nozzle, belts, bed sheet and the printer itself wear out. Pick a small hourly figure (for example $0.30 to $1.00 per print hour) so replacements are already paid for.
Labor: your time to remove, clean and pack the print, even if it is 5 minutes. Put a number on it.
Failure allowance: some prints fail. If 1 in 10 fail, add 10 percent to every price so the failures are paid for.
Markup: what you keep on top. Many sellers use 50 to 100 percent.
Marketplace fees: Etsy and similar sites take a percentage of the sale. Divide your price by (1 - fee rate) instead of adding the fee on, otherwise the fee takes its cut from the fee too.
Doing it for a batch
Slice each file, read grams and print time from the G-code comments, and run the formula per file. Doing this by hand for 20 files is tedious, so I made a small tool for it.
PrintQuote
PrintQuote reads grams and print time straight from sliced G-code (tested on OrcaSlicer output; PrusaSlicer, Bambu Studio and Cura use similar comments but I have not tested them). Drop in many files, set quantities, and export a CSV or a printable quote.
The Python source is free here: https://github.com/BlacksGit/printquote-3d-print-price-calculator
Support more tools: https://patreon.com/123black
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