Hey folks,
I have the most stupid basic question ... how do I actually calculate the price if I print something for somebody else?


First of all, I am just a stupid graphic designer, so please forgive me if you have to explain this step by step Here comes my example: This dude approached me and he wants a 15cm tall object printed. The object itself is already ready for printing, but the modeling back then took roughly 1,5 days. I am using the Ultimaker 2+ and a filament that costs 40€/750g. Cura tells me if I use the "normal print" settings, it takes 8h 34min to print, uses 6,19m of filament, weighing 49g. But I could also use the "fast print" settings (which are totally fine in my eyes for the project), which would result in 4h 38min, 5,46m and 43g.


I know that in theory you need to calculate something like a "printing price per hour", using the electricity costs, filament costs and such. But you also need to take the costs for the maintenance of the printer itself into consideration. And I haven't got the slightest idea how to do that. I mean the machine can run smoothly for months and then, bam, the nozzle gets clogged, you need to buy a heatgun to get the molten plastic out of the print head, the whole stuff takes you 3 hours, you accidentially melt one of the printer's fans, you need to buy a new fan and the whole thing ends up costing you nearly 100€ ... happened to me last month. It was a pleasure. But how on earth do you calculate for these kind of things in advance?!

As I said, please forgive me for having to explain this whole thing step by step. But I thought talking to actual human beings, telling me from their experiences, might be far more insightful than looking up that kind of knowledge on Google. I actually did already a while ago but it didn't help me

I am looking forward to your feedback, thank you very much!