What should an hour of CNC machining cost?
"What's your hourly rate?" is the wrong question — but everyone asks it. Here are Italian market benchmarks and the method to position YOUR rate.
Market benchmarks in Italy (2026)
With all necessary caution (region, sector, volumes), the ranges we observe in the Italian market are: 2-axis CNC turning €40-60/h; turning with live tooling and sub-spindle €55-80/h; 3-axis milling €45-70/h; 5-axis milling €70-110/h; wire EDM €55-85/h; precision grinding €60-95/h.
The high end isn't 'expensive': it reflects more costly machines, rarer skills, and often tolerances and certifications that the low end cannot guarantee.
Your rate starts from YOUR cost, not the market
The market provides context, but your minimum rate is dictated by your actual hourly cost: depreciation, energy, maintenance, floor space and operator share, divided by truly productive hours. Below that number you're not competing: you're financing your customers.
Above cost, positioning is a choice: those competing on price must saturate machines; those competing on quality, response time and reliability can stay in the high end of the range — and fast, professional quotes are part of the package.
Why the 5-axis hour 'costs' less than it seems
A shop compares €60/h for the 3-axis with €95/h for the 5-axis and sends the part to the 3-axis 'to save money'. But if the 5-axis does in one 40-minute setup what requires 3 setups and 105 minutes on the 3-axis, the part costs €63 versus €105. The right question is never what the hour costs, but what the part costs.
Communicating your rate without being held hostage to it
A transparent quote shifts the conversation from the hour to the value: showing cycle, operations and quantity breaks, the customer sees the cost of THEIR part, not an abstract hourly rate to compare downward.
MachinePilot works exactly this way: hourly rates per machine (pre-calibrated on 214 market models, always editable), automatic comparison between your machines for each job — showing when the 'more expensive' machine produces the cheaper part — and PDF with breakdown per operation.