Laser Cutting Cost Calculator
Calculate precise costs for your laser cutting projects⚠️ Estimates only - verify against your production data
Input Parameters
Ready to Calculate
Fill in the parameters and click Calculate to see your results
How to Use This Calculator
Follow these steps to get structured cost estimates for your laser cutting projects based on your own inputs
Step 1: Material Selection
Choose your material type and enter the thickness. Different materials have different cutting speeds and power requirements. Our calculator accounts for material density, reflectivity, and cutting characteristics.
Step 2: Cutting Parameters
Enter the total cutting length and your laser power. The cutting length should include all cuts, holes, and contours. Higher power lasers cut faster but consume more energy.
Step 3: Cost Factors
Input your local electricity rate, labor cost, material price, and assist gas consumption. These values directly affect your total cost. Use up-to-date rates so the estimates better reflect your current situation.
Step 4: Review Results
Get detailed cost breakdown including material, energy, labor, and equipment costs. Use the suggested retail price as a starting point for your quotations. Export PDF report for professional presentations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Material Selection Guide
Different materials require different cutting parameters and affect overall costs in different ways. The calculator uses your selected material type together with your own price inputs to estimate cost. For up-to-date material pricing, see our Material Costs Reference.
Mild Steel (Carbon Steel)
Best for: General fabrication, structural parts, brackets
Cutting characteristics: Generally cuts quickly and economically with fiber lasers.
Assist gas: Often cut with oxygen for speed or nitrogen for cleaner edges.
Thickness range: Commonly used from thin sheet to medium plate thicknesses.
Cost consideration: Often one of the lower-cost sheet metals; enter your current purchase price in the calculator.
Stainless Steel 304/316
Best for: Food equipment, medical devices, corrosion-resistant parts
Cutting characteristics: Typically slower to cut than mild steel and more sensitive to parameter settings.
Assist gas: Commonly cut with nitrogen to achieve oxide-free edges.
Thickness range: Used across a wide range of sheet and plate gauges.
Cost consideration: Usually more expensive than mild steel; use your current supplier pricing when entering material price.
Aluminum (5052, 6061)
Best for: Lightweight parts, aerospace, transportation
Cutting characteristics: Can be cut quickly but requires appropriate equipment because of reflectivity.
Assist gas: Often cut with nitrogen; compressed air may be suitable for some thin gauges.
Thickness range: Common in thin to medium sheet applications.
Cost consideration: Material is lighter than steel for the same volume; use your current price per kg in the calculator.
Copper & Brass
Best for: Electrical components, decorative parts
Cutting characteristics: More challenging to cut due to high thermal conductivity and reflectivity.
Assist gas: Often cut with nitrogen or compressed air depending on quality requirements.
Thickness range: Typically used in thinner gauges for laser cutting applications.
Cost consideration: Generally higher-cost materials; use your actual purchase price to reflect cost accurately in the calculator.
Cost Optimization Strategies
1Optimize Nesting and Material Utilization
Better nesting layouts can significantly increase how much of each sheet becomes usable parts and reduce scrap. Use the material utilization input in this calculator to compare different nesting approaches and see how changes in utilization affect your total material cost.
2Batch Similar Jobs Together
Setup and loading time is usually shared across all parts in a batch. When similar parts are produced together, the setup time per piece is reduced and cost per part decreases. Use this calculator together with your typical batch sizes to understand how setup time influences your overall job cost.
3Choose the Right Assist Gas
Different assist gases influence both cut quality and operating cost. Oxygen is often used when cutting speed on carbon steel is a priority, while nitrogen is preferred when clean, oxide-free edges are required. Compressed air can be suitable for some applications when edge quality requirements permit. Use your own gas consumption and price data in the calculator to compare scenarios.
4Optimize Cutting Parameters
There is always a trade-off between speed, edge quality, and process stability. Cutting too slowly wastes time and energy, while cutting too fast can create dross and require secondary operations. Work with your machine supplier's recommended parameters and then use this calculator to understand how changes in cutting speed impact total cost.
5Minimize Piercing Operations
Piercing adds extra time and wear to the process, especially on thicker materials and parts with many holes. Where design requirements allow, reducing internal features and pierce points can shorten total processing time and lower cost. Reflect this in the cutting length and setup assumptions you use in the calculator.
Industry Benchmarks & Standards
Cutting Speed Benchmarks (Fiber Laser)
Typical cutting speeds depend strongly on material, thickness, laser power, assist gas, and machine setup. Always use your own proven parameter tables or machine supplier data when estimating processing time. This calculator combines your cutting length and power assumptions with a simplified speed model to estimate cutting time.
For additional example ranges, refer to your machine documentation or the Cutting Speeds Reference.
Typical Cost Breakdown
The share of total cost coming from material, labor, energy, depreciation, consumables, and overhead varies widely from one shop to another. This calculator breaks these components out separately so you can compare its output with your own accounting data instead of relying on generic percentages.
Use the cost breakdown on this page together with your internal reports, and refer to related tools such as Assist Gas Costs and Power Consumption when you need more detailed references.
Machine Utilization Targets
Many shops track how much of their available time is spent cutting, setting up and loading parts, programming, performing maintenance, or sitting idle. The time outputs from this calculator can support those analyses, but actual utilization targets should come from your own production planning and KPIs.
Use your shop's utilization data and goals when interpreting time-related results.
Quality Standards
Edge roughness, kerf width, perpendicularity, and dimensional accuracy are defined by customer drawings and relevant standards (for example, ISO 9013). This calculator focuses on cost and time and does not evaluate quality. Always confirm that your chosen cutting parameters meet required quality levels.
Refer to applicable standards and your quality documentation when setting requirements.
Advanced Questions
Topics such as detailed machine selection, outsourcing versus in-house production, gas supply economics, and long-term return on investment depend heavily on your specific situation and are not modeled in full detail by this calculator. Use the cost breakdown and time estimates on this page together with your own shop data or the dedicated calculators (for example, Energy Cost, ROI, or Cost Center tools) when you analyse those decisions.
Related Calculators
Material Utilization
Optimize your material layout to reduce waste and lower material costs
Energy Cost Calculator
Calculate detailed power consumption and identify energy saving opportunities
Equipment ROI Calculator
Evaluate if purchasing laser cutting equipment is financially viable for your business
Quick Reference Guides
When to use this laser cutting calculator
âś“ Best suited for:
- Sheet and plate cutting with typical fiber or COâ‚‚ laser systems
- Order-of-magnitude cost estimates using your own rates and material prices
- Comparing material choices, thicknesses, and utilization scenarios
- Explaining cost structure (material vs power vs labor) to internal teams or customers
âś— Not ideal for:
- Highly optimized production quoting based on detailed CAM time studies
- Jobs dominated by setup, fixturing, or complex secondary operations
- Very thick plate or exotic alloys beyond your proven parameter tables
- Guaranteeing margins without first validating against your own production data
Important: These are estimates only
This calculator combines your own inputs with simplified empirical models and a few default assumptions (e.g. typical equipment cost, lifespan, auxiliary power). Actual cutting speeds, gas usage, and margins depend strongly on your machine, parameters, nesting strategy, and local rates.
Use these results as a structured starting point, then compare them against your real jobs and CAM estimates before final quoting—especially for very thick material, unusual alloys, or tight-tolerance parts.