Pricing articulated dragons from a two-printer farm: power per print, unit cost, then Etsy fees

Theo runs two enclosed FDM printers on a shelf in his spare room. His steady seller is an articulated dragon: about 95 g of silk PLA, printed two to a plate in 11.5 hours, joints that flex straight off the bed with no assembly. For November and December he wants 80 dragons ready to ship, and he wants to stop guessing at the price. He has been listing at $22 because that is what similar shops charge.

The pricing runs through three tools in order. Electricity comes first, because it is the one input to the pricing tool that most people fill in from a guess. The unit cost comes second. Etsy fees come last, because they are charged on the price, so they can only be worked out once there is a price to test.

Worked example only, not financial advice. Etsy's fees are quoted as of October 2026; check its current fee policy before relying on them.

Step 1: what one plate costs in power

Theo measured both printers with a plug-in energy meter over a full plate. The average draw across the print, including the bed heating at the start and the long stretch at temperature, came out at 135 W. A printer's spec-sheet maximum is the wrong figure here; the meter's average is the right one.

In the 3D Printer Electricity Cost Calculator, for one printer:

• Average running watts 135, hours per print 11.5, 24 plates a month.
• Idle draw 6 W for 14.8 hours a day. That figure is not a guess either: 24 plates × 11.5 hours is 276 printing hours, or 9.2 hours a day over 30 days, and the printers stay on the rest of the time.
• Electricity rate $0.19/kWh, the all-in figure from his bill (total charge ÷ kWh, so delivery charges are included).

Output: $0.295 per plate, 37.26 kWh a month printing plus 2.66 kWh idle, 39.92 kWh in total, $7.59 a month and $91.03 a year. For two printers, $15.18 a month. Spread over the 48 dragons a printer makes in a month, standby included, power works out to about 16 cents a dragon.

Where the electricity model stops being accurate

• Printing and idle hours are separate inputs. The tool does not check that they fit in a day. Enter 20 idle hours alongside 9.2 printing hours and it will happily bill you for a 29-hour day. Do the subtraction yourself, as above.
• The month is 30 days. Idle energy is idle watts × hours × 30. Close enough for pricing, not for reconciling a 31-day bill.
• Cost per print excludes standby. The $0.295 is the printing energy only; the idle share appears in the monthly total. If you want standby in the unit price, divide the monthly cost by plates, as above.
• Only the printer is counted. A filament dryer, enclosure fan, or the air conditioning that removes the printers' heat in summer are separate loads you would add by hand.

The standby power post has more on idle draw. For pricing, the takeaway is simpler: power is real but small, and now it is measured.

Step 2: the unit cost of one dragon

The 3D Print Cost & Profit Estimator works per object, so Theo enters one dragon: half a plate.

Input	Value
Spool cost / size	$19.99 / 1,000 g
Object weight	101 g (95 g dragon + half the plate's purge and brim)
Print time	5.75 h (half of 11.5)
Wattage / rate	135 W / $0.19 per kWh, both from step 1
Failure buffer	8% (his log: 4 failed plates in his last 50)
Labor rate	$20/hr
Markup	100%, then 150%

Output: material $2.02, electricity $0.15 (0.78 kWh), failure buffer $0.17, labor $4.79, raw cost $7.13. At 100% markup the suggested retail is $14.26; at 150% it is $17.83. Running the whole plate (202 g, 11.5 hours) returns $14.26 raw, exactly double, so per-dragon and per-plate give the same answer.

The 15 cents of electricity matches step 1: $0.295 per plate split two ways. That consistency is the reason to run step 1 first. Theo's earlier guess of 300 W from the power supply's label would have more than doubled the figure, and it would still have been the smallest line.

What the estimator assumes

• Labor is tied to print time, not your hands. The code charges print hours ÷ 24 × your rate, roughly one hour of attention per 24 hours of printing. For the dragon that is $4.79. Theo timed his real hands-on work (clearing the plate, flexing joints, bagging) at about 7 minutes, or $2.33. The tool's figure is higher, but it also silently covers listing photos and messages, so he kept it.
• The failure buffer covers material and power only. It is 8% of $2.17, added on top. A failed plate also wastes 11.5 printer hours and the labor tied to them, which the buffer does not see.
• No machine wear. Theo's printers cost about $700 each and he expects around 5,000 printing hours from each before major parts, so wear is $0.14 an hour, or $0.80 a dragon. He adds it by hand.
• No packaging or shipping. A printed box and crinkle fill cost him $0.65.
• The percentage is a markup, not a margin. Doubling cost is a 100% markup but a 50% margin. Keep that in mind when comparing with the margin the Etsy tool reports.

