Pricing an OrcaSlicer file in LayerFlow3D

Short answer. LayerFlow3D reads OrcaSlicer's sliced exports, a .gcode or a .gcode.3mf. In the workshop the file fills a print model, the price calculator or an order: plates, pieces, time, filament and the printer it was sliced for. A buyer who uploads one on your shop page gets a price at once, worked out from your own costs. An unsliced project or a raw mesh carries no time and no grams, so there is nothing to fill in or price from it.

This was checked on 17 October 2026 against LayerFlow3D 2.5.1, the release then live, with real exports from OrcaSlicer 2.3.0, 2.3.1 and 2.4.2 published by other people under open licences, and against the code that reads them.

What works today

File	In the workshop	On your shop page
.gcode exported from OrcaSlicer	Time, grams of every filament used, the printer it was sliced for	Priced from its time and grams
.gcode.3mf, one plate or all plates sliced	Each plate with its pieces, time and grams, and the printer	Every plate's time and grams, added up
.3mf project that was never sliced	No figures; the model form can keep its picture	A request to price by hand
.stl, .obj, .step	Not read	A request to price by hand
.bgcode (binary G-code)	Not read	Not read

In the workshop: a file fills the form

The same export can be read in three places:

• A print model. Drop the file at the top of the model form, or choose it. Each plate of the file arrives as a plate of the model, with its pieces, time and filament.
• The price calculator on the dashboard. A customer asks what a file would cost: drop it in, and the estimate fills in the pieces, weight, time, printer and what your spools cost. Create model carries all of it into a new model form.
• An order for a customer's own model. Their file fills in the filament, pieces, time and printer of the order.

Before anything is filled, a window shows what the file says, and you correct it there:

• The printer. OrcaSlicer writes the printer model into the export, for example "Bambu Lab X1 Carbon" or "Elegoo Centauri Carbon". When you own a printer of that model, it is chosen; when you do not, the window says so and you choose the printer yourself.
• Pieces. A .gcode.3mf names the objects on each plate, and copies of one object count as pieces. A plain .gcode names none, so it reads as one piece: change the number if the plate holds more.
• Layouts or one set. Plates of the same item in different numbers become separate plates of the model. Plates holding different parts of one item are read as one run, their times and grams added up.
• A spool for every filament. The file's filament types and colours are matched to your spools, and you choose any that did not match. A model is not filled until every filament has a spool.

Grams are rounded to whole grams, and a filament that used less than half a gram counts as 1 g. The file is read in your browser: it is not uploaded and not kept. An unsliced project has no time or filament, and LayerFlow3D asks you to slice it and export a .gcode.3mf.

Upload size on a shop page. A buyer can upload a file up to 25 MB. A long multi-plate project can be larger than that as plain G-code; the .gcode.3mf of one plate is usually far smaller.

Export the file from OrcaSlicer

1. Slice the plate (Slice plate) or every plate (Slice all).
2. Press the export button at the top right. Depending on the printer profile it offers Export G-code file, and for printers that take sliced projects also Export plate sliced file and Export all sliced file. The same commands are under File > Export.
3. Any of the three is fine. "Export all sliced file" puts every plate in one .gcode.3mf: a shop page prices all of them together, and the workshop shows each plate.

What a shop page's quote takes from the export:

• Time: the slicer's estimate for the normal mode, per plate, rounded to the minute. 14 min 31 s becomes 15 min.
• Grams: OrcaSlicer's own figure per filament slot, which already includes the purge. A slot that is set up but used 0 g is ignored.
• Not taken: the filament colours and types for pricing. A quote is priced with the material the shop chose for quotes, not with whatever the buyer's slicer was set to.

How the price is built

A quote is the same arithmetic an order uses:

• Material: grams x the price per kg you set for the quote material, plus your material waste allowance.
• Machine: the slicer's time plus your print time allowance (7% unless you changed it), x the machine's hourly wear and electricity. When several machines can run the material, the cheapest hour of them is used.
• Handling: your handling minutes per run, at your labour rate.
• Margin: your margin multiplier on top.
• Quantity: the price of one run x the number of copies, up to 50.

A worked example you can repeat

The file is a single-layer OrcaSlicer 2.3.0 export published under the Apache 2.0 licence: originalLayer.gcode. Its header says 14 min 31 s and filament used [g] = 4.73, 0.00: two slots were set up and only the first one printed.

The shop's settings in this example:

Setting	Value
Quote material	PLA at 25.00 per kg
Material waste allowance	5%
Print time allowance	7%
Machine	1.00 per hour of wear, 120 W
Electricity	0.30 per kWh
Handling per run	10 min
Labour rate	20.00 per hour
Margin	x2

The working:

Line	Calculation	Amount
Read from the file	15 min, 4.73 g
Material	4.73 g x 25.00 / kg x 1.05	0.12
Machine	15 min x 1.07 = 16.05 min, at 1.00 + 0.12 kW x 0.30 = 1.036 per hour	0.28
Handling	10 min at 20.00 per hour	3.33
Cost		3.73
Price, one copy	3.73 x 2, from the unrounded lines	7.47
Price, four copies	7.47 x 4	29.88

These figures are checked by a test that reads this very file and prices it through the same code the shop page uses, so they change if the arithmetic does. Amounts are in the shop's own currency.

Estimates, not measurements

The slicer's time and grams are a plan. A print runs longer than the slicer says, which is what the print time allowance is for. It also uses more plastic when a plate fails or a colour change purges more than planned, which is what the material waste allowance is for. Check both against your own machines from time to time: a price built on the slicer alone is quietly optimistic.

Setting up quotes on your shop page

In LayerFlow3D, open the shop page settings and switch on Take requests for things not on the shelf: a quote is offered where a request would be. Then find Pricing an uploaded model, switch on Quote uploads I can price, add a material with Your price per kg and tick Machines that can run it. The step-by-step version is in the selling how-to guides. The 3D print cost calculator does the same arithmetic for one print without an account.