Makeratory Resources / Production economics
Failure cost guide
What does a failed 3D print actually cost?
A failed print costs more than the grams in the trash. It may also consume machine time, electricity, labor, and production capacity that cannot be sold to another job.
Start with the costs you can see
The obvious loss is material. If a failed part consumed 180 g of filament at $0.022 per gram, the material loss is about $3.96. Add any hardware, inserts, adhesive, support material, or consumables that were also used.
Then account for machine time
If the failure occupied a printer for 10 hours, those hours were unavailable for another job. A machine-hour rate can capture depreciation, maintenance, replacement reserve, and electricity. At a $0.40 machine rate, ten lost hours add $4.00 to the failure.
Include hands-on labor when it was actually spent
Setup, cleanup, troubleshooting, restarting the job, removing supports, or reassembling a failed part can all consume labor. Do not automatically charge a full print duration as labor if nobody was actively working during that time; keep attended labor separate from machine time.
Late failures are usually more expensive
A print that fails ten minutes after starting may cost very little. A print that fails at hour 17 of an 18-hour run has already consumed most of its material and machine capacity. The timing of the failure matters, especially on long jobs and limited printer fleets.
Turn failure history into a pricing allowance
You do not need to predict which individual job will fail. If a product or process has a repeatable failure rate, you can spread the expected loss across successful units. For example, if producing 100 successful units normally requires 105 attempts, the five failed attempts are part of the real cost of making the 100 saleable units.
Separate preventable problems from normal process risk
Failure allowance should not become an excuse to ignore root causes. Track whether losses come from adhesion, moisture, spool runout, incorrect profiles, mechanical problems, operator setup, or a fragile model. Reducing repeat failures improves both margin and capacity.
Price with failure risk visible
Use Makeratory’s pricing calculator to include a failure allowance in the estimate, then keep the material, printer time, and pricing assumptions attached to repeat products in your workspace.
Open the 3D Print Pricing & Profit Calculator → · See Makeratory costing features → · Start a free workspace →