How it works
The calculation is short and the tool shows every step. It takes the model volume from your slicer, inflates it by the supports percentage, multiplies that inflated volume by the resin density to get print weight in grams, and separately divides bottle price by bottle size to get a price per millilitre. Cost per print is volume-with-supports times price per millilitre, and prints per bottle is the bottle size divided by that same volume, rounded down to a whole print.
Volume is the input that dominates, and it must come from your slicer rather than a guess. The supports field defaults to 15% with a suggested working range of 10 to 30%. The brand dropdown only sets density: Siraya Fast is 1.06 g/mL, Phrozen Aqua 1.08, Anycubic Eco, Elegoo Standard and generic ABS-like all 1.10, and Anycubic Tough 1.18. Bottle defaults are 1000 mL at $35, and the volume unit selector accepts microlitres and litres as well as millilitres.
Density only affects the weight readout — cost is driven entirely by volume, so picking the wrong brand changes the grams but not the dollars. The supports figure is a flat percentage, which is a poor model for the real driver of resin use: whether the model is hollowed and where you place drain holes. Nothing here covers failed prints, wash alcohol, gloves, filters, FEP film or LCD screen hours, all of which are real per-print costs on a resin machine.
Frequently asked questions
Is 1 mL of resin the same as 1 cm³? +
Yes, they are identical volumes, which is why the unit dropdown labels the default option mL / cm³. Slicers usually report model volume in millilitres or cubic centimetres, so you can type that figure in directly without any conversion.
How many grams does a 50 mL resin print weigh? +
With the default 15% supports buffer the volume becomes 57.5 mL, and at the standard 1.10 g/mL density that is about 63 grams. Denser resins such as Anycubic Tough at 1.18 g/mL push the same print to roughly 68 grams.
How much extra resin do supports use? +
The tool defaults to a 15% overhead and suggests 10 to 30% as typical. Light supports on a flat-bottomed model sit near the bottom of that range; heavily angled figures with dense support rafts and a raised build plate sit at the top.
How many prints do I get from a 1000 mL bottle? +
The prints-per-bottle figure divides bottle size by volume including supports and rounds down. A 50 mL model with 15% supports comes to 57.5 mL, so a 1 litre bottle yields 17 prints with a little resin left over.
Does the cost per print include failed prints and cleaning? +
No. The result is the raw resin cost of one successful print only. Isopropyl alcohol, nitrile gloves, paper towels, FEP replacement, LCD wear and the resin lost to a failed plate are all outside the model and need adding manually.
Volume, supports and the cost that is not resin
Resin usage is model volume plus support volume, and supports are frequently a large share — comparable to the model itself on an organic or overhung shape. Costing per model on the model's own volume understates it substantially.
The consumables around it add up faster than in FDM: isopropyl alcohol for washing is consumed steadily and is not cheap, gloves are used on every handling step, and the FEP film in the vat is a wear item on a replacement schedule.
Handling, and why this is not just a cost question
Uncured photopolymer resin is a skin sensitiser. Repeated exposure can produce an allergy that ends the hobby entirely, and that outcome is common enough to take seriously — gloves and ventilation are not optional precautions.
Waste resin and contaminated alcohol must be fully cured before disposal rather than poured away, since uncured resin is aquatic-toxic. Cured resin is inert and can be binned.
None of that appears in a cost calculation, and all of it affects whether resin printing is worth doing in a given space.
