Cost Calculators
Print Failure Cost Calculator
Answer the community-friendly question: how much did this failed print actually cost?
Results update below from browser-local calculations.
Breakdown
| Material lost | 0 |
|---|---|
| Electricity lost | 0 |
| Machine time cost | 0 |
| Labor or cleanup cost | 0 |
| Cost per failed print | 0 |
| Allowance per successful print | 0 |
| Failure multiplier | 0 |
| Total failure cost | 0 |
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter the failed print's wasted weight and the time it spent on the printer before you stopped or discovered the failure.
- Add your own electricity rate, optional machine hourly allocation, cleanup or restart labor, and number of failed attempts.
- Use the total failure cost to understand waste, tune your failure allowance, or answer community pricing questions.
Inputs and Assumptions
| Material type | Used for the result summary only. |
|---|---|
| Material price | Enter this value in $/kg. |
| Failed print weight | Enter this value in g. |
| Failed print time | Enter this value in hours. |
| Printer power | Enter this value in W. |
| Electricity rate | Enter this value in $/kWh. |
| Machine hourly cost | Enter this value in $/h. |
| Cleanup or restart labor | Enter this value in hours. |
| Labor rate | Enter this value in $/h. |
| Failure rate to price in | Used to estimate the allowance needed per successful print. |
| Number of failed prints | Enter this value in prints. |
Failed print cost example
A failed 85 g PLA print at $24/kg wastes about $2.04 in filament. If it ran 4.5 hours on a 120 W printer at $0.16/kWh, used $0.25/h machine allocation, and took 0.15 hours of cleanup labor at $20/h, the total failed-print cost is about $6.25.
Failure Rate Pricing Example
A 10% failure rate is not the same as adding 10% of one failed print to every successful print. If one failed print costs $6.25, a 10% failure rate means about $0.69 should be reserved per successful print because 10 failures occur for every 90 successes.
Use the allowance per successful print when you are building a cost floor. Use total failure cost when you are reviewing actual waste from a bad batch.
What Counts as a Failed Print
- Filament or resin already consumed before the failure was stopped.
- Electricity and machine time spent on the failed attempt.
- Cleanup, restart, support removal, bed reset, or customer communication labor.
- Optional machine-slot cost when the failed run blocked another paid job.
Use Failure Cost in Pricing
A single failed job is useful evidence when setting a standard failure allowance. For a customer quote, spread expected failures across successful work instead of charging one customer for an individual failed attempt.
Formula
Material lost = material price per kg / 1000 × failed print weight. Electricity lost = watts / 1000 × failed hours × electricity rate. Cost per failed print = material lost + electricity lost + machine time + labor. Failure allowance per successful print = failed print cost × failure rate / (100 - failure rate).
Limits of This Calculator
- This calculator does not decide whether to charge a customer for the failure.
- Lost opportunity, late delivery, customer support, and reputation costs are not included unless you add them through manual labor or machine allocations.
- No printer data, model files, live material prices, or shop history are fetched.
FAQ
Should I charge a customer for a failed print?
Usually the failure is part of your internal cost floor, not a separate line item. Use the number to tune your failure allowance.
Does this include lost opportunity or missed machine capacity?
Only if you add a manual machine hourly cost. No printer or shop data is fetched automatically.
Why is the failure multiplier higher than the failure rate?
A 10% failure rate means about 0.111 failed attempts per successful print, so the allowance is failure cost multiplied by 10 / 90.