Laser cutting cost in 2026: what shops actually charge
Ask five laser shops for a quote on the same file and you'll get five numbers, sometimes a long way apart. The spread isn't random. Almost every shop builds a price the same way; they just weight the parts differently. Once you know the formula you can read a quote, spot a bad one, and write a brief that gets you a good one. All figures below are in USD.
The formula
Price = setup fee + (machine minutes × rate) + material + finishing + rush.
That's it. Everything else is a variation on those five lines.
Setup fee
$15–40 per job, charged once. It covers loading your file, checking it, nesting the parts on the sheet, setting power and speed for the material, and a test cut. A shop that quotes $8 for a single keychain and $12 for ten isn't being generous on the tenth; it's amortizing the setup.
Small jobs are dominated by setup. A single 3 mm acrylic part that takes 40 seconds to cut might be $22, of which $20 is setup. That's why one-offs feel expensive per part and why prototypes are worth batching when you can.
Machine minutes
This is the big one on anything beyond a trivial job. Shops track how long the laser head is moving and bill it at a per-minute rate.
| Laser | Materials | 2026 rate (US shops, USD) |
|---|---|---|
| CO2 (40–150 W) | Acrylic, plywood, MDF, leather, paper, coated metal (marking only) | $1.00–2.50 / min |
| Fiber (1–6 kW) | Mild steel, stainless, aluminum, brass, copper | $2.00–5.00 / min |
Minutes come from two things: how far the head travels and how fast it can go on your material and thickness. A 6 mm acrylic cut runs at maybe a third of the speed of 3 mm, so the same outline costs close to three times as much. Fine detail — hundreds of small holes, lettering, filigree — adds travel and adds the acceleration/deceleration dead time at every corner.
Rough feed rates on a mid-range CO2 shop laser: 3 mm acrylic 15–25 mm/s, 6 mm acrylic 6–10 mm/s, 3 mm plywood 15–30 mm/s, 6 mm plywood 8–12 mm/s. On a 2 kW fiber, 2 mm mild steel cuts at 5–10 m/min, so metal is fast per centimeter; the higher rate reflects the machine cost, the assist gas and the operator watching it.
Material
Billed on top of machine time unless you supply the sheet. Typical 2026 US shop prices, per 24×48 in sheet: 3 mm cast acrylic $45–70, 6 mm $80–120, 3 mm Baltic birch $25–40, 6 mm $40–60, 3 mm MDF $12–20. Sheet metal is by weight and grade; a 4×8 ft sheet of 2 mm mild steel is roughly $120–180, stainless two to three times that.
Shops charge for the part of the sheet your job consumes, plus waste. Tight nesting helps, which is why a shop may ask whether your parts can be rotated.
Finishing
Everything after the cut is labor. Peeling protective film from acrylic: $0.25–1 per part. Flame-polishing edges: $1–4 per part depending on size. Deburring metal: $0.50–2 per part. Sanding and staining wood, paint-filling engraving, applying adhesive backing: each a line. Say what you need and what you don't; "raw parts, film on" is the cheapest answer.
Rush
Standard turnaround is 2–5 days for CO2 work and 3–7 for metal. Under 48 hours is a rush, and rush work often costs 30–50% more. Some won't take it. If the deadline is real, say so up front; if it isn't, don't set one and you'll get better numbers.
What the example jobs cost
Putting it together, rough estimates before shipping (not quotes):
- 50 acrylic keychains, 3 mm, engraved — $120–180. Setup, about 40 minutes of cut and engrave, half a sheet of acrylic.
- 24×36 in plywood sign, cut and engraved — $160–260. One sheet, 30–60 minutes of machine time, mostly the engraving.
- 100 mild steel brackets, 2 mm, flat — $320–480. Fast to cut, but a full sheet of steel and deburring on 100 parts.
- 120 wedding place cards, engraved names — $260–380. Cheap to cut; the cost is 120 name merges and 120 engrave passes.
- Architectural model parts, four sheets of chipboard and 1 mm acrylic — $180–320. Intricate cuts, thin material, fast feed.
The full tables by material and thickness are on the price guide.
How to get the low end of the range
- Send a clean vector. DXF or SVG at 1:1, closed paths, no duplicates, cut and engrave on separate layers. A shop that has to repair your file bills $30–90 for it.
- Batch. Setup is paid once. Ten prototypes in one job cost far less than ten jobs.
- Simplify the cut. Every hole, notch and letter is travel. If a detail can be engraved instead of cut through, it's usually cheaper.
- Pick the thinner sheet if the part allows it. 3 mm cuts three times faster than 6 mm.
- Skip finishing you don't need. Film on, edges raw, no deburr on parts that go inside an enclosure.
- Give a real deadline. Not "ASAP". Shops price ASAP as a rush even when it isn't one.
- Get several bids. The same file, the same material, and the numbers still vary 30–40% between shops because of their machine, their queue and how much they want the work.
That last point is the whole reason to post the job once and let shops bid, rather than emailing them one at a time. You see the spread, you see the lead times, and the platform holds the payment until you confirm the parts arrived and match the file.