Your first filament order: what to buy

The printer arrives, the bed is levelled, and suddenly you are on a filament listing page with nine hundred options, four materials you have never printed, and a dual-colour silk rainbow spool that looks far more interesting than grey. Almost everyone buys too much of the wrong thing on the first order. This is what actually belongs in it.

The short version

• One material: PLA. Or PLA+, which is the same printing experience with a little more toughness.
• One diameter: 1.75 mm. Check your printer, but it is almost certainly this.
• Two 1 kg spools, not a 4 kg bundle and not a sample pack.
• Grey or black first, and one colour you actually want.
• Skip TPU, PETG, silk, wood-fill and glow until you have printed a kilo.

At the time of writing the cheapest single 1 kg PLA spool we track on Amazon UK is about £7.59, and the typical spool is closer to £13–£14 per kilogram. Two spools is therefore roughly a £20–£30 order, which is the right amount to risk before you know what you like.

Why PLA, and nothing else yet

PLA prints at modest temperatures, needs no enclosure, barely smells, sticks to almost any bed, and fails in obvious, readable ways. That last part is the real argument. Your first kilo is not really printing objects, it is learning to read your printer: what a cold first layer looks like, what stringing means, what a partial clog sounds like. PLA gives you the clearest possible signal while you learn that.

Every other material adds a second variable. PETG is tougher and more heat-resistant but strings and is fussier about bed distance. TPU is flexible and needs slow, careful retraction. Carbon-filled filaments are abrasive and will quietly eat a brass nozzle. None of that is hard later; all of it is noise now, because when a print fails you will not know whether it was you, the printer, or the plastic.

PLA+ is worth the small premium if the choice is in front of you. It is PLA with additives for toughness, prints identically, and survives being handled. If you are weighing it against standard PLA, see PLA ranked by £/kg and PLA+ ranked by £/kg side by side. When you are ready for a second material, PLA vs PETG is the next decision.

Two spools, not a bundle

A 4 kg bundle is genuinely cheaper per kilogram — around £10.63 against £21.53 on the listings we track — and it is still the wrong first order. Four kilograms is a lot of one brand, one material and one set of colours to commit to before you know whether that brand prints well on your machine, and an opened spool starts absorbing moisture from the day you unwrap it. Buying cheap plastic you then print badly six months later is not a saving.

The sample packs pull the other way and are worse value still: the small multi-colour sets average around £66 per kilogram, roughly three times a plain spool, because you are paying for spools, packaging and variety rather than plastic. They are a reasonable way to test colours once you know you care, but a poor way to buy your first kilo. The full argument, with the numbers, is in are filament bundles worth it.

Two spools is the sweet spot: enough to print properly for a few weeks, cheap enough that a brand you dislike costs you £10 rather than £30, and two separate spools means a tangle or a jam does not end your printing.

What to prioritise when two spools look identical

Most 1 kg PLA spools on Amazon UK are, functionally, the same product. Three things genuinely separate them, and the rest is marketing:

• Dimensional tolerance. Look for ±0.02 mm or ±0.03 mm on the listing. A spool that wanders in thickness gives you over- and under-extrusion that you will try to fix in the slicer for an evening. This is the single most useful number on the page.
• Vacuum-sealed with desiccant. Filament absorbs water from the air, and damp filament pops, strings and prints weak. A spool sealed at the factory is a spool that has not been sitting in a humid warehouse unwrapped.
• Reviews that mention tangles. A badly wound spool will knot under tension halfway through a long print, usually overnight. No specification tells you this; buyer reviews do, and it is worth reading three of them.

Things not to pay extra for on a first order: “high speed” PLA, which is a real reformulation but only earns its premium on a printer fast enough to out-run ordinary PLA (high-speed PLA explained has the test); a brand chip, which only automates settings on that brand's own printers and changes nothing about print quality; and refill spools with no plastic reel, which are cheaper per kilogram but need a reel you do not own yet.

