Cutting Cost Calculator — Laser, Plasma & Waterjet
Upload a DXF, pick the material and thickness, and compare cutting time and price per piece and per metre across the three processes
Every cutting quote comes down to the same arithmetic: how many metres the torch, beam or jet has to travel, how many times it has to pierce the plate, and what one hour of that machine costs. The first two numbers are in the drawing; this calculator reads them straight out of a DXF — total cut length, number of contours and the blank size — or takes them from you by hand for a quick check.
The third number depends on the process. A fiber laser cuts 3 mm steel at several metres per minute but stops at 20–35 mm depending on its power; plasma is the fastest and cheapest on 6–40 mm steel but leaves a bevelled, heat-affected edge; waterjet cuts anything up to 150 mm with no heat at all, at a tenth of the speed. The calculator keeps a table for each process — laser 3, 6 and 12 kW, plasma 65 to 125 A and HD 300 A, waterjet at 60,000 psi with five edge qualities — and reports whether your material and thickness are inside what that class of machine can do.
The result is one line per process: suitable or not and why, cut speed, time per piece, price per piece, price per metre of cut and the total for your quantity, with the cheapest suitable option marked. Shop rates, setup fee and currency are yours to change; the defaults are typical European and US rates. For the DXF itself, the viewer-grade parser handles lines, arcs, polylines with bulges, circles, ellipses, splines and blocks, and lets you untick dimension or text layers so they are not counted as cuts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the cutting price calculated?
Cutting time = cut length ÷ cutting speed for the material, thickness and machine class, plus the number of pierces × pierce time, plus 15 % for rapid moves and handling. Price = that time × the shop rate per hour, plus a setup fee per job; the per-metre figure divides the piece price by the cut length. Material is optional: blank area × thickness × density × your price per kg.
Laser, plasma or waterjet — which is cheapest?
For steel up to about 6 mm, laser: fastest and the cleanest edge. For steel 8–40 mm, plasma: two to five times faster than laser at that thickness and the lowest hourly rate, at the cost of a bevelled edge and a heat-affected zone. Waterjet wins when the material does not suit heat — thick aluminum, titanium, hardened or coated plate — or when the edge must stay cold and square; expect roughly ten times the laser price per metre.
How accurate are the numbers?
The speed tables are published manufacturer values for clean production cuts: Hypertherm cut charts for plasma, fiber laser parameter tables for 3, 6 and 12 kW, and 60,000 psi abrasive waterjet tables. A real shop will differ by machine, gas, nozzle, nesting and how busy it is; treat the result as a ±30 % estimate for comparing processes and checking a quote, not as a price list.
What does the calculator read from the DXF?
Lines, arcs, circles, ellipses, polylines with bulges, splines and inserted blocks, flattened to polylines. Cut length is their total length, each closed contour or chained open path counts as one pierce, and the blank size is the bounding box. Text, dimensions and hatches are skipped; untick their layers if they were drawn as lines. The file is parsed in your browser and is not uploaded anywhere.
Why does it say "not suitable" for my thickness?
Each machine class has a production ceiling: a 3 kW laser stops at 20 mm steel and 10 mm aluminum, a 6 kW at 25 and 16 mm, a 12 kW at 35 and 25 mm; air plasma at 65 A pierces up to 16 mm and cuts to 25 mm with an edge start, 125 A goes to 40 mm, HD plasma to 50 mm; waterjet to 150–200 mm. The message names the next class that can take the part.
Can I use it in inches?
Yes. Switch the units to inches and the thickness, cut length, blank size and speed show in inches and inches per minute, with the price per foot of cut instead of per metre. A DXF saved in inches is detected from its header; if the file has no unit flag you pick it and check the blank size shown.