How to Calculate Electricity Cost for 3D Printing

Electricity is the most overlooked line item in 3D print pricing. It's small per print, but it's real, and at print-farm scale it's the difference between profit and loss.

The formula

energy cost = average wattage (kW) × print hours × electricity rate ($/kWh)

That's it. The hard part is the average wattage — printers pull very differently during bed heat-up vs steady-state.

Real-world averages

Numbers below are measured with a Kill-A-Watt or smart plug across a full multi-hour print, then averaged.

FDM

Printer	Steady-state	Average
Bambu A1	70 W	90 W
Bambu P1S	100 W	130 W
Bambu X1C	110 W	145 W
Prusa MK4 (no enclosure)	80 W	105 W
Prusa MK4S enclosed	110 W	150 W
Creality K1 Max	130 W	170 W
Voron 2.4 (chamber heated)	200 W	280 W

Resin

Printer	Average
Elegoo Mars 5	30 W
Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra	55 W
Phrozen Sonic Mighty	60 W
Formlabs Form 4	70 W

Auxiliary

• Wash & cure stations: 25–60 W during cycle (15–30 min)
• Filament dryers: 30–80 W, often running 24/7

Your kWh rate

The US national average is ~$0.16/kWh as of 2026. But regional spread is enormous:

• Washington state: ~$0.10
• Texas (variable plans): ~$0.13
• New York/Mass: $0.22–0.28
• California: $0.30–0.45 (tiered)
• UK: £0.27 ≈ $0.34
• Germany: €0.35 ≈ $0.38

Print farms in California pay nearly 4× what farms in Washington pay for the exact same machine.

A real per-print number

A 10-hour print on a P1S at $0.16/kWh:

0.13 kW × 10 hr × $0.16/kWh = $0.21

A 10-hour print on the same machine in California at $0.40/kWh:

0.13 × 10 × $0.40 = $0.52

Small. But across 30 prints a month, that's $6 vs $16. Across a 12-printer farm, $72 vs $192. Per month. Forever.

Should you charge it back?

Yes. Always. Even at $0.20, leaving energy off a quote is a slow drip of lost margin. Most quoting tools (including Makerate) include energy as a configurable line item — set your kWh rate once and it's never wrong again.

Bonus: solar offsets

If you have solar, your marginal kWh during daylight is effectively $0 (you're consuming what you'd have exported). Some farm operators run the heavy print shifts during peak production hours and charge customers a "green print" surcharge as a positioning play. The math is the same; the marketing is the difference.