Comparison

Spool vs 3DCost

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Spool

Manage your 3D printing filament inventory with detailed tracking of materials, costs, and stock levels. Log print details, monitor printer maintenance, and gain insights into your printing habits. Integrates with Bambu Lab printers for automatic data logging.

Highlights
  • Filament spool tracking
  • Cost and weight logging
  • Low-stock warnings
  • Print logging and analysis
  • Bambu Lab printer integration
  • Printer maintenance schedules
  • NFC/QR code spool tagging
Read full description

You have 40 spools. You're about to start a 12-hour print. How much PETG do you actually have? Spool is precision filament inventory for 3D printing. Know what you have, what it costs, and what's running low. Built by a maker tired of guessing. Now on Mac too. TRACK YOUR COLLECTION Fast spool entry with auto-fill from screenshots and product links. Material, brand, colour, weight, cost, storage. Remaining weight tracked to the gram, with low-stock warnings at the levels you set. THE HUB Tap the centre tab and a glass command centre opens over any screen. Add a spool, log a print, scan a tag, open analytics or your printers, all from one place. IMPORT FROM YOUR SLICER Send a sliced .gcode or .3mf to Spool and the print writes itself up from what the file carries: name, print time, filament weight, material and colour. Spool suggests the matching spool and finds the printer in your Workshop. Not every slicer's files can be read yet. THE PRINT TRAY Imported files wait in the tray with Bambu Cloud prints you have not logged yet. Nothing is recorded until you review it. With iCloud on, logging or discarding on one device clears it on the others. PRINT LOG & PRINT STORY Every print holds its full process settings, filled in for you when the print comes from Bambu Cloud. Rate each one and record why it failed. Tap any print and its story opens full screen: costs, telemetry and spool gauges, with previous attempts on Pro. YOUR INVENTORY AS A SPREADSHEET Choose your columns, sort and resize them, group your spools and total up their count and weight. Save the arrangement as a named view: free, with no limit. Exports to CSV. BAMBU LAB INTEGRATION Connect your Bambu Cloud account and your prints fill the tray ready to log. Free for everyone. AMS multi-material prints split per slot, and Spool remembers your last match. CATEGORIES Built-in categories, plus as many of your own as you like. Spool suggests one per print and learns your overrides. Colour, emoji, auto-tagging and per-category insights are Pro. PRINTER MAINTENANCE Schedules drawn from manufacturer documentation for popular Bambu Lab, Prusa, Creality, Anycubic and Elegoo models, with a standard task set for the rest. A live health score per printer: overdue tasks turn red, completing one lifts it. SPOOLTAG Tap your iPhone to an NFC-tagged spool and everything opens instantly. Every label carries a QR code that scans from the camera. Spool reads and writes filament tags. Label Studio designs labels for thermal rolls, sticker sheets or A4, or exports vector PDF. AR Inventory overlays live data above every tagged spool. ANALYTICS & INTELLIGENCE Dashboards for Pulse, Economics, Energy, Material and Hardware. Add your electricity rate once and prints show material and energy cost together. WORKSHOP MANAGEMENT Shelves, dryers, AMS units and boxes, with humidity and seal date tracking. Shopping list and batch management for multi-packs. START FREE 20 spools, 2 printers, 4 storage locations, 30 days of analytics. Bambu Cloud sync, slicer import, the Print Tray, Saved Views, CSV import, SpoolTag, AR Inventory, widgets and Print Story included. GO PRO Unlimited spools, printers and storage. Lifetime analytics, category insights and print lineage. Label Studio with thermal, sticker sheet and vector PDF exports. Batch printing, category customisation, inventory value totals, maintenance notifications and Live Activities. SUBSCRIPTION & PURCHASE INFO Spool offers a one-time Spool Pack, which permanently adds 10 slots to a free account, and two auto-renewing subscriptions, Spool Pro Monthly and Yearly. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation and renews unless cancelled 24 hours before the period ends. Manage in Account Settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://lance-studio.com/privacy.html

About

3DCost

Features
Read full description

Calculate 3D printing costs quickly, accurately and professionally. 3DCost is a powerful tool designed for makers, engineers, designers and 3D printing businesses who need to estimate the real cost of their prints without wasting time or making costly mistakes. With 3DCost you can: • Calculate total printing costs based on material usage, print time and energy consumption • Generate clear and organized cost estimates • Improve pricing strategies and profit margins • Reduce errors when preparing quotations for clients • Analyze production costs in seconds Ideal for: • 3D printing businesses • Makers and hobbyists • Product designers • Engineers and prototyping projects • Custom manufacturing services Features: • FDM printing cost calculator • Resin printing cost calculator • Material consumption analysis • Energy cost calculations • Labor cost calculations • Machine maintenance tracking • Additional operational expenses • Multi-currency support • Detailed PDF reports • Customer quotation tools • Print history and project management 3DCost Premium 3DCost Premium is an auto-renewable subscription that unlocks advanced features: • Remove advertisements • Unlimited PDF exports • Full editing of advanced costs • Premium calculation features • Access to future Premium updates Subscription options: • Monthly Premium Subscription • Annual Premium Subscription Payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel subscriptions in your Apple ID account settings. Start calculating your 3D printing costs professionally today. Privacy Policy: https://rosertecnologias.com/productos-roser/apps/3dcost/politicas-y-privacidad-de-3dcost/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Spool4 screens
3DCost4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Spool at none against 3DCost's shown. 3DCost's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 2 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.1). On price, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Spool sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and 3DCost sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Spool ships an update every 2 weeks, 3DCost weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Spool versus 3DCost: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpool3DCost
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (5 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksWeekly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS26.115.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size77 MB36 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLucas MeloJesus Rosero

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Spool

Subscriptions2
  • Spool Pro Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Spool Pro Yearly$49.991 Year
One-time1
  • +10 Spool Capacity$0.99
3 purchases

3DCost

Subscriptions3
  • 3DCost Premium Monthly$5.991 Month
  • 3DCost Premium Annual$29.991 Year
  • 3DCost Pro$44.991 Year

Questions

Is Spool free?
Spool is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is 3DCost free?
3DCost is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Spool or 3DCost have ads?
3DCost shows ads; Spool does not.
Which is updated more often, Spool or 3DCost?
Spool ships an update every 2 weeks, and 3DCost weekly. Most recently, Spool was updated on October 10, 2026 and 3DCost on October 7, 2026.

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