Dental Lab Production Cost Calculator 2026
Find out what a crown, bridge or prosthesis really costs to produce — in seconds, no sign-up.
Enter the lab's monthly indirect costs and productive hours: the calculator shows your real hourly rate, then the full cost per unit produced, materials and technician time included.
Lab's monthly indirect costs
Productive hours
Hourly rate
Below this rate, work time does not even cover the lab's indirect costs.
For most labs the real hourly rate is roughly €25–€45/h.
Cost per unit
Real cost
The hourly rate is the starting point. The rest is the work.
Verified industry data (3,750-crown study, average zirconia disc prices). Your actual figure depends on your suppliers and hourly rate.
This is today's theoretical cost.
Real cost changes every month with actual expenses and lab utilization. EUSTAK calculates it automatically from your invoices and tells you which orders are truly profitable, one by one.
Try EUSTAK free →How to calculate the real cost of a crown or bridge
Real cost per unit is the sum of three components: material cost (from supplier invoices), technician time cost (work duration times the lab hourly rate), and any outsourcing cost.
Hourly rate is the lab's monthly indirect costs (rent, equipment, depreciation) divided by monthly productive hours. More productive hours means a lower hourly rate, because fixed costs spread across more billable time.
Why it is the single most important number for lab profitability
Without cost per unit you cannot tell whether a crown is really profitable. A crown billed at 90 EUR with 15 EUR in material looks like 75 EUR profit. But if it takes 148 minutes and your hourly rate is 35 EUR/h, time alone costs nearly 87 EUR: real margin can be close to zero, or negative.
Knowing the cost per unit tells you the minimum price below which you are working at a loss, order by order.
Theoretical vs real cost
This calculator gives you the theoretical cost, on paper. The real cost changes every month with actual expenses and the true lab utilization.
That is why the hourly rate should be recalculated continuously, not just once: one fewer technician or a rise in indirect costs shifts it immediately.
Break-even point: how many units per month you need to cover costs
The break-even point is the number of units (crowns, bridges, prosthetics) you need to produce and bill every month just to cover the lab's indirect costs, before you start making a profit. It is calculated by dividing monthly indirect costs by the average margin you make per unit: price list minus direct cost per unit (material, technician, work time).
Example: indirect costs €4,500/month, average price list €90 with an average direct cost of €50 per unit — margin €40. The break-even point is 4,500 ÷ 40 ≈ 113 units per month. Below that threshold the lab runs at a loss, even if the price list looks profitable unit by unit.
FAQ
EUSTAK costs less than one hour of work — and saves you hours of manual calculations every month.
You know what production costs. Now find out which orders make you money
With EUSTAK the hourly rate updates from real costs and every order shows the true margin — materials from invoices, technicians, outsourcing.