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Seven ways to make your part cheaper without ruining it

Concrete ways to bring down the price of a 3D print: infill, layer height, orientation, hollowing and quantity. With what each one actually saves.

4 min read

The price of a printed part is almost entirely machine time. Everything below attacks that number. They are ordered by how much they genuinely save.

  1. 1Drop the infill. Going from 40% to 20% can cut a fifth of the time, and most parts never notice. It only matters if the part carries real load.
  2. 2Raise the layer height. Going from 0.20 to 0.28 mm saves around 15%. Layer lines are more visible: fine for form prototypes or parts nobody sees.
  3. 3Hollow the part in CAD. A solid 240 cm³ block and a hollow shell of the same outer size are nowhere near the same price. Infill helps, but hollowing at design time helps more.
  4. 4Avoid supports. Reorient the part, or split steep overhangs into two pieces you glue later. Supports are material you throw away and time you pay for.
  5. 5Order several units of the same file. Set-up is charged per file, and from 3 units volume discounts kick in, reaching 20%.
  6. 6Pick PLA if you can. Cheapest per kilo and fastest to print. Only move up to PETG or ABS if the part will see heat, sun or impact.
  7. 7Scale it down if size is negotiable. Cost follows volume, so going to 80% does not remove 20% of the price: it removes almost half.
10%Decorative20%General use40%Load bearingAbove 40% the weight climbs fast and the strength barely does
Above 40%, infill adds a lot of weight and time and very little extra strength. Almost nobody needs to go past it.

The fastest route: upload your file to the configurator and move the options around. The price recalculates instantly, so you can try combinations until one fits.

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