The short answer
Material, machine time, labour and a failure buffer - the same formula covers both technologies. What changes is that resin costs two to three times more per gram, its print time depends on the object's height rather than its volume, it drags a real consumables bill behind it, and it has a mandatory wash-and-cure step that the slicer never mentions. Net effect on a small part: a resin job usually costs two to four times its filament equivalent.
Where the two models diverge
| FDM (filament) | MSLA (resin) | |
|---|---|---|
| Material unit | Grams of filament | Millilitres of resin (convert to grams via density) |
| Typical material cost | ~$0.02–0.03/g for basic PLA | ~$0.04–0.08/g for standard resin |
| Print time driven by | Path length - volume, walls, infill | Layer count - object height |
| Cost of filling the plate | Proportional - more parts, more hours | Nearly free - same height, same time |
| Consumables | Nozzles, belts, build surfaces | IPA, gloves, FEP/nFEP film, LCD panel, filters |
| Mandatory post-processing | Support removal | Drain, wash, cure, support removal |
| Waste stream | Recyclable-ish plastic | Contaminated alcohol and uncured resin |
The layer-count insight
An MSLA printer cures a whole layer in one exposure. Print time is therefore roughly layers × (exposure + lift time), and layers come from height alone. Twenty copies of a 40 mm miniature at the same Z height take the same time as one. On FDM, twenty copies take roughly twenty times as long.
This flips the usual batching advice. On FDM, plate density improves your margin at the edges - shared heat-up, fewer starts. On resin it dominates: a plate at 10% occupancy and a plate at 90% occupancy cost you the same machine hours, so unit cost falls almost linearly with how much you fit. If you quote resin per part at a rate derived from a single-part print, you are leaving most of your margin on the plate.
What resin consumables actually cost
These are the line items shops forget, and together they often exceed the electricity by an order of magnitude:
- Isopropyl alcohol - the largest recurring one. It saturates and has to be replaced and disposed of properly.
- FEP or nFEP film - replaced every few hundred hours, or immediately after a puncture.
- The LCD panel - a wear part with a finite hour count. Amortise it like a nozzle, but at a much higher unit price.
- Gloves, paper towel, filters, funnels - individually trivial, collectively not.
- Curing energy and time - small in electricity, real in bench time.
Roll all of it into the hourly machine rate the way you roll depreciation into an FDM rate. A resin machine rate that only covers electricity is wrong by several multiples.
A side-by-side worked example
The same 40 mm figurine: 18 g in PLA at 0.025/g, or 15 g of resin at $0.06/g (resin parts are usually hollowed with drain holes, so mass is not identical).
| Component | FDM | Resin (MSLA) |
|---|---|---|
| Material | 18 g × $0.025 = $0.45 | 15 g × $0.06 = $0.90 |
| Print time | 3.5 h | 4 h (height-driven) |
| Machine rate | $1.50/h = $5.25 | $2.50/h = $10.00 |
| Labour | 10 min @ $12/h = $2.00 | 25 min @ $12/h = $5.00 |
| Subtotal | $7.70 | $15.90 |
| Failure buffer | +10% = $0.77 | +15% = $2.39 |
| Total cost, one part | $8.47 | $18.29 |
| Cost per part, plate of 12 | ~$8.00 | ~$3.85 |
That last row is the whole point, and it is worth stating the assumption behind it: in a batch, resin's four machine-hours are shared across all twelve parts, washing and curing happen once for the whole plate, and only material and per-part support removal still scale - call it 8 minutes a part instead of 25. On FDM nothing meaningful is shared, so the per-part cost barely moves.
So one resin part costs more than twice its FDM twin, while twelve of them cost less than half. Resin punishes one-offs and rewards batches, and your pricing should say so - through a volume tier and a higher minimum order value on resin than on filament.
Setting it up in a pricing engine
If you quote automatically from geometry, resin doesn't need a different formula - it needs its own material preset:
- Density. Standard photopolymer resin sits a little above 1.1 g/cm³, versus about 1.24 for PLA. This is what converts the model's volume into a mass.
- Cost per gram. Convert from your per-litre price: a $40 litre of resin at 1.1 g/ml is roughly
$40 ÷ 1,100 g = $0.036/g. - Hourly rate. Higher than your FDM rate, carrying consumables, film and panel wear.
- Wall thickness and infill. Resin parts are typically shelled and hollow rather than infilled, so the preset should reflect a hollow shell, not a 15% grid.
- Post-processing charge. Wash and cure is a per-part cost, so it belongs as a fixed per-item service rather than folded into the hourly rate.
- Minimum order value. Set it separately, and set it higher.
One quote engine, both technologies
Filaquote prices each material from its own preset - density, cost per gram, hourly rate, wall thickness, infill range, per-material post-processing services and maximum part size - so a resin option and a filament option can sit side by side on the same widget and each price correctly from the same uploaded model.
Add to Shopify→FAQ
Is resin printing more expensive than filament?
Per gram, yes - standard resin typically runs two to three times the price of basic PLA, and specialist resins more. But the bigger difference is everything around the print: isopropyl alcohol, gloves, FEP film, the LCD panel, waste disposal and a mandatory wash and cure step that filament does not have. On a small part the total cost of a resin job is commonly two to four times the filament equivalent.
How do I price a resin print?
Use the same four-part formula as filament, then change three constants. Convert your resin price per litre into a price per gram using its density, which is usually a little above one gram per millilitre. Set an hourly rate that carries consumables and screen wear rather than just electricity. And add the wash and cure labour explicitly, because it is minutes per part that never appear in the slicer estimate.
Why does a full resin plate take the same time as one part?
Because an MSLA printer exposes an entire layer at once. Print time is set by how tall the object is - the number of layers times the exposure and lift time for each - not by how much area is being cured. Twenty copies at the same height finish in the same time as one, which makes filling the plate the single largest lever on resin unit cost.
Should resin and filament have different minimum order values?
Yes, and resin's should be higher. The fixed handling cost per resin job is larger - draining, washing, curing, support removal, disposal of contaminated alcohol - so a tiny resin part carries more unavoidable cost than a tiny filament part. Setting one minimum for the whole shop means you subsidise every small resin order.