3D printing cost per gram: useful shortcut, dangerous pricing

The shortcut

Filament at $22/kg is $0.022 per gram, so makers quote $0.10-0.50 per gram to cover everything. It feels simple and customers understand it.

Why it misleads

Two 100 g parts can differ 5x in print time - a dense cube prints fast, a tall thin vase takes all day. Per-gram pricing overcharges chunky parts and badly undercharges slow ones. Machine time, not mass, is the scarce resource.

When it works

Per-gram works for batches of similar geometry - a farm printing the same bracket all week can calibrate a per-gram rate that embeds its true time costs. It fails on custom one-off work, which is exactly where most small shops live.

Price both inputs

Our calculator prices weight AND estimated print time separately from your file - so a slow lightweight part and a fast heavy part both come out right.