How to price a print farm job.

Give each printer model its own hourly rate

An H2D and an A1 mini don't cost the same to run, so they shouldn't share a rate. For each model, add up:

• The printer. What it cost, divided by the hours you expect from it before it's replaced.
• Upkeep. Nozzles, plates, belts and the odd hotend, per hour of printing.
• Power. The watts it pulls while printing, times your electricity rate.
• Space and spares. A share of rent and the spare printer you keep for when one is down.

The result is usually a dollar or two an hour on a desktop printer. It's small per hour and big over a month of printing.

Price the plate, then split it

On a farm the plate is the job. Ten parts on one plate take one setup, one plate clear and one check, not ten. So:

1. Slice the full plate and note its print time and grams.
2. Price the plate: machine time at that printer's rate, filament, and your minutes to start it, clear it and check the parts.
3. Split the plate across the parts on it, by each part's share of the grams or the time.

That's also why a batch can honestly cost less per part. The per-plate minutes are shared.

Count the filament you throw away

Multicolour prints on an AMS flush filament at every colour change, and print a prime tower. On a part with lots of swaps the waste can be more than the part. Bambu Studio shows the flushed amount in the slice summary. Charge for it, or pick colours that swap less.

Clearing the plate is labour

Someone walks over, takes the parts off, checks them, cleans the plate and starts the next one. Price that time per plate. On short prints it can be the biggest cost in the job.

Failures, per printer

Add a failure allowance to the machine time and filament. Use your real rate if you track it, and a higher one on printers or materials that fail more. A long plate that fails at 90% costs you the whole plate.

A worked example

These numbers are made up to show the maths. Use your own.

• The job: 40 PETG brackets, 10 to a plate, so 4 plates on an H2D.
• Each plate: 5 hours at $1.80 an hour = $9.00 of machine time
• Filament: 180 g at 3 cents a gram = $5.40
• Start, clear and check: 10 minutes at $40 an hour = $6.67
• Failures: 5% of the above = $1.05
• Plate cost: $22.12. Four plates: $88.48.
• Add a one-time setup of 20 minutes ($13.33) to slice and lay out the plates: $101.81.
• With a 40% markup: about $142.53, or $3.56 a bracket.

Quoted one at a time, each bracket would carry its own setup and clear time and come out at several times that. That gap is your batch discount, worked out instead of guessed.

Rush jobs jump the queue

A rush pushes other plates back. Charge for that, as a percentage or a flat fee, and only offer it when a printer is free to take it.

Check your numbers

Drop a part in the free price checker with your machine rate. For the general method, read how much to charge for 3D printing. Choosing software for the farm itself? See what print farm software needs.