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How much electricity does a 3D printer use

Pick your printer, tell it how many hours you print and what you pay per kWh. You'll see the cost of one print, of the month and of the year.

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Your printer

Picking one fills in its average power draw.

W

A ballpark average — adjust it if you measure yours.

Time and tariff
h

You can paste 5:30 or 5h 30m.

min
$
pcs

To estimate the monthly and yearly bill.

Converts using a reference exchange rate set on 25 August 2026. It is approximate — real rates move daily, so don't use this for exact financial decisions.

How it works

  • 1. Your printerPick the model and its average printing power fills in.
  • 2. Your hoursThe print time and how many prints you run a month.
  • 3. Your billCost per print, per month and per year on your real tariff.

What a 3D printer really draws

The sum is short: kWh = average watts ÷ 1,000 × hours of printing, and the cost is that figure times whatever you pay per kilowatt-hour. A 120 W printer running five and a half hours comes to 0.66 kWh, which at $0.15/kWh is ten cents. All the difficulty is in getting the average power right, not in the arithmetic.

Average power, not peak power

The label on the printer gives the rating of the power supply: 350 W, 500 W, sometimes more. That is not what it draws while printing, it is the most it can ask for. The real peak happens in the first few minutes while the heated bed comes up to temperature; after that the bed only has to hold, and the draw falls a long way. The average over a long print usually lands between 80 and 250 W: nearer 80 on a small machine with a small bed, nearer 250 on an enclosed printer with a 300 mm bed running ABS.

What pushes the number up

  • The heated bed. By far the biggest draw. A bed at 60 °C for PLA uses much less than one at 100 °C for ABS.
  • Bed size. Heating 300 × 300 mm costs three times what heating 180 × 180 mm does.
  • Enclosed or open. An enclosed machine keeps the heat in and, once running, ends up using less than an open one at the same temperature.
  • Room temperature. In a 5 °C garage in winter the draw goes through the roof.

Put it in context before you worry

Printing 3 hours a day every day on a 120 W machine is about 11 kWh a month: under $2 on a $0.15/kWh tariff. A desktop 3D printer uses roughly what a big desktop computer uses, and vastly less than an oven, a hob or a space heater. The spend that actually hurts in a workshop isn't the power: it is the machine, the filament and the working hours, and that is what the 3D printing cost calculator works out.

How to measure your own printer properly

A plug-in power meter costs about $15 and will give you the exact figure for your machine, with your material and your room temperature. Leave it plugged in for one full long print, divide the total kWh by the hours and you have your real average power. Type that number in above instead of the ballpark one and the calculation stops being an estimate.

If what you want is the cost of the whole part — plastic, machine, failures and your time — head for the how much does 3D printing cost table, with twenty typical parts already worked out.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a 3D printer add to the electricity bill per month?

Printing 3 hours a day on a machine averaging 120 W, about 11 kWh a month: around $1.60 on a $0.15/kWh tariff.

Flat out at 12 hours a day it would be about 43 kWh and roughly $6.50 a month.

How many watts does a 3D printer use?

Between 80 and 250 W on average while printing, depending on bed size, temperature and whether the machine is enclosed.

The peak in the first few minutes, while the bed heats, can be double that, but it is short and barely moves the total.

Is it expensive to leave a print running overnight?

An 8 hour overnight print at an average of 120 W is 0.96 kWh: about 14 cents. If you are on a time-of-use tariff, nights are usually cheaper still.

The reason not to leave it unattended overnight is safety, not the electricity bill.

Does ABS use more power than PLA?

Quite a bit more, because it needs the bed at 100-110 °C instead of 60 °C and usually runs in an enclosed machine for longer per part.

In practice the same part in ABS can use 40% to 80% more electricity than in PLA.

Does this include the machine and the filament?

No. This page is only the electricity side.

For the full cost of a part — plastic, printer depreciation, failures and your labour — use the 3D printing cost calculator.

Where do the printer wattages come from?

They are estimated printing averages based on bed size and machine type, not official manufacturer figures and not heat-up peaks.

The field is always editable: if you measure your printer with a plug meter, type your number in and the figure becomes exact.

More tools and guides

This print costs — Per month —