Lab Consumable Cost Calculator

Work out lab consumable cost instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Lab Consumable Cost Calculator

Consumable budgets scale with throughput and must include wastage. Eight runs of 96 samples at 4.20 each is 768 samples and 3225.60 a month, of which 345.60 is wastage at 12% - so 38,707 a year. Wastage is routinely omitted from grant applications, and it is exactly the line that overspends.

Formulas

Monthly cost

cost = samples per month x cost per sample x (1 + wastage)

Samples per month

samples = samples per run x runs per month

Worked example

With the default values below, Lab Consumable Cost Calculator returns Monthly Consumable Cost of $3,612.67. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Samples per runminimum 1: 96
Runs per monthminimum 0: 8
Consumable cost per sampleminimum 0: 4.2
Wastage and repeatsminimum 0 %: 12 %

Results

Monthly Consumable Cost: $3,612.67
Annual Consumable Cost: $43,352.06
Samples Processed Per Month: 768
Cost Of Wastage And Repeats: $387.07

Step by step

1Values used
2Monthly cost
3Samples per month
4Monthly Consumable Cost= 3,612.67
5Annual Consumable Cost= 43,352.06
6Samples Processed Per Month= 768
7Cost Of Wastage And Repeats= 387.07

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What wastage rate should I assume?

Ten to fifteen percent for established assays, considerably more during method development where repeats are frequent.

Do plate-based assays waste more?

Often, because a 96-well plate must be run whole. Processing 40 samples on a 96-well plate wastes over half the reagent.