How Do You Reduce 3D Print Material?

The three settings that cut filament use fastest are infill density, wall count and support strategy. Dropping infill from 20% to 10% and walls from four to two on a typical hollow part roughly halves the plastic in it. Design changes — hollowing, removing unloaded material, orienting to avoid supports — save more still, because they cut material before the slicer ever sees the model.

Watching your 3D printer devour expensive filament can feel like bleeding money with each layer. This article focuses on optimizing material usage through three critical aspects of the 3D printing workflow: design modifications, slicer setting adjustments, and smart printing practices. These three areas represent the entire process from concept to finished print, giving you complete control over material consumption.

Where the Filament Actually Goes

Before changing anything, it helps to know which part of a print holds the plastic. The numbers below are a straight calculation for a hollow 100 × 100 × 100 mm cube — 0.4 mm nozzle, two perimeters, five solid top and bottom layers, PLA at 1.24 g/cm³ — so you can check them rather than take them on trust. The internal cavity available to infill works out at about 947 cm³.

One thing that trips people up: infill density is normally calculated as a percentage of the internal infill volume, not of the whole part, and different patterns interpret the same percentage slightly differently — a point the slicer's own infill documentation makes explicitly. So "20% infill" does not mean the part is 20% full of plastic; on this cube it means about 235 g of infill sitting inside a 65 g shell.

Walls behave differently again. Each additional perimeter adds a constant band of material around the whole part, and on this same cube the side walls alone come to:

Put the two together and the headline number falls out: a part sliced at four walls and 20% infill uses about 317 g on this geometry; the same part at two walls and 10% infill uses about 159 g. Half the plastic, from two settings. Whether that trade is acceptable depends entirely on what the part does — which is what the rest of this guide is about.

Stage 1: Design Parts to Reduce 3D Print Material

Design is the first and most impactful stage in the 3D printing workflow. Changes made here typically yield the greatest material savings with minimal compromise to functionality.

Hollow Solid Models

Most 3D models default to being completely solid but rarely need to be. Create internal cavities while maintaining sufficient wall thickness to dramatically reduce material needs. Use the "Shell" function in CAD software or dedicated tools like Meshmixer.

Key considerations: determine minimum viable wall thickness based on material, size, and stress requirements; include escape holes for resin drainage (SLA/DLP) or air venting and support removal (FDM). Our guide to minimum wall thickness covers how thin you can safely go for each process.

Streamline Non-Critical Areas

Selectively remove material from non-load-bearing sections:

• Add cutouts or channels in low-stress zones
• Implement lattice structures instead of solid infill for significant material reduction
• Utilize topology optimization (available in advanced CAD software) to analyze and remove material from areas that don't contribute to structural integrity

Minimize Support Requirements

Support structures waste material and complicate post-processing. Design to reduce them by:

• Converting sharp overhangs to chamfers or fillets that print without support
• Following the 45-degree rule for FDM printers (overhangs less than 45° from vertical often print unsupported)
• Splitting complex models into sections for optimal orientation, then assembling after printing

Additional Design Optimizations

Question every feature's necessity and thickness. Eliminate purely decorative elements that consume material without adding function. When possible, scale down parts slightly or combine multiple small items into a single print job to share adhesion structures (brims/skirts).

Stage 2: Optimize Slicer Settings for Less 3D Print Material Usage

Slicer settings provide the next level for material reduction following design optimization. These settings greatly affect material usage and define exactly how your printer creates each layer.

Which settings to change first

Not every material-saving setting carries the same risk. This is the order that gives the most plastic back for the least chance of a weaker or uglier part.

Customize Infill Parameters

Your print's internal structure is found in infill, which has great material-saving ability. For cosmetic or low-stress pieces, lower density to 5-20%; reserve larger percentages (50%) primarily for strength-critical uses. Choose effective designs like "Cubic Subdivision" or "Lightning" that keep most interior sections sparse and concentrate material where needed for top layer support. Gyroid infill is worth knowing about specifically: it is a continuous, self-supporting surface that gives fairly even strength in all directions at low density, which is exactly the trade you want when cutting material. The infill reference documentation compares the common patterns, and our own infill patterns and density guide covers when each one earns its place.

Refine Wall and Surface Settings

Your print's exterior shell is formed by walls—perimeters. Cut them to the minimum required for structural stability; often simply two walls will do instead of three or more. Likewise, use just enough to prevent "pillowing," or visible infill, and give sufficient base strength to optimize top/bottom layer thickness. Every layer reduced directly cuts material use.

One caution that follows from the tables above: walls and infill are not interchangeable. Perimeters sit at the outside of the section, where bending stress is highest, so removing a wall costs far more strength per gram saved than removing infill. If a part must stay strong, cut infill first and leave the walls alone.

Optimize Support Structures

When design cannot prevent supports, minimize their material footprint using tree or organic supports instead of conventional grid patterns. When internal supports aren't necessary, lower support density to the minimal effective level and use "Touching Buildplate" option. Apply support blockers in non-critical regions where surface finish can be impaired and slightly lower overhang angle criteria to provide fewer supports generally.

