How the price of a laser engraving job is worked out
- Material: the price of a sheet divided by how many items you get from it. A $6 sheet that gives 12 coasters is $0.50 a coaster. For a blank like a tumbler or slate, enter 1 item per blank.
- Laser time: the minutes your software estimates, priced at the machine's cost per hour: what it cost plus tubes or modules, lenses and belts over its life, divided by the hours it will run.
- Electricity: the laser's average draw for those minutes, at your price per kWh.
- Setup: designing, test cuts and lining up a jig happen once per run. They are spread across the batch, so a run of 20 carries a twentieth of the setup on each item. That is why bigger runs can be priced lower per item.
- Hands-on time: loading, weeding, cleaning and finishing each item, at your hourly rate.
- Failure allowance: material, machine time and power a ruined piece still uses.
What to charge for laser engraving
The suggested prices are margins after fees: the share of the sale you keep once the item and the marketplace's cut are paid for. Etsy-style fees are a percentage of the sale price, so the calculator solves for the price directly instead of adding a markup and hoping the fees fit. If a margin isn't possible with those fees, it says so.
Profit per laser hour
A laser can only run one job at a time. Profit per laser hour shows which products earn the most for the time they keep the machine busy, which matters most when you have more orders than hours.