What does plasma cutting cost, and when do you need it instead of a saw cut?
Plasma cutting is priced per job, not per inch: thickness, cut length, pierce count, quantity, and the metal itself set the number. Saws and shears handle straight cuts; plasma cuts holes, slots, brackets, and full 2D shapes. Send a drawing and we'll price it same day where we can.
What does plasma cutting cost?
Custom plasma cutting is priced by quote, not off a rate card. The number is built from six drivers: material thickness and type, total inches of cut, pierce count, quantity, the cost of the metal itself, and setup time. At Metals 'R' Us you send a drawing or a plain description through our quote form, CNC plasma work included, and we'll price it same day where we can.
Why doesn't anyone post a rate card? Because a per-inch price tuned for 16 ga sign blanks loses money on 1/2″ plate, and one tuned for plate overcharges every thin job. Even the Canadian cutting services built around instant online quotes don't publish per-inch rates; the number comes out of the file you upload. For rough orientation, US shops that publish figures commonly land around $55-100 per machine-hour, sometimes with a one-hour minimum, and small-shop rate pages often price one-off custom work at 3-6 times the material cost.
A quote does one thing a rate card never will: it's the actual price, with material, cutting, and any sourcing inside it, and ours holds for 14 days.
What actually drives a plasma cutting quote?
Thickness first. It sets the amperage, the travel speed, and the consumable wear, so an inch of cut in 1/2″ plate costs several times what the same inch costs in 16 ga sheet. Pierce count is the sleeper. Every hole, slot, and interior cutout starts with a pierce, the hardest event in a nozzle's life. A baseplate with 40 bolt holes can owe more to the holes than to its outline.
Then the multipliers. Quantity helps you twice, because ten parts share one setup and nest tighter on the sheet. A cut-ready file skips drawing time, and drawing time is real setup cost. The edge's job matters too: a paint-ready edge costs less than a weld-critical one that needs dressing, so tell us what the part is for.
The last driver is the one you can price yourself today: the metal. Here's the same 12″ × 12″ footprint on our rack at three thicknesses, cut to size.
| Material under a 12″ × 12″ part | Price (CAD, June 2026) |
|---|---|
| Carbon steel sheet, 16 ga (.059″) hot rolled | $8.98 |
| Carbon steel, 1/4″ 44W (plate territory) | $27.54 |
| Carbon steel, 1/2″ 44W | $46.67 |
Same footprint, five times the metal bill before the torch fires. The full June 2026 board, bar stock included, lives in our metal prices guide.
When do you need plasma instead of a saw cut?
The moment the cut path turns a corner. A saw or a shear makes straight cuts, and on cut-to-length orders those cuts are free to ±1/8″: bar, tube, and angle cut to length on the saws, sheet sheared to width and length. Holes, slots, curves, notches, and any outline that isn't a rectangle are torch work, and that's where the CNC plasma table in our Dartmouth shop earns its keep.
In practice the split sorts itself by part. Trailer gussets, baseplates with bolt holes, repair brackets, guards with clearance slots, fire pit rings, and garden art are plasma jobs, quoted from your drawing. Fence posts, railing stock, shaft blanks, and a 14 ga door skin are saw and shear jobs you order straight off the carbon steel rack, no quote needed. Not sure whether your flat part counts as sheet or plate? Our sheet vs plate guide draws that line at 3/16″.
Should you ask for plasma, laser, or waterjet?
For carbon steel that gets welded, bolted, or painted, plasma is usually the value pick, and it's what we run in-house. Laser buys you finer edges and tighter tolerances on sheet. Waterjet is the no-heat specialist that cuts nearly anything, at the highest price per inch. Here's the honest matrix.
| CNC plasma | Laser | Waterjet | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweet spot | Carbon steel, sign gauge to 1″ plate | Sheet and plate to about 1/2″ | Any material, including past 2″ |
| Edge off the machine | Slight bevel (1-3 degrees), some dross | Cleanest of the three on sheet | Smooth matte, no heat mark |
| Heat into the part | Thin hardened skin on the edge | Small heat-affected zone | None |
| Dimensional class | About ±1/32″ | Down to about ±0.005″ | Down to about ±0.005″ |
| Cost position on steel | Lowest per part on plate | Strong on thin gauge, climbs with thickness | Highest per cut inch |
| Materials | Conductive metals only | Most metals | Metal, stone, glass, rubber |
If your drawing carries ±0.005″ callouts, bearing fits, or a no-heat rule, plasma is the wrong tool, and we'll say so at the quote stage instead of forcing your part through the wrong machine. For everything else in carbon plate, plasma gets you the part for the least money.
What does a plasma-cut edge look like?
A working edge, not a machined one. The torch erases a slot of metal as it cuts, called the kerf, roughly 1/16″ to 1/8″ wide depending on amperage and nozzle. The table's software steers that loss onto the scrap side, so your part still measures to size; the kerf comes out of the sheet between parts, not your dimensions. A healthy setup holds parts to about a 1/32″ class with 1-3 degrees of bevel on the cut face, a hair of taper that vanishes in welded work and matters in machined fits.
Two habits of the process to plan for. Some thickness and speed combinations leave dross, a bead of re-solidified metal on the bottom corner; it knocks off with a chisel or flap wheel, the same minute of dressing you'd give a sawn burr. And cutting carbon steel with shop-air plasma leaves a thin hardened skin, a few thousandths deep, where the edge picked up nitrogen. That skin makes weld porosity, so dress weld-critical edges bright with a grinder before you strike an arc. It fights taps the same way, which is why threaded holes are better cut undersized and drilled out, or skipped and drilled from scratch.
Holes carry their own rule of thumb: keep the diameter at or above the plate thickness, and give bolt holes 1.5-2 times it. Smaller than that and the hole tapers. For what our everyday saw and shear cuts hold, our cut accuracy guide covers the ±1/8″ promise and the point where machining takes over.
How do you keep a plasma quote down?
Send a file we can cut from. A DXF drawn at real size does it: closed and joined outlines, no doubled lines, text converted to outlines, everything 1:1 in inches. A clean file skips drawing time. No CAD? Don't fake it. A dimensioned sketch or a plain written description works, and clear beats fancy every time.
Then work the drivers in your favour. Quote the batch, not the piece; ten parts share one setup and pack the sheet tighter. Pick thickness with the price table above open, since the step from 16 ga to 1/4″ triples the metal bill before any cutting. Keep holes at or above plate thickness and drill the tiny ones. And don't pay stainless money for a bracket that's getting painted black anyway.
Got a gusset, a baseplate, or a sign waiting on a price? Send the DXF, the sketch, or the plain-words version through a quote request and we'll price it same day where we can. If the metal isn't on the rack, sourcing runs 2-21 days, and you'll see the price before you commit.