Ultimately you need to come up with a price that you are comfortable with and the customer is willing to pay.  some will think the price is high because they can go to Walmart and buy some cheap imported piece of plastic to do what they want. Others will appreciate custom work. and others will see that if they go to an on line print service it will likely cost more.

Like others have said try to find an hourly rate for you and your machine that is fair to you and your friends . yes it is a hobby but you have a lot invested in your printer and materials.

As far as material figure out cost per gram . then decide if you are going to mark up. mark up covers the cost of researching shipping driving etc. then weigh the finished part on a scale.
Tin

Why do you people only value your free time as $10 an hour?  In some states minimum wage is going to be $15 soon.  Flipping burgers shouldn't pay more than 3d design and additive manufacture. 

The way I've been doing it for the limited things I've sold is Shapeways / 2.  If I have to design then I charge for my time at $40 and hour and then cost to print.  I do get people that say no thanks, and for a friend I wouldn't charge but if I'm giving up my weekend I need to be compensated.  My time is more valuable to me than printing yoda heads for everyone that thinks it's neat. 

If you tell them $25 minimum and they say that's too expensive.  Have them try to find it elsewhere for less.  You'll save yourself a headache and they'll likely come back to you after checking on the professional services anyway.

+1
In my example (way above) I just calculated unattended run time of a previously designed item...but if I needed to design an item, it would be no less than $40.00 / hour!

Why do you people only value your free time as $10 an hour?  In some states minimum wage is going to be $15 soon.  Flipping burgers shouldn't pay more than 3d design and additive manufacture. 

The way I've been doing it for the limited things I've sold is Shapeways / 2.  If I have to design then I charge for my time at $40 and hour and then cost to print.  I do get people that say no thanks, and for a friend I wouldn't charge but if I'm giving up my weekend I need to be compensated.  My time is more valuable to me than printing yoda heads for everyone that thinks it's neat. 

If you tell them $25 minimum and they say that's too expensive.  Have them try to find it elsewhere for less.  You'll save yourself a headache and they'll likely come back to you after checking on the professional services anyway.

+1 here too. besides I am not trying to competes with dollar shops nor am I in business. just doing my hobby thing and getting some investment back when possible. mass production is not about 3D printing

The way I've been doing it for the limited things I've sold is Shapeways / 2.  If I have to design then I charge for my time at $40 and hour and then cost to print.  I do get people that say no thanks, and for a friend I wouldn't charge but if I'm giving up my weekend I need to be compensated.  My time is more valuable to me than printing yoda heads for everyone that thinks it's neat. 

If you tell them $25 minimum and they say that's too expensive.  Have them try to find it elsewhere for less.  You'll save yourself a headache and they'll likely come back to you after checking on the professional services anyway.

n2ri - the forum lets you edit posts. This might be far more beneficial for readers in threads you've posted in than chains of 4-5 posts from yourself.

Just a suggestion to make people not just skip chunks of your posts...

yes and I have done that also and had people comment too long of post to read or too many subjects in same post etc. but thanks for reminding.

Just a suggestion to make people not just skip chunks of your posts...

wardjr wrote:

All of this being said there are several topics that have tried to come up with ways to calculate these things.

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/655/char … -printing/
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/283/sell … -how-much/

unlike some of those people and others think. multiples of an item take just as long as doing each 1 at a time due to same amount of time/material printing each. but if an issue happens during a print any unfinished print is all wasted and if an item takes 1hr then  12 of them take 12hrs and prints over 2-4 hrs have much more chance to fail b4 finished plus long prints are harder to monitor. I havnt done many multi prints for this reason. just not that confident in error free long prints especialy new files not tested lots in G-code form