Which colours

Buy one practical colour and one you want. Grey is the most useful single colour anyone can own — it shows detail honestly, hides layer lines better than white, and photographs well — and black is the forgiving one that makes rough prints look deliberate. Then buy something you are actually excited to print, because a spool of grey does not make anyone want to go and use the machine.

Resisting the urge to buy nine colours at once is most of the skill here, and it has its own guide: how many filament colours do you need.

What you also need, and what you do not

Nothing, on day one. A sealed bag with the desiccant it shipped with is adequate storage for your first month, and a printer that works prints fine without accessories. When the first spool runs out, two things start earning their place:

• Storage. Opened spools degrade. A sealed box with desiccant costs very little and saves a whole spool eventually. See filament storage.
• A dryer, maybe. Useful if you live somewhere humid or print PETG, TPU or nylon; an expensive solution to a problem PLA in a sealed box rarely has. See do you need a filament dryer.

A spool holder matters more than it sounds, because most stock holders add drag, and drag causes under-extrusion on a spool that is otherwise fine.

Your first order, written out

• 1 kg PLA or PLA+, 1.75 mm, grey or black, vacuum sealed, ±0.03 mm or better.
• 1 kg of the same brand and material in a colour you want.
• Nothing else.

Same brand for both on purpose: if the first spool prints beautifully you have a second one that behaves identically, and if it prints badly you have learned something cheap and clear.

Browse all filament ranked by price per kilogram, PLA and PLA+, or start with grey filament. Still choosing a machine? The printer finder recommends one from our reviews, and how to choose your first 3D printer covers that decision properly.

Questions people ask

What filament should I buy first for a new 3D printer?

Buy PLA or PLA+ in 1.75 mm for your first filament order: two 1 kg spools from the same brand, one in grey or black and one in a colour you actually want. PLA is the easiest material to print and fails in ways that are easy to read, which matters more than anything else while you are learning the machine. On Amazon UK that is roughly a 20 to 30 pound order.

How much filament should a beginner buy?

A beginner should buy about 2 kg of filament to start, as two separate 1 kg spools. That is enough for several weeks of printing, and if the brand turns out to print badly on your machine you have lost around 10 pounds rather than the 30 pounds a 4 kg bundle costs. Opened spools also absorb moisture, so filament you will not use for months is not really a saving.

Is PLA or PETG better for a first spool?

PLA is better than PETG for a first spool. PETG is tougher and more heat-resistant, but it strings more and is fussier about nozzle height, so a failed print is harder to diagnose. Learn on PLA, then add PETG as your second material when you need parts that survive heat or outdoor use.

What colour filament should I buy first?

Grey is the most useful first filament colour, with black a close second. Grey shows surface detail honestly, hides layer lines better than white and photographs well, which makes it the best colour for judging print quality. Black is more forgiving and makes rough prints look deliberate. Add one colour you are excited to print so the machine actually gets used.

How much does a 1 kg spool of PLA cost in the UK?

A 1 kg spool of PLA typically costs around 13 to 14 pounds in the UK, and the cheapest single spools tracked on Amazon UK in October 2026 were about 7.59 pounds. The average across every listing is higher, near 21 pounds per kilogram, because silk, dual-colour and branded spools pull it up.

Does cheap filament print as well as expensive filament?

Cheap PLA often prints as well as expensive PLA, because most 1 kg spools are functionally the same product. What separates them is dimensional tolerance (look for plus or minus 0.02 or 0.03 mm), whether the spool arrives vacuum sealed with desiccant, and how well it is wound. Check those three things and buyer reviews that mention tangles, rather than the price or the brand name.

Do I need a filament dryer when I buy my first spool?

No, you do not need a filament dryer with your first spool of PLA. A new spool arrives vacuum sealed, and keeping it in a sealed bag or box with desiccant between prints is enough. A dryer becomes worth it if you live somewhere humid or move on to PETG, TPU or nylon, which absorb water far faster.