The Make-Cost Index: What 36 Everyday 3D-Printed Products Cost to Make
Phone stands, planters, pet tags and drawer organizers, sliced on our production printers and priced live. The typical one costs $3.74.
The typical everyday product in this index costs $3.74 to make. Twenty-three of the thirty-six cost under $5 and thirty-three under $10. The dearest, a six-compartment drawer organizer, is $13.45. Those are not estimates from a formula. We modelled each product, sliced it on the same profile our printers run, and priced it at today’s rates, and the cards below recompute live.
The index · 36 products
sliced 2026-09-25
Bambu Lab P1S, 0.4 mm nozzle, PLA Basic, our production print profile, no supports. Priced live at today’s rates.
Cable clip
Three-cable desk-edge clip
2.3 g · 13 min
· 30 × 14 × 10 mm$2.00
Cable wrap
Flat strap with a slot
4.9 g · 15 min
· 90 × 22 × 3 mm$2.00
Cabinet knob
38 mm knob
8.6 g · 25 min
· 38 × 38 × 33 mm$2.00
Wall hook
Single hook, one screw
10.2 g · 30 min
· 30 × 71 × 44 mm$2.00
Pet ID tag
32 mm round
2.2 g · 11 min
· 32 × 32 × 4 mm$2.00
Keychain tag
60 x 18 mm
3.1 g · 12 min
· 60 × 18 × 4 mm$2.00
Plant label
Stake with a label face
7.7 g · 18 min
· 50 × 120 × 2 mm$2.00
Bag clip
11 cm slotted clip
8.2 g · 20 min
· 110 × 14 × 10 mm$2.00
Coaster
10 cm round, recessed top
21.5 g · 33 min
· 100 × 100 × 5 mm$2.07
Valet tray
Two compartments, 8 x 6 cm
24.8 g · 35 min
· 80 × 60 × 20 mm$2.23
Hexagon wall shelf
One cell, 9 cm across
26.9 g · 38 min
· 90 × 78 × 30 mm$2.45
Ring dish
10 cm across
29.7 g · 42 min
· 100 × 100 × 18 mm$2.68
Business card holder
Solid block with an angled slot
33.6 g · 47 min
· 100 × 40 × 25 mm$3.03
Succulent pot
Octagonal, 7 cm across
34.8 g · 48 min
· 70 × 70 × 60 mm$3.12
Leash hook
Two pegs, screws to a wall
28.2 g · 51 min
· 120 × 50 × 54 mm$3.14
Soap dish
Slotted floor so it drains
29.8 g · 54 min
· 120 × 85 × 12 mm$3.28
SD and USB card holder
6 SD slots, 4 USB slots
33.1 g · 54 min
· 90 × 45 × 20 mm$3.38
Door stop
Wedge, 13 cm long
34.6 g · 56 min
· 130 × 45 × 32 mm$3.49
Wall key rack
Four hooks, screws to a wall
38.5 g · 59 min
· 180 × 60 × 32 mm$3.74
Card deck box
Holds one standard deck, open top
48.7 g · 56 min
· 72 × 26 × 100 mm$3.76
Coaster holder
Holds a stack of the coaster above
41.6 g · 59 min
· 108 × 108 × 30 mm$3.80
Shelf bracket
12 cm arms, braced
37.7 g · 1 h 03 m
· 120 × 25 × 120 mm$3.90
Watch stand
Block pillow on a base
50.8 g · 1 h 00 m
· 80 × 70 × 68 mm$4.03
Pen cup
Hexagonal, 10 cm tall
66.9 g · 1 h 14 m
· 80 × 69 × 100 mm$5.05
Game controller stand
Holds one controller upright
65 g · 1 h 29 m
· 110 × 80 × 76 mm$5.73
Toothbrush holder
Cup, 11 cm tall
64.2 g · 1 h 35 m
· 70 × 70 × 110 mm$6.05
Phone stand
Angled rest with a front lip, 70 mm wide
71.9 g · 1 h 34 m
· 90 × 70 × 100 mm$6.16
Vertical laptop dock
Two slots for a laptop and a tablet
92.8 g · 1 h 41 m
· 160 × 60 × 40 mm$6.92
Headphone stand
Round base, 21 cm tall
62.1 g · 2 h 05 m
· 110 × 110 × 214 mm$7.48
Bookend
L-shape with a brace, 15 cm tall
100.5 g · 1 h 60 m
· 120 × 110 × 150 mm$7.99
Dice tray
16 cm square
98.6 g · 2 h 02 m
· 160 × 160 × 25 mm$8.08
Vase
Cylinder, 20 cm tall
146.8 g · 2 h 20 m
· 90 × 90 × 200 mm$9.93
Planter, medium
12 cm across, drainage holes
123.3 g · 2 h 30 m
· 120 × 120 × 110 mm$9.96
Tablet stand
Angled rest, 150 mm wide
134.4 g · 2 h 36 m
· 120 × 150 × 120 mm$10.46
Monitor riser leg
One leg of a riser, 8 cm tall
127 g · 2 h 39 m
· 60 × 200 × 80 mm$10.50
Drawer organizer
240 x 160 mm, six compartments
201.4 g · 3 h 08 m
· 240 × 160 × 50 mm$13.45
material machine timeA single order has a $2 minimum. Outlines are each part’s real silhouette.
