Free laser-cutter job pricing calculator. Enter sheet cost, run minutes, wattage, electricity rate, labor; outputs material cost, power draw cost, machine-wear overhead, and tiered wholesale / Etsy retail prices.
Built and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Changes and corrections
Use when quoting custom laser-cut work on Etsy or your storefront. Wholesale numbers help when selling to retailers.
Spreadsheet templates require setup. This is one-screen quoting.
Material cost = sheet price × % of sheet used. Power cost = (watts ÷ 1000) × run hours × $/kWh.
Machine wear is a $1.50/hour allowance covering tube life and consumables. Labor uses your hourly rate.
Retail = raw cost × (1 + markup %); wholesale defaults to 60% of retail.
A $1.50/hour allowance covers tube life, cleaning consumables, and amortized maintenance for typical xTool/Glowforge-class machines.
Add it to labor — or charge a one-time setup fee on top of the per-piece retail price.
Calculate your full per-sheet cost including material, power, wear, and labor, then divide by the number of finished parts that fit on the sheet. Pricing per part this way ensures offcuts and waste are still covered.
This calculator sets wholesale at 60% of retail, so at a 100% markup (retail at double cost) wholesale is only 1.2 times cost. If you want wholesale at about 1.5 times cost, enter a 150% markup, which puts retail at 2.5 times cost. Adjust based on your local market and whether the buyer resells in volume.
Input
$12 sheet, 30% used, 25-min run, 60 W, $0.15/kWh, $20/hr labor, 100% markup.
Output
Raw $12.56 → Retail $25.12 (wholesale $15.07).
Material $3.60 + power $0.004 + wear $0.63 + labor $8.33 (25 min weighted) → markup. Wear is the often-forgotten cost.
Laser work prices on time far more than on material, because the cutting head runs at a fixed rate and the job takes as long as it takes. The material in a batch of coasters costs pennies; the twenty minutes of machine time is what you are selling.
That makes run time the number to estimate carefully. It is set by cut path length and passes rather than by part area, which is why an intricate design on a small piece can run longer than a plain cut on a large one.
A laser has running costs beyond electricity that are easy to omit and add up: lens and mirror cleaning and eventual replacement, filter media for the extraction system, and on CO2 machines the tube itself, which has a finite rated life measured in hours and is a significant capital item.
Amortising tube life across run hours is the honest way to handle it — it converts a large occasional cost into a per-hour figure that belongs in every quote. Ignore it and the business appears profitable until the tube fails.
Material waste follows nesting efficiency, not part size. A sheet cut with poor layout can waste more than the parts consume.
Wholesale is usually shown as 60% of retail, which quietly makes it a function of your retail markup rather than a margin you set. Below a 67% markup that number drops under your production cost, and here is the arithmetic that proves it.
The real cost stack behind a laser-cut item — sheet material, run time, machine wear, and labor — and how to turn it into a wholesale and retail price that actually makes money.
Filament, power, wear → suggested Etsy price.
Pricing & selling your workTrue per-sale profit after Etsy's cut.
Pricing & selling your workEbook and paperback royalties, side by side.
Pricing & selling your workExclusive vs. non-exclusive, split with your narrator.