Materials

The five plastics X3D prints in India, PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA and TPU, with the rupee price per gram, density, what each one survives, and the jobs it is the wrong choice for.

X3D prints five plastics in India, made by our print partner in India and delivered across India. This page tells you what each one costs per gram in rupees, 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	₹8/g	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	₹8/g	1.27 g/cm³	Functional parts that must not snap, brackets, clips, things that hold water	You want the crispest possible fine detail
ABS	₹10/g	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	₹10/g	1.07 g/cm³	Outdoor parts, signage, anything in sun all year	Nothing about the job needs UV or heat resistance: you are paying more for both
Flexible TPU	₹12/g	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, in rupees 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 although ABS is ₹10/g against PETG's ₹8/g, the ABS part costs only a little more: ₹330 against ₹320.

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 print it again 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 an Indian 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, much like ABS.	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 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.

Colour#

Pick a colour on /in/print: one of the swatches, or a colour you name. Either way a one colour print costs the material's rate in the table above.

In India a colour you name costs the same

A colour outside the swatches prints at the material's own rate, the same as a stock colour. Colour only changes the rate when a print uses two or more colours at once.

An STL 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, or a plate you painted and sliced yourself. A four slot AMS feeds the spools, and a second unit takes a print to eight colours, with ₹500 added once per order line for a print in 5 or more colours. Colour adds to the rate per gram: +₹0.6/g at two colours and +₹0.4/g for each colour after (PLA ₹8.6, ₹9 and ₹9.4 for two, three and four). A colour print is in one base plastic: the project's own, 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 /in/docs/studio/multi-color.

What we do not offer in India#

The list is the five materials above. Custom filament, a named brand or special spool bought in for one order, is not offered in India yet, and there is no resin and no metal. If your part needs a plastic that is not on this page, it cannot be ordered in India today.

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 no minimum per part in India, so a 3 g PLA trinket costs 3 x ₹8 = ₹24.
Bulk discounts apply to several pieces of the same file: 5% off from 5 pieces, 10% off from 10 pieces.
Delivery anywhere in India is ₹79, and free on orders from ₹999.

Pricing model

The full arithmetic in rupees, with a worked example you can check against your own quote.

File formats

What you can upload, the size limits, and what we do with each kind of file.

Glossary

Infill, purge, brim, AMS: every term used on this page.

Upload a model and get a rupee quote

Questions

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.

What does 3D printing cost per gram in India?

PLA and PETG are ₹8/g, ABS and ASA ₹10/g, and Flexible TPU ₹12/g. The rate is all in: filament and normal machine time in one number. Billable weight rounds up to the whole gram, and there is no minimum per part.

Does the material change the price?

Yes, twice. The rate per gram differs (₹8/g for PLA and PETG, ₹10/g for ABS and ASA, ₹12/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.

Does a colour cost extra in India?

No. In India every colour of a material prints at that material's own rate per gram, whether it is one of the swatches on /in/print or a colour you name. Printing in two or more colours at once does add to the rate.

Can I order a filament you do not list?

Not in India yet. Custom filament, a named brand or special spool bought in for your order, is not offered in India. Choose one of the five materials on this page.