Laser cutting price per metre, per minute, per hour or per kg: which unit, and how to convert

Five units, one job

The conversions

• Per minute = per hour ÷ 60. A plasma shop on PlasmaSpider charged $1.67 a minute, “based on $100.00 per hour for machine” (2009); sign shops on Signs101 quote $0.75–2 a minute (2019), mostly for CO2 work.
• Per metre = per hour ÷ (60 × cutting speed in m/min). Back the other way, the hourly rate a per-metre price implies = per metre × speed × 60.
• Per pierce = per hour × pierce time in seconds ÷ 3600, plus the head's lift and lower if you count it; Zorocut adds 0.5 s (our estimate).
• Per inch = per metre ÷ 39.37: the $0.10–0.33 an inch that US plasma shops post on forums is $3.94–13.00 a metre — see plasma pricing.
• Per kg = price per part ÷ the part's weight, with weight = area × thickness × density (7850 kg/m³ for steel) — see material cost.
• Per part is the sum of it all. SendCutSend prices each part on material, quantity, geometry and processing time, with no minimum quantity and volume discounts of up to 80 %.

One shop's rates in every unit

Aston Precision's public estimator prices laser cutting as (cut length ÷ feed + pierces × dwell) × an hourly rate that rises with thickness; the table is its mild-steel data converted to the other units (computed, GST excluded). The hourly rate a little more than doubles from 1 mm to 20 mm, but the price per metre rises 24 times, because the speed falls faster than the rate rises. From 3 to 10 mm the per-metre price grows almost in step with the thickness (×3.5 for ×3.3). That is why a rule of thumb a Chinese machining firm published in 2021 — mild steel at about 1.5 RMB per metre for every millimetre of thickness, stainless at 2.5, pierces extra at 0.4–2 RMB — holds in the middle of the range, and why it would undercharge at 20 mm (×11 for ×6.7). For scale: Lapas, a nesting-software vendor, puts US rates for a 6 kW fiber at $80–180 an hour, most mid-size shops at $100–125.

Why per kg misleads

Take two 200 × 200 mm parts in 3 mm mild steel, priced with Aston's 3 mm figures (example). A plain blank has 0.8 m of cut and one pierce: 0.26 min, AUD 1.20 of machine time, 0.94 kg. The same blank with forty Ø10 holes has 2.06 m of cut and 41 pierces: 0.92 min, AUD 4.27 — and it is lighter, at 0.87 kg. A rate per kg set on the blanks (AUD 1.27 a kg) would charge the second part AUD 1.10 for AUD 4.27 of machine time. Per kg works only when you set it per family of similar parts, or check every price against machine time.