What the index shows first
You are paying for hours, not plastic.
Across all 36Material is just under a quarter of the make cost. The other three-quarters is machine time.
The phone stand weighs 72 grams, which is $1.44 of PLA. It spends an hour and a half on the printer, and that is where the rest of its $6.16 goes. It follows that the cheapest way to make a product cost less is rarely a lighter material. It is fewer hours: thinner walls where nobody will feel them, a flat face on the bed so nothing needs support, and a size that lets two share a plate.
Three things decide where a product lands
- Height
- Every layer is a pass. The 20 cm vase and the 21 cm headphone stand weigh less than the drawer organizer but take most of its time, because they are tall.
- Footprint
- At quantity, copies that fit two to a plate get the volume ladder: up to 30% off the machine time. The dice tray, planter, tablet stand and drawer organizer are too wide, so their price at 100 is their price at one.
- Solid versus shell
- The business card holder is a solid block and costs more than the larger ring dish, which is a thin shell. Solid volume is where grams and hours pile up together.
At a hundred, most prices drop by about a fifth
Switch the index to Each of 100. Parts that fit two to a plate come down by about 23%, and the smallest ones fall below a dollar: a pet tag is $0.43 and a keychain tag $0.50. A single order of any of them costs at least the $2 order minimum, which is why the smallest parts sit at $2.00 in the One view. Up to 500 parts can be priced and paid at checkout. Larger runs are quoted and scheduled.
How the index was made
01
An ordinary version of each product
At a size people actually sell, with sensible walls, oriented flat so it prints without supports. The dimensions are on every card, because weight follows size.
02
Sliced on our production profile
Bambu Studio on a P1S, 0.4 mm nozzle, PLA Basic: the template every upload quote uses. The weights and hours are the slicer’s own figures.
03
Priced live, never typed
Each card runs the same make-cost arithmetic the checkout charges, at today’s filament price and labour rate. If a rate moves, the page moves with it.
04
Drawn from the real part
The outline on each card is that part’s silhouette, taken from the mesh we sliced.
We will re-slice the set each quarter and when the print profile changes. Your own version of a product will weigh more or less than ours. Uploading the file gives you its exact number in about as long as it took to read this sentence.
What a make cost buys here
Every price in the index is the whole job, not just the print. The part is checked by a person before it ships, and if it fails, we print it again on our own time and filament. If your product has magnets, heat-set inserts, a MagSafe ring or screws, choose assembly and we fit them for $1 a part, plus the part’s own price. It goes out in a box with your business name on the slip and nothing of ours inside. Orders arrive from any of eleven storefronts through one connection. There is no monthly fee. You pay when something sells.
FAQ
For the 36 everyday products in our index, the median make cost is $3.74 at today’s rates: 23 cost under $5 and 33 under $10. Machine time is about three-quarters of it and material just under a quarter. A single order has a $2 minimum.
PLA costs about two cents a gram, so a 70 g part is $1.40 of plastic. The same part spends an hour or two on a printer, and machine time is priced at $3 an hour. Height and solid volume drive the hours.
Yes, when two copies fit on one build plate: machine time comes down by up to 30% on a ladder that starts at the second copy, which takes a little over a fifth off the typical part at 100. Parts too wide to pair keep their single price.
For a file like ours in PLA Basic, yes: the numbers use the same slicer profile and arithmetic as checkout. Your design will differ in weight and hours, so upload it to get its own figure. Other materials are priced at their own per-gram rate.
Your file, on the same scale.
Upload it and it is sliced on the profile these 36 were: weight, hours and make cost, with a person’s check already in the price and assembly at $1 a part if you want it.
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