How much does it cost to 3D print a figure?

Printing a single-color PLA figure 10 to 24 cm tall at home costs about 26 cents to $4.22 in filament and electricity. A 15 cm articulated action figure comes to about 80 cents, and most toys cost under $1. A 60 cm statue uses more than a kilogram of filament and costs about $23.

How much does it cost to 3D print a figure?

A single-color PLA figure 10 to 24 cm tall costs about $0.26 to $4.22 to print at home, counting filament at $19.99 per kg and electricity. Size, layer height and color count set the price. A 60 cm statue uses 1,130 g, about $23. A seven-color 17 cm figure costs about $12.90.

Each row below is a published print profile on MakerWorld that states both the grams and the print time. The hours are the slicer’s estimate for that profile, mostly for Bambu Lab printers.

Figure	Height	Grams	Hours	Filament	Electricity	Total
Low-poly dancer statuette	10 cm	12 g	1.0 h	$0.24	$0.02	$0.26
Dummy 13 action figure, all PLA, 100%	about 13 cm	29 g	2.2 h	$0.58	$0.04	$0.62
Toy Chica articulated figure	15 cm	38 g	2.1 h	$0.76	$0.04	$0.80
Low-poly dancer statuette	17 cm	39 g	2.5 h	$0.78	$0.04	$0.82
Dummy 13 action figure, all PLA, 150%	about 20 cm	99 g	6.8 h	$1.98	$0.12	$2.10
Monsieur Hulot statue, 0.08 mm layers	22 cm	196 g	17.5 h	$3.92	$0.30	$4.22
Low-poly dancer statuette	24 cm	82 g	3.9 h	$1.64	$0.07	$1.71
Dummy 13 pair (two figures), 225%	30 cm	372 g	20.8 h	$7.44	$0.36	$7.80
Super Mario, seven colors	17 cm	610 g	40.5 h	$12.19	$0.70	$12.90
Motorcycle rider statue	60 cm+	1,130 g	36.3 h	$22.59	$0.63	$23.22

Filament is priced at $19.99 per kg, Polymaker’s US price for 1 kg of PolyLite PLA, or 2 cents a gram. For electricity, Bambu Lab measures its A1 at an average of 95 W printing PLA. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts the average residential price at 18.31 cents per kWh for July 2026. Together that is 0.095 kWh x $0.1831 = 1.7 cents per print hour. The 225% Dummy 13 profile mixes PETG and PLA, and is priced here as all PLA.

Dummy 13’s heights come from a 225% print profile on its model page, which lists that size at 30 cm. So 100% is about 30 ÷ 2.25 = 13.3 cm, and 150% is about 20 cm.

What raises the grams and hours

• Height. Grams grow faster than height, but slower than volume. The dancer goes from 12 g at 10 cm to 39 g at 17 cm, with the same 3 walls and 20% infill. That is 3.25 times the plastic for 1.7 times the height. A solid scaled 1.7 times would hold 1.7³ = 4.9 times the plastic. A figure is mostly outer walls, which grow with surface area, not volume.
• Layer height. The Hulot statue prints at 0.08 mm layers, so each centimeter of height takes 125 layers instead of 50 at 0.2 mm. That is why a 22 cm statue takes 17.5 hours while the 24 cm dancer, at 0.2 mm, takes 3.9.
• Supports. Outstretched arms, capes and chins need supports. Supports are plastic you print and then throw away, and the slicer’s gram total includes them. To see their share for your figure, slice it with supports on and off and compare the two totals.
• Infill. The profiles above that state their infill use 7% to 20%. In a slender figure most of the plastic is in the walls, so infill moves the total less than it does on a bulky bust or a solid base.
• Colors. A single-nozzle printer purges filament at every color change. The Endo 01 articulated figure uses 16 g and 1.2 hours in one color, and 60 g and 5.3 hours in its multi-color profile. That is how the seven-color Mario reaches 610 g at 17 cm. The multi-color waste calculator estimates the purge for your own color count.

What the full cost adds

Filament and electricity are the cash cost of each print. To price a figure for sale, add printer wear, failed prints and your time. Take the Toy Chica figure with the print cost calculator’s placeholder inputs: $0.21 per hour for printer depreciation and maintenance, and a 5% failure rate.

filament + electricity   = $0.76 + $0.04             = $0.80
printer wear             = 2.12 h x $0.21            = $0.45
subtotal                                             = $1.25
5% failure allowance     = $1.25 x 0.05 / 0.95       = $0.07
cost per good figure                                 = $1.32

Painting, sanding and assembly time come on top. Enter your own spool price in the filament cost calculator if you pay more than $19.99 per kg.

Resin figures

Figures can also be printed in resin. ELEGOO lists its Standard Resin at $23.99 per kg and Standard Resin V2.0 at $24.99 per kg on its US store, 2.4 to 2.5 cents a gram, against 2 cents for the PLA above. The bottle is only part of a resin print’s cost, since washing and curing use cleaning alcohol and gloves.

How much does it cost to 3D print a toy?

Most 3D printed toys cost under $1 to print at home. Print-in-place fidget toys and flexible animals use 4 to 18 g of PLA and print in under an hour, for 9 to 37 cents with electricity. A single-color toy pickup costs 87 cents. The same pickup in several colors uses 194 g, about $4.06.

Toy	Type	Grams	Hours	Filament	Electricity	Total
Flexi Fox	Print-in-place articulated animal	4 g	0.3 h	$0.08	$0.01	$0.09
Fidget Slider	Print-in-place fidget	6 g	0.3 h	$0.12	$0.01	$0.13
Lazy Bear, one color	Print-in-place articulated animal	11 g	0.7 h	$0.22	$0.01	$0.23
Triangle Fidget	Print-in-place fidget	16 g	0.4 h	$0.32	$0.01	$0.33
Infinity Fidget, one color	Print-in-place fidget	18 g	0.6 h	$0.36	$0.01	$0.37
Toy Car, two cars	Print-in-place car	27 g	1.0 h	$0.54	$0.02	$0.56
Lazy Bear, two colors	Print-in-place articulated animal	30 g	2.0 h	$0.60	$0.03	$0.63
Mini Pickup, one color	Print-in-place car	42 g	1.9 h	$0.84	$0.03	$0.87
Formula 1 race car	Car, assembled from parts	132 g	4.3 h	$2.64	$0.07	$2.71
Mini Pickup, multi-color	Print-in-place car	194 g	10.5 h	$3.88	$0.18	$4.06

The same prices apply as in the figure table: $19.99 per kg of PLA and 1.7 cents per print hour.

Why toys cost so little

Print-in-place toys come off the bed in one piece with their joints already working. The Lazy Bear, Fidget Slider and Triangle Fidget pages all say no supports are needed, so almost every gram ends up in the toy. The Fidget Slider’s designer lists about 5 g and 18 minutes. The Triangle Fidget’s profile uses one wall and 10% infill at 0.28 mm layers, and prints in 24 minutes.

When a toy costs more

Color changes cost the most. The Lazy Bear nearly triples from 11 g to 30 g in two colors, and the Mini Pickup goes from 42 g to 194 g in several colors. Toys made for rough play can cost more too. The Formula 1 car was designed for its maker’s four-year-old, and its profile raises the walls to 3 and the infill to 30% to make the parts sturdier. It uses 132 g.