Tips & resources
Dial it in.
The engine does the math, but the numbers and the craft around it are yours. Here's how to feed it accurate inputs, pack orders that arrive intact, present your work, and grow without losing the plot.
Get accurate inputs
The engine is only as honest as the numbers you feed it. These are the few that move the price the most, and how to nail them.
Electricity: read your power bill
Don't trust a national average. Your bill lists your real rate in cents per kWh (look for the line that divides total charges by kWh used). Plug that exact number into your assumption set. It can be off by 2x between states.
Weight: trust the scale, not the estimate
Software estimates drift from reality (a slicer's flow tuning and purge, the resin left in the cup). Weigh the finished piece, or what it actually used, on a kitchen or jewelry scale and use that. A $10 scale pays for itself in pricing accuracy.
Machine cost: price the whole life
Depreciation = purchase price spread over realistic lifetime hours (or pours, for a mold). Be honest about it (a machine running a few hours a week lasts years), and add maintenance: nozzles, belts, build plates, tubes, the occasional board.
Labor: pay yourself
Time yourself once through a real job: setup, the hands-on work, cleanup, finishing, packing. Set an hourly rate you'd actually accept. Skipping this is the most common reason makers quietly lose money.
Failure rate: let it learn
Guessing a failure buffer is fine to start, but log your jobs (done and failed). After five logged jobs on a model, the engine replaces the guess with your shop's real rate, and pricing sharpens automatically.
Material: use your real landed cost
Price filament, sheets, or resin at what you actually pay, including shipping and the part of the spool or bottle you can never fully use. The number on the supplier's listing is rarely the number in your hand.
Overhead: count the costs with no part attached
Rent or bench space, software subscriptions, test prints, consumables like gloves and isopropyl, the power your machine draws idling. Roll these into your overhead percent so they're spread across every sale instead of quietly eaten.
Per-craft accuracy
Each craft has a couple of numbers that quietly throw the price off. A few of the most common, across the twelve crafts Anvil prices.
3D printing: weigh the whole job
Slicer gram estimates miss purge, supports, and brims. Weigh the finished plate (the parts plus the waste you tossed) and price off that. Take print time from the slicer, but round up for the cooldown and plate changes you actually wait through.
Laser: mind the nesting and the passes
Material cost rides on the sheet area your design nests into, not its bounding box, so lay parts out tight. Cut time rides on total path length and the number of passes your material and thickness need. Tune the speeds to your machine once and the estimate holds.
Resin: count what's left in the cup
You always mix more than the mold holds, and the leftover is paid-for resin. Meter the grams you actually pour plus a waste allowance. Amortize the mold over its real pour count (silicone wears out), and if you run a pressure pot, fold its cost in over its lifetime pours.
Candles & soap: price the batch, then divide
Batch crafts hide the per-unit cost. A soap loaf or a pour of wax costs what its oils, lye, fragrance, and your time cost, then divides by how many bars or candles it yields. Fragrance load is the swing factor: a 10% pour and a 6% pour are different products. Meter the fragrance as a percent of your wax or oils, not a guess.
Pottery: a firing is shared, not per-piece
The kiln is the cost people forget. It draws kilowatts for hours, twice (bisque then glaze), and that energy plus the kiln's wear is real money. But a firing is shared across the whole load, so the honest per-piece cost is the firing divided by how many pieces rode along. A fuller kiln is cheaper per piece. Price off your real load, not a single mug.
Woodworking: board-feet, and run-time not shop-time
Lumber sells by the board-foot (thickness times width times length over twelve), and hardwood waste runs high, so add an allowance for offcuts and milling. Then don't bill the saw like it runs all day: the machine cost rides on its actual powered run-time, a fraction of your total shop time, so your labor leads and the tools stay a modest line.
Pricing strategy
The engine gives you a floor: what the piece truly costs plus a fair margin. What you charge on top of that is strategy.
Price from cost, not the competition
Someone else's price hides their machine, their volume, and sometimes a loss they haven't noticed. Start from your real cost-plus number. If the market sits lower, decide on purpose whether to trim margin, rather than backing into it.
Charge a setup or minimum for small jobs
A $4 keychain still needs a slicer setup, a plate change, and a trip to the post office. A small order minimum or a flat setup fee covers the fixed work that per-gram pricing misses.
Put custom work on a quote
For one-off or multi-part jobs, build a quote instead of guessing. It itemizes every piece at your real price, adds tax if you charge it, and prints clean for the customer. No money left on the table, no awkward back-and-forth.
Raise prices in small, regular steps
A 5 to 10 percent bump rarely loses a buyer who already values your work, and it compounds. Waiting years and then doubling the price is what causes sticker shock. Review when your costs move or demand outpaces capacity.
Wholesale needs its own margin
A shop buying ten units to resell expects a lower unit price, but your cost per unit barely drops. Set a separate wholesale price that still clears a profit at volume. Don't just hand over your retail discount.
Packing & shipping
Shipping is part of your cost and your reputation. Pack cheap but pack smart.
Cheap packing materials that work
Reused boxes (ask local stores), kraft paper and crinkle-cut paper for void fill, and recycled bubble or air pillows. Buying flat-rate mailers and paper in bulk drops your per-order cost a lot. Recycled also reads well to buyers.
Pack pieces so they survive transit
Protect thin or protruding features first (they snap). Wrap the piece, then fill every gap so nothing shifts: a part that can't move can't break. For fragile pieces, a snug box beats a big box with loose fill. Tape seams so moisture stays out.
Free shipping math
"Free shipping" is never free. Either build it into the price on every order, or set a threshold where you absorb it only above a certain cart size. Anvil HUD can model both so you know exactly what each option costs you.
Weigh the packed parcel, not the part
The shipping estimate is only as good as its weight. Weigh the piece in its box with all the padding, not bare. A few grams over a carrier's price break can quietly cost you a dollar an order.
Selling & presentation
A fair price still needs to look the part. Presentation is why two identical pieces sell at different prices.
Photograph your work well
Soft, even light (a window or a cheap LED panel), a clean uncluttered backdrop, and a few angles. Include something for scale (a coin, a hand). Sharp, honest photos cut returns and justify your price.
Write listings that show the value
Say what it's made of, how big it is, and the care that went in. When the price reflects real material, time, and skill, explain that briefly. Buyers pay more when they understand why.
Offer a few sizes
The same design in small, medium, and large gives buyers a price they're comfortable with and lifts your average order. Anvil prices each size on its own, so your margin holds across the range instead of guessing a middle.
Running & growing the shop
Pricing right is step one. Staying profitable as you grow is the rest.
Before you scale, check capacity
More orders means more machine hours, more labor, and longer lead times. Know your real throughput before you promise faster shipping or run a sale. Burnout and missed deadlines cost more than a slow week.
Plan growth on real numbers
Use your dashboards to see what actually makes money, not what feels busy. A second printer should pay for itself in added throughput. Raise prices when demand outpaces capacity. Reinvest deliberately, not on vibes.
Track what makes money
Some products earn well per hour; others just keep you busy. Logging jobs turns that hunch into data, so you can lean into the winners and retire the time-sinks.
Ready to put real numbers in?
See exactly how every input rolls up into a price at the math, then tune your own in settings.