Welding Cost Calculator
Work out what a weld costs: filler metal, shielding gas or flux, labour, energy and equipment — per weld, per metre and per kilogram of deposited metal, with the share of each item.
What does the calculator work out?
Welding cost is decided by two numbers most quotes never state: how much metal the joint actually needs, and how much of the shift the arc is burning. The calculator derives the first from the joint geometry and the second from the arc-on time factor, then puts a price on both. Labour typically comes out at 70–85 % of the total — which is why negotiating the price of wire rarely changes a quote.
- Full breakdown: filler metal, shielding gas or flux, labour with overhead, energy and machine hour rate — each with its share of the total
- Seven joint types: fillet, square butt, single-V, single-bevel, double-V, double-bevel and single-U, with root gap, root face, groove angle and excess weld metal
- What a higher arc-on time factor is worth in money — the largest single lever in almost every calculation
- Seven processes to ISO 4063: 111, 121, 131, 135, 136, 138 and 141, with typical deposition efficiency and arc-on time defaults you can override
Part of the WeldStack application
The welding cost calculator is available to every registered user, on the free trial as well. Create an account, open Calculators and the tool is there — together with WPS documents, the welder registry and inspections.
Registration starts a 7-day free trial — every module, no credit card required. Once the trial ends, continued access requires choosing a plan.
Why calculate before quoting?
Labour is the whole game
Filler metal is usually 10–20 % of a weld, gas 2–5 %, energy under 5 %. The rest is time. A calculation that shows the split stops the conversation drifting to consumable discounts.
Quotes that survive the job
Deposited metal follows from the groove geometry, so a wider angle or a heavier cap costs real money. Pricing from the drawing beats pricing from memory.
Compare options honestly
Solid wire against metal-cored, single-V against double-V, manual against mechanised — the same calculation run twice answers what a supplier’s brochure cannot.
Next to your welding documentation
The calculator sits in the same application as your WPS and WPQR documents, welder qualifications and equipment records.
Frequently asked questions
Deposited metal comes from the weld length, the cross-sectional area of the joint and the density of the material. Dividing it by the deposition efficiency gives the filler metal actually consumed, and dividing it by the deposition rate gives the arc-on time. The arc-on time factor turns that into cycle time, which is what labour and equipment are charged on. Cost is then the sum of filler metal, shielding gas or flux, labour, energy and machine hour rate.
It is the share of the working time during which the arc is actually burning — typically 0.15–0.35 for manual welding and 0.40–0.70 for mechanised welding. Because labour is charged on the whole cycle, not just the arc, this single number moves the total cost more than any consumable price. The calculator shows what raising it by 10 percentage points is worth.
It is the ratio of metal that ends up in the joint to filler metal consumed. Manual metal arc welding runs around 0.55–0.65 because of stub ends, spatter and the coating; solid wire 0.90–0.98; flux-cored wire 0.80–0.88 because part of the core becomes slag; submerged arc welding 0.95–1.00, with flux consumed separately at roughly one to one by mass. The calculator pre-fills typical values per process and lets you replace them with your own.
Yes. For a fillet weld you enter the leg length or the throat thickness, and the area follows as z²/2 or a². Worth remembering that weld metal grows with the square of the leg: going from a 6 mm to an 8 mm fillet adds around 78 % to the cost of that weld.
You pick the currency label and enter your own rates. Nothing is converted between currencies, so the result carries no exchange rate assumption you would have to check.
The calculator carries no separate charge — it is included in every WeldStack account. Registration starts a 7-day free trial with no credit card required; once the trial ends, continued access to the application requires a paid plan.
Costing is downstream of documentation
The same joint geometry you cost sits in your WPS. WeldStack keeps procedure specifications, welder qualifications and equipment records in one system instead of folders and spreadsheets — free trial, no credit card.