What infill really costs

A customer wants the part stronger, so you turn infill up. On some parts that costs almost nothing. On others it adds nearly a third to every print. Send us the STL. We slice it at five infills on your printer and show you which kind of part it is.

See the three parts

Why the same setting costs so differently

Thin parts are all wall. A thin shell has almost no inside to fill. Our body shell at 100 % takes 61 s more than at 15 %.

Thick parts are mostly inside. Our board tray at 100 % takes 24 minutes more per print, and 29 % more plastic.

Going lower barely saves. 10 % instead of 15 % saved under 1 % of the time on all three parts.

Three parts, five infills

Three parts from our walking robot in PLA on a Bambu A1, 0.20 mm Standard (grid infill, 15 % as shipped; 100 % is rectilinear because BambuStudio refuses grid at 100 %), auto-oriented. Sliced on 15 October 2026:

+1.6 %small bracket, 15 to 100 %13 min 21 s to 13 min 35 s, 0.94 to 1.10 g
+2.2 %body shell, 15 to 100 %45 min 33 s to 46 min 34 s, 13.31 to 14.30 g
+31.6 %board tray, 15 to 100 %1 h 17 min 02 s to 1 h 41 min 21 s, 34.88 to 44.90 g. At 40 %: +10.7 %

Now your batch. Pick a part, an infill and how many:

Extra walls are the other way to add strength. They are not always cheaper: on the tray, 4 walls cost more time than 40 % infill. See walls or infill.

What you get

Five slices: Time and grams at 10, 15, 25, 40 and 100 % on your printer and material, with the exact presets.
Which kind of part: Wall-bound, where infill is nearly free, or bulk, where every step costs hours.
Walls too: If strength is the point, the same part with more walls, timed the same way, so you pick the cheaper one.
A farm if you want one: We can print the batch across our farms in Shenzhen, at the hours we quoted.

Get your numbers

Tell us about the part. We answer within one working day.

Run 3D printers yourself? Put them on our print network.