I didn't read EVERY comment but the first thing I noticed while watching your video is you never mentioned the cost of "space". Your print farm occupies space, either owned (basement, garage, etc.) or rented. I had a home based consulting business for years and part of my cost doing business was using a bedroom converted to an office. The costs of using that space are deductible by using Form 8829 (Also see Tax Topic 509), Expenses for Business Use of Your Home. It is a legitimate expense and part of the cost of goods sold.
rent is a fixed cost. it doesnt scale with your production. if it affects your production, it does so in the form of limiting your maximum output but it doesnt affect the cost of each part produced per se. that is the rent is $1000 regardless if you sell 10 pieces or 10,000. in that sense you shouldn't be counting it as part of the cost of goods sold. this type of cost typically goes under Selling, General & Administrative costs, as do costs like utlity bills to run the AC and lights, the website, wages for labor that doesn't directly have to do with the actual part like janitor, supervisor, etc. if you do include such fixed costs in your COGS then you will find that low volume sales projections make the part look expensive to produce, but high volume sales make it look overly profitable. if you then start adding new SKUs to your pipeline, you will then end up double and triple counting all those fixed costs. the reality is that your spreadsheets will tell you set unrealistically high prices for each SKU. if however the landlord is imposing a percentage of revenue on top of rent, as do some F&B landlords in parts of the world, that directly translates to cost per part sold and that would be a reasonable justification to count as COGS.
@@suivzmoi Not exactly. Regardless of the ratio to part made it is hardly a fixed cost. Space that you wouldn't otherwise need does cost money. Things like shelves, tools, fixtures, furniture, web presence, taxes, licenses, design computers and network, all cost money and need to be accounted for in the cost of products sold.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ I would watch what you deduct. I have an accountant for that. You could end up in jail for fraud if you aren't careful and they audit you.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ accounting wise, rent is fixed. It’s not variable. Yes, you can increase the available space needed but it is not directly related to output volume. This would an be indirect cost or overhead and should be allocated accordingly.
There are three choices when analyzing the market. A: Position as superior. B: Decrease your margin. C: Choose to not enter that specific items market. The third choice should always be considered.
yep, so true, this is where capitalism can either work for you or against you. thankfully distributed manufacturing like 3d printing can be a really cool way to make capitalism work FOR you by leveling the playing field slightly instead of against you like it does in many cases for small players in this kind of economy. as you allude to the big question is: are you willing to undercut?... aka can you still make money at 25 or 30% margin vs 50%? maybe, maybe not, all depends. if you are shrewd and have done your research properly or are willing to invest larger amounts to produce more units in less time it might be possible... but also the possibility to lose it all increases because if someone copies your idea or someone has a million of the same thing injection molded in china somewhere and then sells them here.... you get the picture. but if you (whoever) follow me here there is another aspect to this: perhaps you are the person who steps ahead and sees the demand and has those particular parts or items batched out from a factory or buys the next level of tool or equipment to make more etc... anyway, not at all being adversarial, more enjoying and summarizing the fact that we can 3d print things and learn not only engineering, materials science, computers/programming possibly but also fundamentals of business and economics .... all of it has direct application to this one little machine or two in our office or shop. Most importantly... the critical thinking skills to put it all together and decide what is or is not important in the given scenario! If i were a high school shop or science teacher i would be doing a month (or whatever reasonable time) of every semester on 3d printing and its direct applications to the subjects being taught, coordinating with other subject's teachers so they could further amplify the effect of tying things together to other aspects students needed to learn. STEM coupled with proper communication skills (making youtube videos in addition to writing and reading) is wonderful eh?
@@DeagleBingo If you don't know whether you're making money at 30% margin, you're doing your math wrong. A positive margin by definition means you _are_ making money. The question is whether you could make _more_ money making/selling something else.
I loved the fact that you used several examples, each with a slightly different level of difficulty. You also covered all the small details that many people miss.
I bought your dust collection part for my miter saw and it works well. I was also glad to pay your price and hope you made money on it. Money is an easy way for consumers to benefit from your creativity
Absolutely, and remember that that also does not take into account the amount of time he had to spend to design and prototype the part. I think that's the one aspect he left out.
