Laser Cutting Cost Calculator
Laser cutting cost per part comes from machine time, setup spread across the order, material including scrap, and finishing work. This calculator turns your CAM numbers into a cost and a selling price, and shows how quantity changes the unit cost.
Your numbers
Total path length including inner features, from the CAM report.
Effective average speed for the material and thickness, including corners.
Depreciation, power, operator, floor space and overhead per running hour.
Nitrogen or oxygen, per cutting hour.
Your results
A simplified cost model for quoting. Real jobs also carry tooling wear, consumables, sheet handling, remnants and part-specific scrap. Calibrate the machine rate against your own books.
Cost and price per part vs order quantity
Sweeps Order quantity from 1 to 200, holding your other inputs fixed.
Feed real run times back into your quotes
Optional: a short review of connecting machine logs, routings and quoting inside your ERP.
Optional. The tool and every export work without this. No spam.
How to use the calculator
Take cut length and pierce count from your CAM or nesting report and enter the effective cutting speed for the material and thickness. Add your machine hourly rate and assist gas cost, then enter setup time per batch, the blank weight and the material price. Set the nesting yield from your actual nests, add any handling cost per part, and choose a margin. The result gives cost per part, a selling price and the order total, and the chart shows how unit cost falls as setup is spread over more parts.
- Use average speed, not the maximum rated speed.
- Enter machine rate as the full cost per running hour.
- Use the yield from a real nest, not a guess.
How the cost is built
Run time equals cut length divided by speed, plus pierces multiplied by pierce time. Machine and gas cost is run time in hours times the combined hourly rate. Setup cost is setup time at the machine rate divided by quantity. Material cost is blank weight times price per kg, divided by nesting yield, so a 75 percent yield adds a third to the raw blank cost. Add handling and finishing, then apply margin on cost to get the selling price.
- Thicker material lowers speed and raises gas use.
- Pierce time rises sharply with thickness.
- Low yield hurts most on expensive materials like stainless.
Example and how to read it
With the defaults, run time is about 0.64 minutes per part, which at $138 per hour is about $1.47. Setup adds roughly $0.40 per part at 100 parts, material comes to about $1.68 and handling is $0.35, so cost is near $3.90 and the price near $4.88. At quantity 10, setup alone is about $4 per part. Use that to set minimum order charges and quantity break tiers rather than quoting one flat price.
- Look at the chart to find where unit cost flattens.
- Set a minimum order value to cover setup on small runs.
Common mistakes
Quoting from nominal speed charts, ignoring pierce time on parts with many small holes, and forgetting scrap are the usual causes of underquoting. Others are a machine rate that omits operator time, and ignoring remnant value or sheet handling. After each job, compare quoted run time with the machine log and update the effective speed. In an ERP, feeding actual run times back into routing standards makes the next quote more accurate.
- Compare quoted time with actual machine time.
- Update the machine rate at least once a year.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does laser cutting cost per hour?
Shop rates vary widely by machine power, location and overhead. Use your own fully loaded cost per running hour, including depreciation, power, operator and floor space, rather than a market quote, and then add margin separately.
Why does pierce time matter so much?
Parts with many holes can spend as much time piercing as cutting. On thicker plate the pierce can take several seconds, so a part with dozens of pierces may be dominated by that time instead of cut length.
How do I include nesting yield?
Divide the blank weight by the yield percentage. If a part weighs 1 kg and the nest yield is 80 percent, you pay for 1.25 kg of sheet. Scrap credit can be subtracted separately if you sell it.
Should I price by weight or by time?
Time plus material is more accurate for laser work. Weight-based pricing hides pierce counts, thickness effects and setup, so it often underprices complex thin parts and overprices simple thick ones.
If you want quotes to pull cut times, material prices and yields directly from your ERP and nesting software, Netray can help build that integration, including on-prem deployments.
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