Skip to main content
Billing in 3DPrinterOS
Illia Nazarko avatar
Written by Illia Nazarko
Updated over 3 months ago

How to charge users for their print jobs?

Step 1. Enable ''Balance'' for organizational users

Admins can specify an organization-wide balance. In this case, it will be automatically applied to all new members who register on the platform.

  1. Go to ''Payments''

  2. Set up a default User balance

  3. Save changes

An Admin can change the balance for each user:

  1. Find the user

  2. Click on their balance to modify it

  3. Press Enter

How is the job price calculated?

When members of the organization submit a print job, the cost of the job is automatically deducted from their balance.

3DPrinterOS has a built-in mechanism for cost calculation.

Three parameters affect the cost:

  • Print weight

  • Print duration

  • Deprecation costs

Print cost = [print weight]*[price per kilogram] + [print duration]*[price per hour] + [dep. cost]

Print weight and duration are estimated by 3DPrinterOS based on the .gcode file analysis.

Step 2. Set-up cost settings

The Organization admin can set up prices per printing hour, kilogram of material, and deprecation cost. Those prices can be set up in two ways:

A) For specific slicing profiles.

  1. Find the necessary profile. Click Edit:

  2. Go to the Price tab in the Slicer application window

  3. Please make sure to specify the parameters and select the material.
    The density of the material is necessary for determining the exact weight of the model and calculating the material cost

    1. Slicer 3(discontinued) and Slicer 5, the material density is derived from the material selected in the profile

  4. Click Save/Overwrite

B) Organization-wide

It applies to all slicing profiles except those with price settings.

  1. Go to Payments

  2. Enable "Regular user default pricing for every Slicing Profile"

  3. Remember to save your settings. πŸ˜‰

A Workgroup moderator can also set up prices for their slicing profiles.

Step 3. Changing the cost for the print job manually

An Organization Admin can change the cost of the job manually when it is submitted in the Job details window.

  1. Find the necessary print job on the Printers or the History page

  2. Click on the Job row to open Job Details (or the three-dot menu –> Details)

3. Navigate to the Transactions

The transaction tab is only available if the admin can access the printer where the job was submitted.

4. Enter the new cost and add a description for the transaction

5. Click Update

The cost difference between the old and the new cost will be deducted or added to the final invoice.

More. Other cases that lead to a transaction

  • When the job is moved – no transaction happens.

  • When the job is restarted – the job owner is charged again

  • When the job is copied – the new job owner is charged. So, if the job is copied on the admin's behalf, he will be charged for it.

It's possible to disable charging when a job is copied or restarted. Read about it below:

  • If the job is canceled, the submitter will be refunded

  • If the job fails or is canceled during the print, the submitter will be refunded according to the job completion percentage.

Refund amount = [Job cost] x [100% - % of job completion]
​
​For example, if a $100 job progresses to 99% and then is canceled, the user receives a $1 refund.

It's also possible to disable automatic refunds. Read below.

Step 4. Customizing Billing for Organizations

We've already mentioned the ''default user balance" and "default pricing'' settings above.

Let's see what else can be customized:

  • Default Currency.
    USD, EUR, GBP, and ILS are available currently. Contact sales@3dprinteros.com to add another currency.

  • Disable automatic refund if the print job is not finished.
    In some cases, the Organization Admins don't want to refund when the job fails because the submitter prepared it incorrectly, and it's the submitter's fault. The admins may use this setting to define the refund amount themselves.

  • Disable automatic Π‘harge when the print job gets copied/restarted
    In some cases Organization admins want regular users to only pay once for a job, and if it is copied or restarted, the user won't get charged.

Did this answer your question?