I'm really glad I didn't buy the part but bought the file because it breaks about every three months and I have to print another one. I'm only printing in ABS but I'm printing at 75% infill and still breaks.
As someone who does cost accounting for major manufacturing companies - you'd be surprised how many of them cannot properly get their costs together because their ERP is such a mess.
I worked for a small company that the owner was basically driving into the ground because he was scatter brained and couldn’t keep his ERP in check or managed. Put a whole migration and operations plan together for him to have everything work automatically between website, warehouse, ERP, etc. but he couldn’t follow through and now he is still paying costs related to incorrect stock tracking, unoptimized shipping profiles. Really makes me think how some businesses have made it as far as they have
I'm not surprised. I worked as a manufacturing engineer and learned that most companies have a hard time calculating actual labor costs....and estimating labor costs...
Omg I worked for one of the major automotive manufacturers as cost accountant/data analyst and was responsible for the cost accounting of the entire plant. QAD was a cluster and trying to reconcile BOM cost rollups after ECN's because of 0 costs on the part by materials, engineering not versioning the part, parts not being switched to the correct model and having an older model/different model's part on the BOM, it was a constant mess.
Such impeccable timing! I was just asked what it would cost to 3D print a fairly simple part an X number of times, but since I don't have a 3D printing business I had no idea how to price this. But now I do! So thanks!
One thing I'll add is that as an Etsy seller offering free shipping for many years, I have realized that for whatever reason, my buyers do not care about shipping cost, they buy at the same rate whether it's free shipping or $5.50. I don't know whether this is an Etsy specific thing, where people feel more justified paying shipping on a "handmade" item, but it came as a big shock to me. I had assumed that Amazon had spoiled people and anything other than free shipping would scare the buyers off. Not the case, in my experience. Has really boosted my bottom line, since shipping was by far the biggest slice of the pie taken out of my profits. Great production value on the video by the way.
Agree and disagree I have bought off ebay many times and always go for the free shipping ones and have gone back and looked it was the same price on both products the ones with free shipping was a little more expensive and the ones without free shipping were cheaper but the same after shipping
I don't care to pay shipping as long as you combine shipping. If I buy 1 small part and shipping is $10 then it should STAY $10 if I order 10 of those tiny parts.
i always look at the full cost of something. If I can buy something for $15.00 with $5.00 shipping vs another item for $18.00 with free shipping, I would be more inclined to go for the $18.00 one because it's cheaper overall.
Charge by the job or hour? Some of the projects I've done in this space have gotten a little crazy. I mean 70 - 80 hours of design and redesign. Basically taking a drawing on a napkin to a viable product.
@@jamesdmc2928/videos sounds like you are going more into the niche space of design consultation rather than print production. if you are creating something out of nothing, you should obviously charge per hour. this is because your production profit is not guaranteed. they may just say thank you and leave once you have completed the design. at any point if they feel they are not getting the required rate of results vs rate charged, the relationship ends and you still get paid. the hourly rate incentivises the customer to treat everyone's time as valuable, which it is. separate the design cost from the print cost. if the relationship is worth future business (you should be able to tell after working 60hours with them on something), you can do tricks like offer lower rate for the next 20 hrs. or do it for free if they commit a minimum order qty of the final product via which you can recoup the design cost.
I charge $75CDN per hours for custom CAD design, if it’s a small part that would take me way less than 1hr, I charge a basic $25 when it’s person that needs an item for their hobby or small house hold part. For example I just did a small clip for a knitting machine that is no longer in production or sell parts for it. I charged $25 to design and $10 per printed clip. Any future orders for this clip for other people in her knitting guild is $10 since it’s been designed. I got extra orders for 7 of them. No one out there have that part available.
I just wanted to point out the great thing you’re doing for the environment in this way. You’re keeping a machine alive with your knowledge and a small 3D-printed part. We need stronger rights to repair and open-source plans (like CAD models for parts) for all discontinued machines around the world. Keep up the great work!
