Machine time is the number shops quote and rarely the number that decides your bill. US CNC rates run about $75 to $250 an hour, but a 3-axis mill is $35 to $60 while a Swiss machine is $120 to $250, so the machine your part needs matters more than the shop you pick. Setup is a fixed cost per job, which is why ten parts can cost nearly what a hundred do, and material is commonly 20 to 40 percent of the total.
| Service | Typical |
|---|---|
| CNC machining shop rateNational range | $75 to $250 per hour |
Ranges last checked September 2026. They come down automatically when they are due to be rechecked.
Every figure above comes from a named source we can link to, with the date we last checked it. We publish ranges rather than single prices because a range is what a provider will actually give you: the same job moves with what is being worked on, the materials, how hard it is to get at and how busy the trade is locally. Treat these as the order of magnitude to expect before you call, not as a quote.
The figures here are national. Where a source publishes figures state by state, the state pages carry that local figure instead of this one. We do not scale a national number by a multiplier of our own invention.
Every range carries a review date. When that date passes the number comes down until it is rechecked, rather than sitting here undated.
The table above carries the overall hourly spread, but the range inside it is mostly about which machine cuts your part.
The design decides the machine. A part with features on five faces either goes on a 5-axis machine at $150 an hour, or gets refixtured three times on a 3-axis at $50. Sometimes the second is cheaper and sometimes the setups eat the saving.
Machine time times rate, plus setup, plus material, plus finishing or assembly. Four lines, and the first one gets all the attention.
Setup is fixed per job. Programming, tooling, fixturing. It costs the same whether you order one part or five hundred, which is why the per-unit price on a short run looks so much worse. Ten parts might carry $600 of setup at $60 each. A thousand parts carry the same $600 at 60 cents.
Material is commonly 20 to 40 percent of the total. Not a rounding item. Switching from a specialty alloy to something standard can move the bill more than switching shops.
If the per-part price comes back higher than you expected, the question is which of the four lines is carrying it. A shop that will break the quote into those four numbers is easy to work with. One that will not is quoting a total you cannot reason about.
A drawing with tolerances on it, a material specification, a quantity, and a finish. Send four of those and you get a real number back. Send a picture and a rough description and you get a padded one, because the shop is pricing its own uncertainty.
Tolerances are the expensive part and the easiest to overspecify. A tight tolerance on a surface that does not need one adds inspection time, scrap risk and sometimes a different machine, and it will not make the part work any better. Marking only the features that matter is the single cheapest change most buyers can make.
The volume question is worth asking even if you only want ten. It shows you where the setup cost sits.
$75 to $250 an hour for machine time. The wide span is mostly machine type rather than shop quality.
Machine type does most of it: 3-axis mills run about $35 to $60 an hour, 4-axis $60 to $90, CNC lathes about $50 to $100, 5-axis mills $100 to $200, and Swiss machines $120 to $250. Region matters too, with West Coast shops often at $90 to $220.
No. Material is quoted separately and is commonly 20 to 40 percent of total project cost. Setup, meaning programming, tooling and fixturing, is also separate, as are finishing, assembly, and inspection or certification where required.
Usually, because setup is a fixed cost spread across the run. Design complexity works the other way, since it decides how many setups a part needs in the first place.