"How much will it cost to print this?" is the first thing almost everyone wants to know, and the frustrating answer from most print services is "send us the file and we'll get back to you".
The good news is that 3D printing prices aren't mysterious. For the kind of FDM (filament) printing most people need, such as brackets, enclosures, replacement parts, prototypes and models, the price comes down to a handful of things you can see and control. This guide walks through each one, shows worked examples using our own published rates, and covers when it's cheaper to just buy a printer.
The short answer
For small, everyday FDM parts in Australia, expect to pay somewhere between $10 and $30 per part, plus postage, with most services setting a minimum order. Large, solid or specialty-material parts cost more; batches of the same part cost less per unit.
What actually moves the number:
- How much plastic the part uses (its weight in grams)
- Which material it's printed in
- Infill, which is how solid the inside is
- Quantity of the same part
- Extras such as multi-colour
- Getting it to you: postage or pickup
Print time matters too, but for most services it's folded into the per-gram and per-part rates rather than charged by the hour.
1. Weight is the biggest factor
A printed part isn't solid plastic. The slicer (the software that turns your 3D model into printer instructions) builds a solid outer skin, usually a couple of perimeters about 0.4 mm wide each, then fills the inside with a lattice. So the weight of a part depends on:
- Its volume: a bigger part uses more plastic, and doubling every dimension means roughly eight times the volume.
- Its surface area: the outer walls are solid, so a thin, complicated shape with lots of surface uses proportionally more plastic than a chunky block.
- Supports: overhangs need temporary scaffolding that gets snapped off and thrown away, but you still pay for the plastic.
This is why two parts that look the same size on screen can be very different prices. A hollow-looking enclosure might be 40 g; a solid knob of similar dimensions could be 90 g.
Tip: if a design has big overhangs, rotating it or splitting it into two pieces that clip or glue together can cut support material noticeably.
2. Material: PLA and PETG are the cheapest
Each filament has its own price per kilogram, and the engineering materials cost more to buy and are harder to print (they need an enclosed, heated chamber and more failed-print risk). Here are our current per-gram rates on the instant quote page:
| Material | Our rate | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| PLA | $0.20 / g | Prototypes, models, indoor parts |
| PETG | $0.20 / g | Tougher functional parts, clips, brackets |
| ASA | $0.32 / g | Outdoor parts, UV and heat resistance |
| ABS | $0.32 / g | Heat-resistant, sandable parts |
| TPU | $0.35 / g | Flexible, rubbery parts, grips, seals |
If you're not sure which you need, our guide to PLA vs PETG vs ASA vs TPU covers where each one works and where it fails. The short version: don't pay for ASA if the part lives indoors, and don't use PLA for anything that sits in a hot car.
3. Infill: you rarely need a solid part
Infill is the percentage of the inside that's filled. More infill means a heavier, stronger and more expensive part, but the relationship isn't linear, because the walls do a lot of the work.
| Infill | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Standard (20%) | Most parts: models, covers, enclosures, light brackets |
| Strong (40%) | Parts that take load, get clamped or get dropped |
| Solid (100%) | Small, highly stressed parts, or where weight itself matters |
Going from 20% to 100% infill on a chunky part can more than double its weight and price. For thin parts the difference is small, because they're mostly wall anyway. If a part needs to be stronger, more walls often helps more than more infill, and the orientation the part is printed in matters too, since FDM parts are weakest between layers.
4. Quantity: setup is the hidden cost
Every print job has fixed work regardless of size: checking the file, slicing it, preparing the plate, removing the part and its supports, and inspecting and packing it. That's why most services charge a per-part handling fee and a minimum order.
Ours is a $4 handling fee per part and a $25 minimum order. Repeat copies get cheaper because we can batch them: 10% off 10 or more of the same part, and 20% off 50 or more.
5. Extras: multi-colour
Multi-colour prints use a printer that swaps filament mid-print. It works well, but it wastes some plastic on each colour change and takes longer. We charge $8 extra per part for multi-colour, available in PLA and PETG.
