SoliForum - 3D Printing Community — Selling Prints to people I know?

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-22T01:10:42Z

Years ago I made pen/pencil sets and sold them to pay for shop tools more of a hobby than business. IIRC I sold them for about $25 a set in a leatherette case. some people told me why would I pay that much for those when I can buy a dozen bic pens for a couple dollars. others told me me my prices were too low for the quality and some paid the money and and were happy with what they got.

Ultimately you need to come up with a price that you are comfortable with and the customer is willing to pay. some will think the price is high because they can go to Walmart and buy some cheap imported piece of plastic to do what they want. Others will appreciate custom work. and others will see that if they go to an on line print service it will likely cost more.

Like others have said try to find an hourly rate for you and your machine that is fair to you and your friends . yes it is a hobby but you have a lot invested in your printer and materials.

As far as material figure out cost per gram . then decide if you are going to mark up. mark up covers the cost of researching shipping driving etc. then weigh the finished part on a scale.
Tin

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-20T21:08:40Z

cmetzel wrote:

Why do you people only value your free time as $10 an hour? In some states minimum wage is going to be $15 soon. Flipping burgers shouldn't pay more than 3d design and additive manufacture.
The way I've been doing it for the limited things I've sold is Shapeways / 2. If I have to design then I charge for my time at $40 and hour and then cost to print. I do get people that say no thanks, and for a friend I wouldn't charge but if I'm giving up my weekend I need to be compensated. My time is more valuable to me than printing yoda heads for everyone that thinks it's neat.
If you tell them $25 minimum and they say that's too expensive. Have them try to find it elsewhere for less. You'll save yourself a headache and they'll likely come back to you after checking on the professional services anyway.

+1
In my example (way above) I just calculated unattended run time of a previously designed item...but if I needed to design an item, it would be no less than $40.00 / hour!

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-20T21:04:29Z

cmetzel wrote:

Why do you people only value your free time as $10 an hour? In some states minimum wage is going to be $15 soon. Flipping burgers shouldn't pay more than 3d design and additive manufacture.
The way I've been doing it for the limited things I've sold is Shapeways / 2. If I have to design then I charge for my time at $40 and hour and then cost to print. I do get people that say no thanks, and for a friend I wouldn't charge but if I'm giving up my weekend I need to be compensated. My time is more valuable to me than printing yoda heads for everyone that thinks it's neat.
If you tell them $25 minimum and they say that's too expensive. Have them try to find it elsewhere for less. You'll save yourself a headache and they'll likely come back to you after checking on the professional services anyway.

+1 here too. besides I am not trying to competes with dollar shops nor am I in business. just doing my hobby thing and getting some investment back when possible. mass production is not about 3D printing

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-20T19:59:01Z

Why do you people only value your free time as $10 an hour? In some states minimum wage is going to be $15 soon. Flipping burgers shouldn't pay more than 3d design and additive manufacture.

The way I've been doing it for the limited things I've sold is Shapeways / 2. If I have to design then I charge for my time at $40 and hour and then cost to print. I do get people that say no thanks, and for a friend I wouldn't charge but if I'm giving up my weekend I need to be compensated. My time is more valuable to me than printing yoda heads for everyone that thinks it's neat.

If you tell them $25 minimum and they say that's too expensive. Have them try to find it elsewhere for less. You'll save yourself a headache and they'll likely come back to you after checking on the professional services anyway.

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-20T15:53:30Z

3Dhubs prices by the cubic CM plus settup fee that print hub sets but they dont figure any support material, extra print time etc and only figure 20% infill at best. this is why many set higher prices to compensate

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-20T14:08:16Z

funny experience. i myself had that same kind of situation once. what I did was check out similar products that on the market and give them a price a little lower, for friends and families. :-)

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-19T22:35:50Z

The way I look at it is If i purchased a 240m roll of filament for $30 then 30/240 = .125 or 12.5 cents a meter (just do the math). So I charge $1 a meter of filament used if the model was provided. Also a good idea is to set a base price like $10 and $1 every extra meter. This number is totally up to you, but it is a good way of looking at it. If you have to make the model then charge at least $10 an hr. of design time on top of printing.

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-19T22:35:45Z

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-15T21:55:07Z

adrian wrote:

n2ri - the forum lets you edit posts. This might be far more beneficial for readers in threads you've posted in than chains of 4-5 posts from yourself.
Just a suggestion to make people not just skip chunks of your posts...

yes and I have done that also and had people comment too long of post to read or too many subjects in same post etc. but thanks for reminding.

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-15T16:11:51Z

n2ri - the forum lets you edit posts. This might be far more beneficial for readers in threads you've posted in than chains of 4-5 posts from yourself.

Just a suggestion to make people not just skip chunks of your posts...

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-15T08:40:36Z

and things like support material and % of infil make big dif in material used just like objects with lots of details and odd shapes add lots of time for all the movements at slower speeds. 3D hubs has an issue with this as they calculate all files with zero support and 20% infil like for powder printers so extruder printers have to raise costs to compensate for their quotes being low.

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-15T08:35:23Z

DePartedPrinter wrote:

wardjr wrote:
All of this being said there are several topics that have tried to come up with ways to calculate these things.
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/655/char … -printing/
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/283/sell … -how-much/

unlike some of those people and others think. multiples of an item take just as long as doing each 1 at a time due to same amount of time/material printing each. but if an issue happens during a print any unfinished print is all wasted and if an item takes 1hr then 12 of them take 12hrs and prints over 2-4 hrs have much more chance to fail b4 finished plus long prints are harder to monitor. I havnt done many multi prints for this reason. just not that confident in error free long prints especialy new files not tested lots in G-code form

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-15T08:25:02Z

I have a niche market though for N scale model railroad details etc where I can sell a car for $5 that takes under 15mins to make and tiny bit of filament and make profit. so depends what you can do. I have been doing this type items for years using other forms of manufacture so the 3D printer just expanded my horizons there. and it offsets my hobby costs while not dipping into my fixed income.

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-15T08:18:29Z

widgets you can buy retail under $12 are not worth 3D printing to even get investment back. best just do like craft gifts for family/friends maybe have them buy filament they want used and let you keep leftover for making it. as Ive also done when designing repair part etc

Re: Selling Prints to people I know?

2014-08-15T08:11:10Z

see what sites like Shapeways and 3dhubs charge per square CM of dif materials and time according to slicer calculations plus a setup fee. I have a 3dhub for my printer and have sold a couple jobs. shapeways prints the items sellers load files for to buyers of those items. 3dhubs just connects a buyer with file to have printed to a person with printer then collects a fee plus brokers the deal like ebay. prices of both are similar for similar sized items. shapeways only uses industrial powder printers. 3dhubs has many printer types as each hub owns their own world wide.