@@Homie111092 Thanks, the fancy pants shower that was installed in our house by previous owner has a lot of custom parts. Even the glass rollers. A small 1ix2 inch part of over engineered part broke. Was going to be over $300 and 6 months wait for it. 20 mins to design about the same amount to print at cost of $0.4 to print (including electricity). The waste is mind boggling. I think the idea of the roller being non standard and engineered to break and that cost is for people to buy a new shower unit. The greed is crazy. We need printers in every homes so people can have more meaningful and compelling jobs aligned to what they want to do instead of being stuck in factories.
@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel I want to get started, Im making my way through youtube to soak in as much information as possible. Where do you recommend I start? A youtube channel? A specific video? A 3d printer model you recommend? Tell me what you can, I completely agree, all households need a 3d printer. A regular appliance that is used whenever something breaks, just find the part design online, print and repair. What a world we'd be living in then.
@@AdrianDWolfe I was in your shoes about a year ago today lol. CNC kitchen has a lot of great stuff but honest once you watch enough 3dp videos you will get recommended them enough you wont need to look. for my printer I went with a bambulab p1s and its served me extremely well, its much cheaper now even, i paid about 900 usd shipped with filament, about 150 was CF stuff, CF filament (pet and petg) a hardened nozzle and extruder gear. It seems like they have a massive sale on everything from late october to black friday, I recently added a multi material system (AMS) which was 100$ off with that which should still be running. though if you dont plan on doing engineering filaments an A1 or mini could be fine too. There are a LOT of really competitive machines out there now too, bambu (specifically the p1p, p1s, x1c chassis) has REALLY good support for aftermarket parts which has been amazing. Since then I have learned fusion (I had used autocad for a few years a decade ago) and have been constantly designing and fixing my own stuff since. I have only had to open it up once to rotate a REALLY rattly linear bearing, but nothing that has affected printing really. as far as stuff I have made off the top of my head (not all designed by me but a lot were) .Glasses frames (which I am still wearing right now) .shelf pegs .wall hooks .MANY p1s upgrades .toys and personalized christmas gifts .storage and organization .a visor mount for a car .a clamp screw (that was plastic to begin with) that was 40USD to replace from the OEM shipped and so many more, I dont think its saved me money, but besides a 3090 for mining eth its the one machine I have bought that has actually paid off a significant portion of its value. and not to forget just how much it kept out of a landfill by making repairs possible. recycling pla at home on the cheap is still a few years out, but its not a big deal to keep a trash bag or so a year around until then. If I had to guess ive spent around 1100-1200 total on printing stuff, and id wager its saved upwards of 600$. the glasses frames really carried here at 200, the visor part for the car was also 80+ shipping. Theres also the "one of a kind" stuff like I printed a marble PLA weeping angel (250mm tall or so), good luck finding something like that for a christmas gift. I honestly think we are moving towards that time where people will be more likely than not to find that someone already made a model and uploaded it for the exact thing they broke. more often then not printables has what I need, and for free. printables has a rewards program that lets you get (cheap, you pay shipping) rolls of filament for uploading makes of others models, and uploading your own, though most of the points come from makes. comparing your models to others is a great way to learn, especially if you are looking to design your own. Look into tinkercad if you are new to design. and then you can move onto something like fusion 360. even though I really dislike the business practices of subscriptions and paywalls its still the best parametric modeling program. its still free for personal use, and commercial with limitations, but a lot of subscription scumminess. thats about all I can think of now, welcome to the world of 3d printing!
Do you have some kind of storefront where you list/sell all these one-off items? It would be the best way for other people needing that specific thing to find your version.
My father was in manufacturing for 30 years. He worked for a moderately-large manufacturer on the production side. Material costs were no more than 15% of the sale price of a part. Normal stuff that was used on the end-product cost about 1/2 of what was charged when they were sold as replacement parts. Replacement parts for out of production products cost about double what current-production parts did simply because of the time involved in setup for very short runs.
It's also often not possible to produce new replacement parts via the same methods as the original parts were produced, so they may need to be CNC machined or even fabricated - neither of which gets the price any closer to that of the original production. But, hey, you need the part, right? lol
in a larger company we must also consider the overhead costs of the building, equipment replacement, management team, sales team, accounting etc etc. That all contributes to the price of a product sold.
