The SOLIDWORKS costing tool helps you calculate how much it costs to manufacture sheet metal, machined, multibody parts, and assembles as well as plastic molded , cast, 3D printed parts, and multtibody weldments by automating the cost estimation and quotation process.

Evaluating the Cost of a Sheet Metal part with the material weight option:

The software depends on the un suppressing of flat patterns in sheet metal parts to determine the cut paths. If you apply Costing to a sheet metal part for which the flat pattern cannot be unsuppressed, the Costing results might be incorrect.

• In a sheet metal part, click Costing (Tools toolbar or the Evaluate tab on the Command Manager) or Tools > SOLIDWORKS Applications > Costing.
• If there is enough information in the sheet metal template, and if the part has a material assigned to it that matches the template, a cost estimate is performed and the Costing Task Pane displays the Estimated Cost Per Part.
• If there is not enough information in the template, or if you want to edit the Costing input values, follow the steps below.

• Under Costing Template, select a template. Default templates are available or you can create templates to use custom manufacturing data. See Creating a New Sheet Metal Template.
• Under Material, make selections for Class, Name, and Thickness from template if they are not populated. The Class, Name, and Thickness from template are populated if the material in the part matches a class, name, and thickness in the sheet metal template.
• The Material cost is the cost in the template for the selected Class, Name, and Thickness from template combination. You can override Material cost without editing the template. Overrides affect only the part that is open, not the template. If you override Material cost, the field appears in yellow.

• Under Stock Type from Template, select Material Weight.
• Under Area to cost select an item to define the material usage.
• Under Quantity, set the Total number of parts and Lot size.
• Optionally, under Markup/Discount, adjust the material cost or the total cost using a percentage factor.
• The software extracts material information from the material set in the part and performs a cost estimate. The CostingManager displays manufacturing features such as cut paths and bends that were recognized in the part. The Costing Task Pane displays the Estimated Cost Per Part.

• Click Begin Cost Estimation.

• The cost Estimation of the solidworks Sheetmetal part will be shown.