Grams times a number
Pricing by weight and a multiplier ignores the hours the printer was busy, and the plate you filled with twelve parts instead of one.
For 3D printing businesses
Know what every print really costs.
Filament is only part of it. Cajella adds up the grams each part uses, its share of the printer's hours on a full plate, the time you spend finishing it and the packaging it ships in, so every price starts from the whole cost, not just the filament.
Pricing by the gram
Where 3D printing margins disappear.
Printer hours left out
A printer costs money to run. If its hours aren't in the price, the long prints are the ones quietly losing you money.
Spools tracked from memory
Which colours are running low, and what you paid for the last spool, kept in your head or on a sticky note.
Which designs actually earn?
Sales go up, but without a cost for each design you can't tell your best seller from your busiest break-even.
Filament, printer, finishing
How Cajella costs a print.
Filament by the gram
Buy filament by the spool and use it by the gram. Cajella keeps the average cost of what you actually paid, and each part's bill of materials lists its grams, one line per filament for multi-colour prints.
Set a low-stock level on each filament, and Cajella marks it Low Stock once what's on hand drops to that level.
Printer time at your rate
Give each printer an hourly rate, then add a print step with its run time and how many parts share the plate. Cajella splits the printer's time across them.
Electricity and wear can be built into that hourly rate: you decide what an hour of printing costs you.
Finishing and packaging
Add the minutes you spend removing supports, sanding or assembling at your labor rate, and a packaging profile for what each piece ships in.
Alongside your slicer
Your slicer already estimates the grams and the print time. Enter those numbers in Cajella: it doesn't read slicer, G-code or 3MF files.
If a cost is missing, Cajella flags it instead of counting it as $0.
One plate, twelve parts
A plate of 12 name keychains.
| Item | Per keychain |
|---|---|
| PLA: 6 g at $20 per 1 kg spool | $0.12 |
| Printer: 3 hours at $1.20/hour, shared by 12 | $0.30 |
| Finishing: 2 minutes at $18/hour | $0.60 |
| Packaging | $0.25 |
| Cost per keychain | $1.27 |
Example numbers — your costs will be different.
Every line comes from your own numbers: what you paid for your filament, your printers' hourly rates and your labor rate. Change one, and the cost of every product that uses it follows.
Plates and failures
Full plates and failed prints.
A full plate is a batch
Print twelve at once and each keychain carries a twelfth of the plate's printer time. Record the plate as a production run: the finished parts go into stock, and the cost of that run is locked in.
When a print fails
Allow for your normal failure rate with a waste percentage on the filament, or write off the filament from a failed print as waste so your spool counts stay true.
Printing questions
3D printing questions.
Can Cajella read my slicer file?
No. Cajella works alongside your slicer: copy the filament grams and print time it estimates into the product, and Cajella does the costing from there.
How do I include electricity and printer wear?
Build them into the printer's hourly rate. Cajella has one hourly rate per machine, so work out what an hour of printing costs you, including power and wear, and use that.
What about multi-colour or multi-material prints?
Add one bill-of-materials line per filament, with the grams of each. Each filament keeps its own cost.
I run several printers. Does that work?
Yes. Add each printer with its own hourly rate. The Free plan includes 2 machines; Pro removes the limit.
Does it work for resin printing?
Yes. Track resin by the gram or millilitre, and add washing and curing time as labor minutes or as a machine step.
Can I count the cost of failed prints?
Yes, either as a waste percentage on the filament line, so every part carries a share of normal failures, or by writing off the filament a failed print used.
More makers
Other kinds of makers
Price your next print from everything it costs.
Start free with your own filament, printers and labor rate. Pro adds target-margin and minimum-profit pricing when you are ready.