What to ask before you buy any of this

“From volume” means guessed. Look for a model that knows about layers, perimeters, infill, supports and the machine’s own speeds - and that can be corrected against jobs you have really run.

If the answer is not some form of build share - the part’s cell in the cake against the cost of running the build - the tool will be badly wrong on both single parts and batches, in opposite directions.

Material split by part, support and waste; machine time; labour by activity; consumables by name; energy; adjustments; overhead; margin; rounding. If you cannot see it, you cannot defend it.

Not “can I set a fudge factor”, but: can I give it real jobs with real times and have it fit the coefficients and tell me the error before and after?

“We filter it in the API” is a promise. A single function that all buyer-facing output must pass through is a structure.

A tool that takes a cut of your revenue gets more expensive precisely as you get better at your job. We charge for quote requests.

If a buyer changing quantity re-bills you, your bill is a function of buyer fidgeting. Ours is not: re-pricing from geometry we already have does not count again.

The answer that matters is what your buyer sees. Ours switches to capturing enquiries rather than showing an error.

Ours takes no buyer payments yet: you take payment your own way, so it lands with you. Anyone holding your customers’ money is a risk you are taking on.