His real cost per dragon, ready to ship, is $7.13 + $0.80 + $0.65 = $8.58. The guide to pricing 3D prints covers wear and failure rates in more detail.

Line	Per dragon	Share of $8.58
Labor (tool's model)	$4.79	56%
Filament	$2.02	24%
Machine wear (added)	$0.80	9%
Packaging (added)	$0.65	8%
Failure buffer	$0.17	2%
Electricity	$0.15	2%

Step 3: the price that survives Etsy

The estimator's suggested retail does not know about Etsy, so the next run tests it in the Etsy Fee & Profit Calculator. Inputs: item cost $8.58, shipping charged $5.25, actual shipping $5.10 (his average Ground Advantage label for a 7 oz box), 80 sales a month, default fees.

At the estimator's 150% price of $17.83, revenue is $23.08, fees are $2.64, and profit is $6.76 a dragon (29.3%). That is the trap of pricing from a markup on raw cost: the markup was applied before packaging, wear, shipping and fees existed.

At $26, revenue is $31.25, fees are $3.42, and profit is $14.15 (45.3%), or $1,132.10 a month on 80 dragons. Moving the $5.25 into the price ($31.25 with free shipping) gives exactly the same $3.42 and $14.15, because Etsy's transaction and processing fees are both charged on item plus shipping.

The Etsy fees behind those numbers

Etsy's published fee policy (etsy.com/legal/fees), checked in October 2026, lists three standard charges. Listing a dragon costs $0.20, and because his listing holds 30 in stock, every dragon sold triggers another $0.20 renewal. The transaction fee is 6.5%, taken on the displayed price and the delivery charge together, with US sales tax excluded. Processing for a US bank account is 3% plus $0.25, and the Etsy Payments Policy says it is taken from the gross order, delivery and tax included. The calculator's defaults match those rates, but it leaves sales tax out of the processing base, so on a taxed order the real fee runs a few cents higher than it shows.

Offsite Ads are the other gap. An order Etsy attributes to one of its offsite ads costs 15% (the rate falls to 12% for good once a shop has sold $10,000 in a trailing year), never more than $100 an order. Entering 15 as the ads percentage cuts the $26 dragon to $9.46 profit. But the field applies to every sale, and only some orders are attributed. If one in five is, a blended 3% gives $13.21 a dragon and $1,057.10 a month, a more honest planning figure.

Does the farm have the capacity?

Pricing is only half of the batch plan. With an 8% failure rate, 80 good dragons need about 87 attempts, or 44 plates. Two printers at 24 plates a month give 48, so the plan fits with four plates of slack. The power for the whole month is $15.18 for both machines: about 1.3% of the $1,132 profit, which is why electricity never moved the price.

A quick sensitivity check makes the same point. Double the electricity rate to $0.38/kWh and the estimator's power line goes from $0.15 to $0.30 a dragon. Change the labor assumption from the tool's $4.79 to Theo's measured $2.33 and the cost moves by $2.46. Turn on 15% Offsite Ads and the profit moves by $4.69. The inputs worth arguing over are labor, fees and shipping, in that order.

The price Theo picked

He moved from $22 to $26 with $5.25 shipping. At $22 the same tool gives $10.53 a dragon, so the old price was not losing money, but at 80 a month the $3.62 difference is $289.60. He also checked the worst case he is willing to accept: a 10% coupon ($23.40) on an order attributed to a 15% Offsite Ad. The tool gives $7.47 in fees and $7.50 profit, above the $6 floor he set for any single order. For working backward from a target like that, the reverse pricing walkthrough shows the method.

Checklist for pricing a print batch

1. Meter one full plate and use the average watts, not the power supply rating.
2. Make printing hours plus idle hours add up to 24 before reading the monthly cost.
3. Feed the same watts and rate into the estimator, per object or per plate.
4. Add machine wear and packaging by hand; read the tool's markup as markup, not margin.
5. Test the price in the Etsy calculator, once with no ads and once with a blended Offsite Ads rate.
6. Check plates per month against the failure rate before promising stock.