3D print pricing calculator: a selling price that covers fees and your time

The formula

The calculator starts from your costs and the profit you want, then solves for the price. Platform fees that are a percentage of the sale come off the price itself, so they are divided out, not added on.

labor  = hands-on minutes / 60 x your hourly rate
costs  = cost per item + labor + listing fee per item
         + packaging + postage you pay + fixed fee per order

price  = (costs + fixed profit) / (1 - percentage fees - margin)

Use either a margin (a share of the price) or a fixed profit per item, not both. If you charge the buyer for shipping, that money also pays part of the costs, minus the fees taken on it:

price  = (costs - shipping charged x (1 - percentage fees) + fixed profit)
         / (1 - percentage fees - margin)

The result is rounded up to the next cent. Every fee and profit line is then worked out at that rounded price.

The cost per item is your material and machine cost, without labor. The print cost calculator works it out line by line. The default here, $3.29, is that calculator’s default print with labor left out: 100 g of PLA printed in 5 hours. Replace it with your own figure.

How do you price 3D prints to sell?

Add up the item’s material and machine cost, your hands-on time at the hourly rate you want, packaging, postage you absorb and the platform’s fixed fees. Divide that sum by one minus the percentage fees and your target margin. With the defaults, a $3.29 print with 10 minutes of work sells on Etsy for $10.04.

Worked example: an Etsy listing

These are the calculator’s defaults: a US Etsy shop, no shipping charge, a 20% target margin. The hourly rate and the margin are placeholders for your own decisions.

1. Labor: 10 minutes at $20 an hour = $3.33.
2. Costs: $3.29 + $3.333 + $0.20 listing fee + $0.25 processing fee = $7.073.
3. Percentage fees: 6.5% transaction + 3% processing = 9.5%.
4. Price: $7.073 / (1 − 0.095 − 0.20) = $7.073 / 0.705 = $10.033, rounded up to $10.04.

Line	Amount
Price charged	$10.04
Transaction fee, 6.5%	−$0.65
Payment processing, 3% + $0.25	−$0.55
Listing fee	−$0.20
Paid out to you	$8.64
Material and machine cost	−$3.29
Your wage, 10 minutes	−$3.33
Profit	$2.01 (20.0% of the price)

Your wage and profit together come to $5.35 for 10 minutes of work, or $32.08 per hands-on hour. That is what the listing pays for your time once material, machine time and fees are covered.

Shipping: charge it or absorb it

Etsy’s transaction and processing fees apply to shipping you charge, so shipping is never fee-free. Say a mailer costs you $0.60 and postage $4.50.

• Charge $4.50 shipping. The item price is $11.50 and the buyer pays $16.00. Etsy keeps $1.97, and your profit is $2.31.
• Offer free shipping. Enter the $4.50 as postage you pay and 0 as shipping charged. The item price rises to $17.27, and your profit is $3.46.

Free shipping costs the buyer $1.27 more here. With a margin target, the postage folded into the price earns margin too. Switch to a fixed profit per item if you want the same profit either way.

Margin is not markup

A 20% margin means 20% of the price is profit. A 20% markup means profit is 20% of your costs. To turn a margin into a markup, divide the margin by one minus the margin: a 20% margin is a 25% markup. The print cost calculator uses a markup, so enter 25% there to match a 20% margin here.

How much does Etsy take from a 3D print sale?

On a US shop, Etsy takes a 6.5% transaction fee on the item price plus shipping, 3% plus $0.25 for payment processing, and $0.20 per item sold as the listing fee. On a $10.04 print with no shipping charge, that comes to $1.40, or 14% of the sale. Offsite Ads add 15% more on orders they bring in.

Etsy fee (US shop)	Rate	Charged on
Listing fee	$0.20	Each listing, and each renewal; a multi-quantity listing renews at $0.20 after each item sells
Transaction fee	6.5%	Item price plus shipping and gift wrap; not US sales tax
Payment processing	3% + $0.25	The whole order, including shipping and tax
Offsite Ads	15%, or 12%	Only orders that come from an Etsy ad on another site; capped at $100 an order

Etsy’s fee policy was last updated on October 5, 2026, and its payments policy on July 31, 2026. Processing fees for shops with a bank account outside the US are different. Check Etsy’s payments policy for your country and type the rates into the fee fields.

The listing fee when an item sits unsold

A listing lasts four months. With automatic renewal on, Etsy charges $0.20 every four months until the item sells. A one-off print that takes a year to sell has used three listing fees, so enter $0.60 as the listing fee per item sold.

Offsite Ads

Etsy charges 15% of an order placed within 30 days of the buyer clicking an Etsy ad on another site. The rate drops to 12% for good once a shop has made $10,000 in sales over 365 days. Shops under that threshold can opt out. Enter 15 in the advertising fee field to see the worst case. With the defaults, the price rises from $10.04 to $12.75.

Fees on sales tax

Etsy collects US sales tax from the buyer, and the 3% processing fee applies to that tax too. The calculator leaves tax out. At an 8% tax rate, the tax adds 0.24% of the price to your fees (3% of 8%). To include it, add that share to the percentage fees.

eBay and your own store

The same print at the defaults, priced for each preset:

Platform	Fees used	Price	Fees taken	Share of the sale
Etsy, US shop	9.5% + $0.25 per order + $0.20 per item	$10.04	$1.40	14.0%
eBay, most categories	13.6% + $0.40 per order	$10.58	$1.84	17.4%
Own store, Shopify Payments Basic	2.9% + $0.30	$8.98	$0.56	6.2%
No fees (cash, in person)	none	$8.28	$0	0%

eBay. The final value fee in most categories is 13.6% of the total sale up to $7,500, and that total includes shipping charged and sales tax. To cover the tax share, add 13.6% of your buyers’ tax rate to the percentage fees: 1.09% at an 8% tax rate.

The per-order fee is $0.30 on orders of $10.00 or less and $0.40 above, and the calculator picks the right one. The first 250 listings each month carry no insertion fee. After that, each listing costs $0.35, so enter 0.35 as the listing fee if you are past the allowance.

Your own store. Shopify Payments on the Basic plan charges 2.9% + 30 cents per online card payment in the US. Premium cards cost 3.5% + 30 cents, and international cards add 1%. The Basic plan also costs $39 a month, or $29 a month paid yearly.

The plan fee doesn’t vary per sale, so divide it by the items you sell in a month and add the result to your cost per item.

Pricing a multi-item order

When a buyer orders several items at once, the per-order costs are shared: packaging, postage and the fixed fee per order. The calculator spreads them across the order and shows the price per item. The listing fee is still charged per item, because Etsy renews a multi-quantity listing after each item sells.

At the Etsy defaults, an order of 5 works out at $9.75 each ($48.75 in all), against $10.04 for a single item. The gap grows with packaging and postage. With the $0.60 mailer, $4.50 postage and $4.50 shipping charge from above, one item costs $11.50 and five cost $10.05 each.

Use the per-item price for a “buy more, pay less” listing variation or a bulk quote. The margin stays on target at both prices.