6. Postage or pickup
Shipping is easy to forget when comparing quotes, and on a small order it can be a big share of the total. We post Australia-wide by AusPost at a flat $12 standard or $20 express, with orders over 1 kg quoted at AusPost cost. Pickup is free from Wyong or Cessnock, which suits anyone on the Central Coast or in the Hunter (more on our local 3D printing service).
Worked examples
Here's how those rates combine. The weight is the estimated filament for one part, including supports. Our quote tool works this out from your file automatically.
| Part | Material and weight | Calculation | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small wall bracket | PLA, 30 g | $4 + 30 × $0.20 | $10.00 each |
| Same bracket × 10 | PLA, 30 g each | $10.00 less 10% = $9.00 × 10 | $90.00 |
| Phone case-style flexible cover | TPU, 30 g | $4 + 30 × $0.35 | $14.50 |
| Two-colour name sign | PLA, 60 g, multi-colour | $4 + 60 × $0.20 + $8 | $24.00 |
| Outdoor sensor housing | ASA, 120 g | $4 + 120 × $0.32 | $42.40 |
| Raspberry Pi case (base and lid) | PETG, 2 parts of 45 g | 2 × ($4 + 45 × $0.20) | $26.00 |
Two things to notice:
- A single small part hits the minimum. One $10 bracket becomes a $25 order. If you have other parts you'll need eventually, printing them together makes much better use of the minimum.
- Postage can double a small order. A $25 order plus $12 standard postage is $37. If you're local, pickup saves that.
All of our prices are in Australian dollars, and no GST is added.
Should you buy your own printer instead?
Sometimes, yes. Consumer printers have become very good and very cheap. A Bambu Lab A1, for example, sells for around $430 at Australian retailers, and budget PLA can be found for under $20 per kilogram. At those prices the plastic in a 30 g bracket is worth less than a dollar.
A home printer is the better choice if:
- You'll print often: weekly, not a couple of times a year.
- You enjoy tinkering, because calibration, failed prints, clogs and maintenance are part of the deal.
- Your parts are PLA or PETG and fit a typical 25 cm build volume.
A print service makes more sense if:
- You need a part occasionally and just want it to work.
- You need ASA or ABS, which print best in an enclosed machine and tend to warp or crack on open-frame printers, or TPU, which is slow and fiddly to get right.
- You need a batch of identical parts printed consistently.
- Your time is worth more than the difference. Learning to print reliably takes a few weekends.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. Plenty of people print everyday PLA at home and send out the parts that need a different material or a run of fifty.
How to get an accurate quote quickly
Whichever service you use, a few things speed up quoting and avoid surprises:
- Export in millimetres. STL files don't store units. If a part shows up 25 times too small or too big, it was probably exported in inches or metres.
- Send a 3MF if you can. It keeps units and multiple parts in one file.
- Check it's watertight. Holes or overlapping surfaces in the mesh confuse slicers. Most CAD tools have a "repair" or "make solid" option.
- Say what the part is for. "Clips onto a 20 mm pipe in the sun" tells a printer more than any setting. Mention any fit or tolerance you need; around ±0.2 mm is typical for FDM.
- Check the size limit. Our printers take parts up to 250 mm on each side. Bigger designs can usually be split and joined.
Our instant quote does the maths above for you: upload an STL, 3MF or OBJ, pick the material, infill and quantity, and you'll see the price straight away. Your card is held, not charged, while we check the file, and if we can't print it well, the hold is released and you pay nothing.
When you need more than a print
If you don't have a file yet, or the part needs to be designed around a circuit board, that's design work rather than printing. Our pricing page lists the packages: a Rapid Prototype (up to three printed parts with small design fixes) is $150, a custom Enclosure Design is $450, and CAD work is $110 an hour.
Got a part in mind? Upload it for an instant price or tell us what you're making.