Resin Print Cost Calculator
Resin prints cost more than the resin. This adds the alcohol you actually replace, FEP wear counted per layer rather than per print, LCD screen amortisation, power and consumables — and takes resin in millilitres or grams.
Why resin prints cost more than the resin
Filament printing has one consumable. Resin printing has four or five, and only one of them appears in the slicer. Two of those — the release film and the LCD screen — wear according to layer count and exposure time, not resin volume, which is why a tall miniature and a squat coaster using the same amount of resin do not cost the same.
washing = IPA replaced per print (ml) ÷ 1000 × price per litre
FEP wear = sheet cost × this print's layers ÷ layers per sheet
LCD wear = screen cost × print hours ÷ rated screen hours
electricity = watts ÷ 1000 × hours × price per kWh
total = all of the above + other consumables
Weight and volume
Resin is sold both ways, and the slicer reports millilitres, so one conversion is unavoidable:
Most photopolymer resins fall between 1.05 and 1.25 g/cm³. A 1 kg bottle at 1.10 g/cm³ holds about 909 ml, not 1,000 — assuming otherwise makes every cost roughly 10% too low. The presets are typical values by resin family; if your bottle's technical data sheet gives a figure, use that instead, because the spread across that range is a 20% swing in cost per millilitre.
Worked example
Four 25 ml miniatures (100 ml total) at 0.03 mm layers on a 60 mm-tall plate — so 2,000 layers — in $30/L resin, three hours on a 60 W printer, standard FEP.
- Resin: 100 ml × 1.10 × $0.03 = $3.30
- Washing: 500 ml every 15 prints = 33 ml at $8/L = $0.27
- FEP: $8 × 2,000 ÷ 6,000 layers = $2.67
- LCD: $60 × 3 h ÷ 2,000 h = $0.09
- Electricity: 0.06 kW × 3 h × $0.15 = $0.03
- Other consumables: $0.15
Total $6.51, or about $1.63 per miniature. Note what changed against the old per-print film assumption: counting FEP by layers turns a $0.13 line into $2.67 and makes film the second-largest cost in the job. That is the correct answer for a 2,000-layer print, and it is why tall fine-layer work is more expensive than volume alone suggests.
Getting the inputs right
Waste
Resin that clings to the model and supports and washes away is the biggest single item — a heavily supported miniature can carry 10% of its own volume in uncured resin. Add what stays in the vat and on the filter when you pour back, the occasional print cured onto the film, and outright failures. Ten percent is honest for a careful workflow where the plate is left to drip back into the vat before washing. Sellers who include failures and bottle-to-bottle transfer losses commonly budget 20–30%. The field is editable because there is no single correct number here.
IPA
The volume sitting in your wash station is irrelevant; what costs money is what you replace. The per-change mode reflects how people actually work: you use the same alcohol for a run of prints, then dump and refill. Three things stretch it a long way — draining the plate back into the vat for a few minutes before washing, two-stage washing with a dirty bath followed by a clean one, and letting used IPA stand so the cured sludge settles out, then decanting the clear alcohol. A workflow doing all three can go many times longer between changes than one that doesn't.
Water-washable resin replaces this with a much smaller water and disposal cost — set the IPA price near zero — but note that water-washable resin usually costs more per litre, and the wastewater still needs curing before disposal.
Release film
Every layer is one peel cycle, and peel cycles are what fatigue the film. Counting film life in prints only works if all your prints are similar heights; counting in layers is correct regardless. Published lifespans vary widely between sources and manufacturers:
| Film | Commonly published life | Preset used here |
|---|---|---|
| Standard FEP | ≈3,000 – 10,000 layers | 6,000 |
| nFEP | ≈6,000 – 20,000 layers | 12,000 |
| ACF | ≈15,000 – 30,000 layers | 20,000 |
Treat these as order-of-magnitude figures, not specifications. Cross-sectional area matters as much as layer count: a wide flat layer generates far more suction on release than a small one, so a solid plate-filling print wears film much faster per layer than a few thin miniatures. Large flat bases, heavy supports and prints that fail and cure onto the film all shorten life. The honest way to use this is to track your own — note the layer counts between film changes for a few sheets, and replace the preset with your number.
