# Materials > The five stock plastics X3D prints, plus a filament you name, with the all-in price per gram, density, what each one survives, and the jobs it is the wrong choice for. Source: https://x3dstudios.com/docs/materials · Updated: 2026-10-20 X3D stocks five plastics, and on /print will buy in a filament you name. This page tells you what each one costs per gram, what it weighs, what it survives, and — the part most material charts leave out — when it is the wrong answer. Every rate below is all-in: filament and normal machine time in one number. ## The five materials | Material | Price per gram | Density | Best for | Avoid when | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | PLA | $0.12 | 1.26 g/cm³ | Display pieces, prototypes, figures, most indoor parts | It will sit in a hot car, in direct sun, or carry a real load | | PETG | $0.12 | 1.27 g/cm³ | Functional parts that must not snap, brackets, clips, things that hold water | You want the crispest possible fine detail | | ABS | $0.12 | 1.04 g/cm³ | Warm environments, enclosures, parts you want to sand, drill or vapour-smooth | The part lives outdoors — ABS chalks and yellows in sunlight | | ASA | $0.14 | 1.07 g/cm³ | Outdoor parts, signage, anything in year-round sun | Nothing about the job needs UV or heat resistance — you are paying more for both | | Flexible TPU | $0.25 | 1.24 g/cm³ | Gaskets, grips, straps, phone cases, feet, anything that bends | The part has to stay rigid, hold a thread, or take a press fit | *Rates are all-in USD per gram. Billable weight rounds up to the whole gram.* Density matters more than it looks. Price is charged on weight, and the same model in ABS weighs about 18% less than in PETG because ABS is lighter per cubic centimetre. A model that comes to 40 g in PETG comes to roughly 33 g in ABS, so ABS is quietly cheaper at the same $0.12/g rate. ## Picking one in thirty seconds | What the part has to do | Pick | | --- | --- | | Look good on a shelf, a desk or a table | PLA | | Get handled, dropped, or bolted to something | PETG | | Hold water, or live in a bathroom or kitchen | PETG | | Sit in a car, near a motor, or in an enclosure that gets warm | ABS | | Stay outside through a summer and still look like itself | ASA | | Squash, stretch, seal or grip | Flexible TPU | | Show the finest detail you can get | PLA at Premium 0.1mm layers | > **When in doubt, print it in PLA first** — PLA is the cheapest, fastest and most detailed of the five. Print the first one in PLA to check the fit and the look, then reprint in PETG or ASA once you know the geometry is right. Two PLA prints usually cost less than one wrong ASA print. ## Heat and UV Heat resistance is the property people get wrong most often, and PLA is where it bites. PLA begins to soften not far above 55 °C — a closed car in a Texas summer passes that easily, and so does a sunny windowsill. A PLA part does not melt; it sags, and it sags under its own weight without warning. | Material | Heat | Sunlight and weather | Toughness | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | PLA | Lowest of the five. Softens in a hot car or a sunlit window. | Poor. Goes brittle over months outdoors. | Stiff but brittle — it snaps rather than bends. | | PETG | Better than PLA. Comfortable in a warm room, not in an engine bay. | Fair. Survives outdoors but yellows over time. | Tough. Bends and dents before it breaks. | | ABS | High. The usual choice for warm enclosures. | Poor. Chalks and discolours in UV. | Tough, and sandable, drillable and glueable. | | ASA | High, essentially ABS-like. | Best of the five. This is what ASA exists for. | Tough, like ABS. | | Flexible TPU | Modest. Treat it like PLA on heat. | Fair. | Does not break — it deforms and springs back. | *Rules of thumb for choosing, not spec-sheet figures for engineering.* > **Do not use these numbers for a load-bearing or safety part** — Printed parts are anisotropic — they are much weaker along the layer lines than across them — and real strength depends on wall count, infill, orientation and how the part was designed. If a failure would hurt someone or break something expensive, do not choose a plastic off a table. Tell us what the part does at /contact. ## Printing temperature limits Every file that reaches a farm printer is read by a G-code safety check, and part of that check is a per-material temperature figure. If you upload an already-sliced file, these are the numbers the check expects your slicer to stay under. Going over one is a warning on the operator's report — "double-check the material" — not a rejection; what actually stops a file is the hardware ceiling above it. | Material | Nozzle max | Bed max | | --- | --- | --- | | PLA | 260 °C | 75 °C | | PETG | 280 °C | 90 °C | | ABS | 290 °C | 115 °C | | ASA | 290 °C | 115 °C | | Flexible TPU | 260 °C | 70 °C | *The typical maximum per material used by the G-code safety check, not recommended settings. Above these the file is flagged; only a nozzle over 320 °C or a bed over 130 °C fails the check outright and is refused a machine.