Select Minimal Adhesion Aids

Select the lightest adhesive technique guaranteed to provide print stability without needless material use. Skirts, which do not touch the model, priming the nozzle consume less material. Save material-intensive rafts just for difficult geometries or problematic materials; utilize brims for pieces with narrow bases or warping tendencies. Set width/thickness to the functional minimum when more adhesion is required.

Stage 3: Implement Smart Printing Practices to Reduce 3D Print Material

Beyond design and slicer settings, material consumption is much influenced by general printing methods. These techniques maximize the whole printing process and help to save waste.

Strategic Rotation for Support Reduction

Your model's orientation on the print bed greatly influences the demand for support materials. See several orientations using the preview feature of your slicer before printing. Try several rotations to find angles that minimize supports and overhangs. Often a basic 45-degree turn may remove large support systems, saving post-processing time and material.

The Failed Print Is the Biggest Waste of All

Every gram of this analysis is undone by one failure at hour nine. A print that fails at 80% completion on a 300 g part throws away more material than a whole spool's worth of careful infill tuning. In practice, the highest-leverage material saving for most people is not a slicer setting at all — it is a first layer that sticks, dry filament, and a machine that does not skip steps. If a print does fail, the plastic is not necessarily lost: see how to recycle failed 3D prints.

Stronger Materials for Thinner Designs

If you use stronger 3D Printer Filaments (like PETG, ABS, or ASA instead of standard PLA), you might be able to design parts with thinner walls or less infill while maintaining equivalent strength to bulkier PLA parts.This requires understanding different materials' properties and incorporating this knowledge into your design decisions.

Lower Density Materials for Weight Savings

Denser materials translate into more mass for the same volume. Choosing a less dense filament (assuming it satisfies your strength needs) will help to cut the overall plastic weight utilized when manufacturing several parts, thereby perhaps saving expenses for big production runs. Note that this is a weight saving, not necessarily a cost saving — spools are sold by mass, so a lower-density filament yields more volume per kilogram, but engineering materials usually cost more per kilogram to begin with. If the goal is weight reduction on a finished part rather than spend reduction, density is the lever; if the goal is spend, infill and wall count are.

Regular E-step Calibration

Calibrate your extruder steps often to guarantee your printer runs exactly the required filament count. This stops over-extrusion—wasting material with too much plastic—as well as under-extrusion—that results in weak parts and failures. Every print can be affected by differences that a basic 100mm extrusion test finds and fixes. An extrusion multiplier that is 5% high does not look like a defect; it just quietly adds 5% to every print you make.

Routine Nozzle Maintenance

Frequent cleaning of your 3D Printer's nozzle and replacement when worn can help to prevent partial obstructions and uneven extrusion causing failure prints. A well-maintained nozzle guarantees constant material flow, therefore lowering the possibility of print failures wasting whole runs of material.

Proper Filament Storage

Store filament in airtight containers including desiccant to stop moisture absorption compromising print quality. During printing, wet filament generates steam that causes popping, uneven extrusion, and weak layer adhesion—often leading to failed prints and wasted material.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you reduce PLA usage on a print?

Lower the infill density first — it is the single largest block of material in most parts and the least damaging to remove. On a bulky part, 20% down to 10% typically removes around a third to 40% of the total mass. After that, reduce wall loops only if the part is not structural, switch to tree supports, and use a skirt instead of a brim where adhesion allows.

Is it better to use low infill or cut holes in the model?

Cutting material out in CAD wins whenever you can do it, because it removes the plastic and the print time, and you control exactly where the material goes. Low infill is the blunt version of the same idea: the slicer decides. In practice most people do both — hollow and lighten the design where the part is not loaded, then drop infill in what remains.

Does lower infill make a print weaker?

Less than people expect for bending and impact, more than people expect for compression. Perimeters dominate bending stiffness, so a part with two extra walls and 10% infill often outperforms one with fewer walls and 30% infill, at less material. But a part that gets squashed — a foot, a spacer, a press-fit boss — relies on infill directly, and there low density shows up quickly.

How much filament does a support structure waste?

It varies enormously with geometry, which is why orientation is the first thing to change. Supports on a tall overhanging model can rival the part's own mass; on a well-oriented model they can be nearly zero. Tree or organic supports typically use a fraction of what a grid support does for the same overhang, and cost nothing in part quality.

Does printing faster use less filament?

No. Speed changes print time, not material — the same toolpaths get extruded either way. It can indirectly increase waste if pushing the machine too hard causes failures. The one speed-related saving is that fewer, better-planned prints beat repeated attempts.

What is the cheapest way to cut filament costs overall?

In order: stop failures, hollow the design, reduce infill, then buy sensibly. Filament price per kilogram varies widely by material and grade — our breakdown of what 3D printing filament costs covers what actually drives the price, and the full filament range spans basic PLA through engineering composites.

Print More with Less Material!

Reducing 3D print material consumption calls for a coordinated response in design, slicing, and printing techniques. To cut filament use without sacrificing quality, hollow your models, reduce supports, maximize infill settings, and keep your equipment in good shape. These methods produce useful prints and save money as well as lower environmental effect. Material efficiency becomes second nature when you mix techniques from every workflow level, therefore changing the way you handle every job. The reference figures in this guide assume PLA at roughly 1.24 g/cm³; scale them by density if you print something else.