Markups & Profit Margins
Configure your markup percentages and failure rate adjustments
Overview
Markups and margins ensure your business is profitable after covering all costs, overhead, and potential losses from failed prints. These settings allow you to build healthy profit margins into your pricing.
Filament Markup Multiplier
What Is the Filament Markup?
A multiplier applied to your raw filament cost. The default is 2.7x, meaning you charge 2.7 times what you paid for the material.
Why 2.7x?
This industry-standard multiplier accounts for:
- •Material Waste: Support structures, purging, failed prints (~15-20%)
- •Storage Costs: Proper humidity control, organization
- •Inventory Management: Time spent tracking and ordering
- •Material Profit: Reasonable margin on materials
When to Adjust
Increase markup (3x - 4x) for:
- • Specialty filaments (carbon fiber, flexible)
- • Expensive materials (PEEK, PC, PA)
- • Hard-to-source or imported materials
- • Materials requiring special storage
Decrease markup (2x - 2.5x) for:
- • Bulk orders using same material
- • High-volume customers
- • Common materials (basic PLA, PETG)
- • Competitive pricing situations
General Markup Percentage
What Is the General Markup?
A percentage added to your total costs after calculating materials, labor, electricity, and depreciation. The default is 50%.
What Does It Cover?
- •Overhead: Rent, utilities, insurance, software subscriptions
- •Business Operations: Marketing, customer service, accounting
- •Maintenance: Regular printer maintenance, repairs, upgrades
- •Profit: Your actual take-home earnings
- •Growth Capital: Funds for expanding your business
Markup Guidelines
Important: Don't be afraid to charge appropriate markups. Your expertise, equipment, and service have real value.
Failure Rate Adjustment
What Is the Failure Rate?
A percentage that protects you against prints that fail and need to be redone. The default is 10%, which means your final price is increased to account for a 10% failure rate.
Why Include Failure Rate?
Even experienced operators have prints fail. This adjustment ensures you're covered when:
- •First Layer Fails: Adhesion issues, bed leveling problems
- •Mid-Print Failures: Clogs, power outages, spaghetti
- •Quality Issues: Warping, layer separation, defects
- •Client Rejections: Dimensional accuracy, color issues
Setting Your Rate
Tip: Track your actual failure rate over time and adjust this setting accordingly. Be honest with yourself about how often prints fail.
Complete Calculation Flow
How Everything Works Together
• Electricity cost
• Depreciation cost
• Post-processing labor
• Preparation labor
Example: $45 ÷ (1 - 0.10) = $45 ÷ 0.90 = $50.00
Best Practices
Review Regularly
Check your actual failure rates and profitability quarterly. Adjust markups as your costs change.
Be Consistent
Use the same markups for similar jobs. This creates predictable pricing for you and your clients.
Save as Presets
Create presets with different markup strategies for different client types or job categories.
Don't Compete on Price Alone
Maintain healthy markups. Compete on quality, reliability, and service instead of racing to the bottom.