* ## Colour Twelve colours are held on the shelf and print at the material's own rate: Black, White, Red, Cyan, Sakura Pink, Sunny Orange, Green, Yellow, Mint Green, Lavender, Silver and Brown. Ask for any of those and you pay the rate in the table above. > **A colour we do not stock costs $0.20 per gram** — Any colour outside the twelve above is priced at a floor of $0.20/g (TPU, at $0.25/g, keeps its own rate), because a custom colour means sourcing a spool for one order, most of which will not be used. On PLA that is a jump from $0.12/g to $0.20/g — a 40 g part goes from $4.80 to $8.00. An STL or GLB you upload prints in the one colour you pick. More than one colour comes from a file that says where each colour goes: a Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer project with its filaments assigned or painted, which we slice plate by plate in those colours; a plate you painted and sliced yourself; or a model generated in the Studio, painted in the colours of its texture. Each printer's four-slot AMS feeds the spools, and a second unit takes a print to eight colours, at a $25 fee once per order line from the fifth colour. A colour print is in one base plastic: the project's own, when it is a project, priced at that plastic's rate even where a plate uses a filled grade such as PLA-CF. Each plate prints from one filament type, so a plate that mixes PLA with PETG, or even PLA with PLA-CF, prints in one colour instead. The real slice's grams and hours are the quote, purge included. See /docs/studio/multi-color. ## A filament you name Custom filament is a sixth material card on /print. Type the spool you want, such as a brand's silk or matte PLA, and optionally paste the product link. Both order buttons stay closed until there is a name, so an order can never read just Custom. - It costs $0.20 per gram, the same as a colour we do not stock, for the same reason: the spool is bought for your order and most of it goes unused. - Grams follow the plastic the name states, because weight is volume times density: a spool named as ABS is weighed at ABS's 1.04 g/cm³, and one that names no plastic at PLA's 1.26, which is what most specialty filaments are underneath. - One spool is one colour, so a custom filament never prints in several colours, and the colour picker steps aside. - It is offered on /print and goes through the cart. The design studio, the print API and the MCP server take the five stock materials only. ## What we do not sell The stock list is five materials. The farm's printers can run others — polycarbonate has its own temperature ceiling in the safety check, and carbon-fibre-filled PLA satisfies a PLA order because it is the same polymer — but beyond the five, a plastic reaches a customer order only as a Custom filament you name. There is no resin and no metal. If your part needs an engineering plastic, say so at /contact before you upload a file. ## How material choice reaches the price - Weight is model volume adjusted for infill, times the material's density — or, where we can slice the file, the grams the slicer actually measured. - Billable weight rounds up to the whole gram. - Weight is multiplied by the material's rate per gram, then by the quality factor (1.00 at Standard 0.2mm layers, 1.75 at Premium 0.1mm). - There is a $1.00 minimum per part, so a 3 g trinket costs $1.00 rather than $0.36. - Bulk discounts apply from 5 units (5% off) and 10 units (10% off). - US shipping is $7 standard, free at $49.50 or more, or $15 express; international is $30 flat and free at $500 or more. - [Pricing model](https://x3dstudios.com/docs/pricing) — The full arithmetic, with a worked example you can check against your own quote. - [File formats](https://x3dstudios.com/docs/file-formats) — What you can upload, the size limits, and what we do with each kind of file. - [Glossary](https://x3dstudios.com/docs/glossary) — Infill, purge, brim, AMS, tray mapping — every term used on this page. [Upload a model and get a quote](https://x3dstudios.com/print) ## Frequently asked **Which material should I pick if I do not know?** PLA. It is the cheapest to print, holds the finest detail, and covers most indoor and display parts. Move to PETG when the part must not snap, and to ASA when it lives outdoors. **Does the material change the price?** Yes, twice. The rate per gram differs ($0.12/g for PLA, PETG and ABS, $0.14/g for ASA, $0.25/g for TPU), and so does density, so the same model weighs different amounts in different plastics. ABS is the lightest of the five at 1.04 g/cm³ and PETG the heaviest at 1.27 g/cm³. **Can I get a colour that is not on your list?** Yes, but any colour outside the twelve stock spools is billed at a floor of $0.20 per gram (flexible TPU, already above it, stays at $0.25), because we buy a spool for that order and most of it goes unused. **Can I order a filament you do not stock?** Yes, on /print. Choose Custom filament, name the spool (a brand and product name is enough) and, if you like, paste a link to where it is sold. We buy it for your order and charge $0.20 per gram, weighed at the density of the plastic its name states. It prints in that one spool's colour. For an engineering plastic such as nylon or polycarbonate, ask at /contact first so we can tell you whether the farm can run it.