LCD screen
The masking LCD degrades under constant UV exposure and is a genuine recurring cost for anyone printing commercially. Monochrome panels are typically rated around 2,000 hours; the older RGB panels they replaced were nearer 500. Replacements run roughly $30–150 depending on size and printer. That works out to a few cents per print hour — small individually, easy to forget entirely, and it adds up across a production run. Rated hours are a manufacturer figure and real life depends on duty cycle and cooling; screens usually fade gradually rather than failing outright, showing up as under-cured areas long before they stop working.
Power
MSLA printers are frugal: 40–80 W is typical for a desktop machine, and larger 10-inch-plus printers 80–120 W. Electricity is a few cents per print. Wash and cure stations are similarly small; fold them into other consumables unless you run them for long stretches.
Sources and assumptions
- Resin density 1.05–1.25 g/cm³ — from published manufacturer technical data sheets across standard, water-washable and ABS-like resins. Individual products vary; use your own bottle's figure where available.
- FEP life in layers — vendor and community figures cluster around 3,000–10,000 layers for standard FEP and 6,000–30,000 for nFEP and ACF. Sources disagree substantially, which is why the preset is editable and the article says so.
- LCD life ≈2,000 h mono / ≈500 h RGB, $30–150 replacement — manufacturer ratings and replacement part pricing.
- Waste 10–30% — no authoritative figure exists; the range reflects the difference between a drained, tidy workflow and a commercial one that counts failures.
Everything above is a starting point that you should replace with measurements from your own setup. The calculator is exact; the inputs are where the uncertainty lives, and each field is editable for that reason.
From cost to price
This page costs the print. To turn it into a selling price — machine depreciation, your time washing, curing and removing supports, a failure allowance, markup and marketplace fees — take the total into the 3D print pricing calculator and enter it as material cost. Resin post-processing is labour-intensive, so be honest about the minutes: washing, support removal, curing and sanding support nubs is rarely under ten minutes a plate.
Frequently asked questions
How much does resin cost per print?
Standard resin runs $20–40 per litre, so $0.02–0.04 per ml. A 25 ml miniature is $0.50–1.00 in resin alone, but once waste, IPA, FEP wear, screen amortisation and power are counted the real figure is usually 30–60% higher. Tall prints cost disproportionately more because FEP and screen wear are driven by layer count, not volume.
How do I convert resin grams to millilitres?
Divide grams by the resin's density in g/cm³. Most photopolymer resins are 1.05–1.25 g/cm³, with 1.10 a reasonable default, so 1,000 g is roughly 900 ml. Manufacturers publish density on the technical data sheet — use that figure rather than a generic one if you have it, because a 15% density error is a 15% cost error.
Should FEP life be counted in prints or layers?
Layers. Every layer is one peel cycle, and peel cycles are what fatigue the film — so a 4,000-layer miniature wears the FEP roughly ten times as much as a 400-layer coaster. Published figures are around 3,000–10,000 layers for standard FEP and 6,000–30,000 for nFEP or ACF. Cross-sectional area matters too: wide flat layers generate far more suction than small ones.
Should I include the LCD screen in my costs?
If you print regularly, yes. Monochrome LCDs are rated at roughly 2,000 hours of UV exposure (older RGB panels about 500), and replacements run $30–150. At 2,000 hours and a $60 screen that is about $0.03 per print hour — small per print, but a real recurring hardware cost that people forget when quoting commercial work.
How much resin does a print actually waste?
More than the slicer implies. Resin clings to the model and supports and washes away, some stays in the vat and on the filter, and prints fail. Ten percent is reasonable for a tidy workflow with a well-drained plate; experienced sellers often budget 20–30% because they include failures and the resin lost draining between bottles. The field is editable because the honest answer depends on your process.
Does draining the plate before washing reduce IPA use?
Substantially. Letting the plate drip back into the vat for a few minutes returns a meaningful share of the uncured resin and means the alcohol picks up far less, so it stays usable for longer. Two-stage washing — a dirty bath first, then a clean one — stretches it further, and letting used IPA settle so the sludge drops out lets you decant and reuse the clear alcohol several times.
Last reviewed September 8, 2026. Spotted an error or want another calculator? Tell us.