Fifty wedding signs. What do you quote?
Machine minutes at your rate, the sheet divided by its real nesting yield, the design fee spread over the run — per piece and for the whole quote. The $1/minute default is the community ritual, named as one. Everything stays in your browser.
The job
The sheet
Laser engraving cost per minute
Two different numbers get called cost per minute, and mixing them is how a quoted run loses money.
Machine rate is what the laser costs you — the machine's price divided by the hours it will live, plus gas, lenses, electricity. That is cost. Two honest owners can derive rates apart by several fold because CO2 tube life is argued from 2,000 to 10,000 hours.
Customer price is what you charge. The $1/minute figure on the forums is a quoting shorthand that already carries margin, which is why this calculator treats it as a price default rather than a cost. Put your derived machine rate in the field and the result is cost. Leave the $1 ritual and the result is a priced quote. The field does not know which one you typed; you do.
The numbers here are yours to check. This page does arithmetic on what you type — it cannot see your recipe, your equipment or your batch.
Want it to remember?
In MadeKeeper your sheets are inventory: each piece consumes its sheet fraction at real cost, machine minutes post to the batch, and the quote starts from what the run actually costs you. See for laser & print makers. $19/mo for the whole back office, kept for as long as you stay. The shop stays free for cost a piece and one fair — no product cap. The tax packet, Etsy and Square, and more fairs are the $19.
The job preview gives minutes. Nothing prices them.
Laser pricing is three numbers the machine and the receipt already know — minutes, sheet, setup — assembled honestly. The math below is what the calculator runs.
What is laser engraving cost per minute — machine rate or customer price?
They are different numbers. Machine rate is what the laser costs you: the machine's price divided by the hours it will live, plus consumables. Customer price is what you charge. The $1/minute forum figure is a quoting shorthand that already carries margin, which is why this calculator treats it as a price default rather than a cost. Put your derived rate in the field for cost; leave the $1 ritual for a priced quote.
Where does the dollar-a-minute figure come from?
The forums — it is the rate the Glowforge community settled on as a quoting shorthand, and it already carries margin, which is why this calculator treats it as a price default rather than a cost. Your real machine rate derives from what the machine cost, divided by the hours it will live, plus consumables — and CO2 tube life is argued anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 hours, so two honest owners can derive rates apart by several fold. Replace the ritual with your derivation; the field is right there.
How does the material cost per piece work?
The sheet's price divided by how many pieces genuinely nest on it — tried in both orientations with an edge margin and kerf gap, floor, never a phantom extra piece. A $6 sheet that nests 18 coasters is 33 cents of material each; the same sheet nesting 12 of a slightly larger design is 50. The nesting is where quoting by 'about a dollar of wood' quietly loses money.
Why amortize the design fee instead of charging it separately?
Both are legitimate — this calculator shows it amortized so the per-piece number is the whole truth for the run quoted. A $25 setup over 50 pieces is 50 cents each; over 5 pieces it is $5 each, which is exactly the argument for a minimum order, made visible.
What materials can I cut safely?
That answer belongs to your material's supplier and its data sheet, not to a calculator — and this page deliberately does not ship a materials list, because one wrong entry is a genuine hazard (chlorinated plastics like PVC produce chlorine gas under the beam). What a material does under your laser is between you, your supplier's documentation, and your ventilation. The math here prices the job; the material call is yours.