3D print farm payback calculator
Enter what the printer cost and how busy it is with paid orders to see the months until it has paid for itself.
Working it out…
How this is worked out
A printer pays for itself when the profit from the prints it makes adds up to what you spent on it. The tool counts the hours the printer spends on prints made for sale, takes off the ones that never find a buyer and the time you spend on each print, and divides the cost by the profit left each month.
Hours for sale a month = running hours a day × days used × share of time printing for sale
Prints made = hours for sale ÷ hours per print, and prints sold = prints made × share that sell
Profit a month = prints sold × what you receive − prints made × (cost to make one + your time per print × your hourly rate) − fixed costs
Months to pay back = (printer cost + extras) ÷ profit a month
Assumptions
- Every figure here is an example, not research: the printer cost, the price you receive, the cost to make a print, the hours, the share of time printing for sale, the share of prints that sell and your time per print. No sales volume for 3D print sellers has been published, so use your own order record.
- The printer is not charged for wear in the monthly profit, because its whole cost is what you are paying back. Once it has paid back, start counting wear in the price calculator.
- Orders arrive evenly. Slow months push the payback later.
- Only the hands-on minutes per print are counted as your time. Design, listings, messages and tax are not.
Questions sellers ask
How long does a 3D printer take to pay for itself?
It depends on how many hours go into prints that sell, not on the printer. With the example figures on this page, a $700 printer earning $10 per print that costs $3 to make, running 10 hours a day with 40% of the time on prints for sale, 70% of those selling, and 5 minutes of your time per print at $20 an hour, makes about $112 a month and pays back in 6.3 months. If every print sold and your time counted for nothing, it would be about $336 a month and 2.1 months. Cut the time printing for sale to 10% and it takes 25 months.
How many orders do I need each month to cover a printer?
Divide the printer cost by the profit per print and by the months you will wait. At $7 profit per print, before your time and with every print selling, a $700 printer needs 100 sold prints in total, which is 50 prints a month to pay it off in 2 months, or 17 a month over 6 months. The example above makes 48 prints a month and sells 34.
Is a second printer worth it?
Only if the first one is already busy with paid prints. If a printer sits idle half the time for want of orders, a second one has a long payback. Set the share of time printing for sale and the share that sell to what the first printer really does and read the result: if it is low, sales are the problem, not capacity.
Why does my payback never finish?
Because the profit per month is zero or below. Either each print loses money after its costs, or your fixed costs are larger than what the prints earn. The tool says so instead of showing an endless number. Check the price you receive and the cost to make one first.