Laser Engraving Price Calculator

Price the job, not the material

The most common pricing mistake in laser work is charging for the wood and forgetting the hour of sanding. The price calculator puts every cost of a job in one place, with your own numbers, so you can see what a piece really costs you before you decide what to charge.

What goes into the price

Input	What to enter
The piece	Width and height, how many sheets or layers it uses (a 4-layer map uses 4), and the laser time per piece
Material	What one sheet costs, its size, and a waste allowance for offcuts and mistakes
Your rate	What an hour of your laser plus your time is worth
Setup	Minutes per job for loading, focusing and framing; shared across every piece in the order
Finishing	Minutes per piece for sanding, cleaning, painting and assembly
Packaging	Cost per piece
Markup	The multiplier on cost that gives your price

A worked example

These are the calculator’s starting values, not a recommendation: a 150 × 200 mm, 4-layer street map that takes 25 minutes on the laser, cut from 300 × 300 mm sheets costing $4.50 with 15% waste, at $25 an hour, with 5 minutes of setup, 5 minutes of finishing, $1.50 of packaging and a 2.5× markup.

Line	Amount
Material (4 layers’ share of a sheet, plus waste)	$6.90
Laser time (25 min at $25/h)	$10.42
Setup and finishing (10 min at $25/h)	$4.17
Packaging	$1.50
Cost	$22.98
Price at 2.5×	$57.46
Etsy price that covers US Etsy fees	$63.99

Notice that laser time is the biggest single cost here, not the material. That is typical for layered and detailed pieces, and it is why the export dialogs estimate the run time for you.

Quantity breaks

Setup happens once per order, so bigger orders cost a little less per piece. The calculator shows the price and total profit for orders of 1, 5, 10 and 25. In the example above the price per map drops from $57.46 for one to $52.46 each for 25, because the 5 minutes of setup is shared across the whole order.

The Etsy price

Etsy takes its fees from the sale price, so if you list at your calculated price you will receive less than you planned. The Etsy price grosses up your price so that after the US transaction fee (6.5%), payment processing (3% + $0.25) and the $0.20 listing fee, you still receive your price. Fees vary by country and change over time; check Etsy’s current fee schedule for your shop. Offsite Ads fees are not included.

Pricing inside every studio

You don’t have to come here for every job. Every studio’s export dialog has the same calculator under “Price this job”, already filled in with the size and estimated laser time of the design you just made. Try it on a box, a tumbler order or a leather wallet, where finishing time can easily outweigh laser time.