In calculating the cost of CNC Milling, the first thing to consider is the initial cost of the machine. CNC Mills are incredibly expensive. Larry’s CNC mill is on the small side, and he told us it cost 60,000 dollars. Tiny CNC mills will have prices in the thousands. High quality large CNC mills can have prices ranging into hundreds of thousands of dollars.  

Once you have a CNC mill, costs become much more reasonable. For one, there is the occasional cost of maintenance for the machine, as well as the need to purchase lubricant. For a given part, there is the price of the raw material, and operation costs, which includes programming. However, if one has access to a CNC mill maintained by someone else and is willing to do all the programming and operation, the cost is nothing more than the raw material and time.