Excellent video and information. Something everyone who’s selling printed parts should consider is insurance. Liability at the minimum. If a part you sell fails and causes damage or injury , that’s it. In the litigious world we live in you have to CYA. Labor cost for an employee should be figured at closer to 3 times what’s stated in the video. Again, insurance. workman’s compensation, Disability….etc and don’t forget taxes. There are payroll services that make it really easy. You should list yourself as an employee and pay yourself through one of these services so you find a huge tax bill at the end of the year.
@@suivzmoi It's annoying because he'd probably win the lawsuit, but still be bankrupt from lawyers fees. A reasonable person would consider the branding to mean Dewalt compatible.
No one would give you product liability insurance on parts made on a 3d printer from a home workshop, in the uk you sell everything like this as a kit then the rules dont apply.
Thank you for spreading the word. I have many years of business experience, a degree in accounting/economics and also teach cost accounting, fixed and variable costs to operate a business, to fledgling inventors. One thing that I noted is that you did not account for the labor cost of processing the order not the time to to the packaging and going to the shipping store, etc.
Well for me, I don't factor that in because a computer does all that work automatically. I do not have to even pay for it. So it would be fraudulent to charge for it. I would bet that there have been some illegal things you've been doing not realizing it. This is where you could start violating racketeering laws.
@@isthattrue1083 - so nearsighted of a comment. Computers are a dumb brick. It's the software that makes your request for a proper answer you whatever you want a correct answer. There is also the old "garbage in-garbage out" syndrome of not enough information or incorrect information will never give you the best possible answer. Once upon a time I was a system designer/analyst and have had to delt with your lack of knowledge to get proper results off of that computer.
I forgot who I got it from, but another UA-camr prices his prints at Price pet Printing Hour. I actually took his formula and turned it into a Notion database that automatically helps me price my prints. I think I'll incorporate some of your pricing techniques to fine-tune my Notion formula. Love the breakdown on pricing! Thank you!
One thing we've had to factor more as we've scaled is insurance costs. Most hazard and liability insurance companies have no idea how to place 3D print farms on a risk analysis so they tend to put us in a "light manufacturing" category along side companies that, in my opinion, have much more dangerous equipment such as lathes, CNCs, etc. As always, great content!
Lathes, CNCs, Etc. are far less likely to burn down your house since you use them in a shop and don't leave them running unattended. Most 3d print farms are running unattended in someone's basement or attached garage.
@@SuppaflyZSM This is a good point but I would probably assume that most people running small farms in a garage or basement likely don't have full time employees and probably aren't even thinking about workers comp or liability insurance at that scale. I can only truly speak for myself at least and I admittedly wasn't at that phase. Our fleet ranges from consumer grade FDM machines to industrial additive technologies and fire and/or burn hazards are one the biggest concerns but in comparison to a traditional machine shop I think we are far less likely to have major OSHA recordable incidents with employees.
@@i-solids As someone who had to file the reports for OSHA and Corporate HQ, any time there was an injury/accident.... It might surprise you that 80% of the cases I filed weren't the miter saws, table saws, pneumatic gantry, automatic nailers (The things that could mame and/or kill), it was little simple tools that people let their guard down around and assumed it couldn't hurt them. I can unfortunately also attest, that if there is barely even a 2% chance that a machine could deglove a finger, but you had to be especially profoundly unlucky or doing something very massively wrong.... you'll still be filing a degloving report on it given a few years time. Don't even get me started on the number of people wearing any form of working glove while at a saw (it got to the point where if we saw it in the shop, they were warned the first time, fired on the spot immediately the second time.)
@@DragonCMNDR I can definitely relate and agree with this response in its entirety. I spent some time as an engineer in various O&G companies that mostly delt with large rotating machinery. This has led me to have a big respect for anything that spins fast. I never held a dedicated HSE role but as application engineer I would often be pulled into scenario investigations. I personally noticed 2 common trends: 1) major incidents were statistically rare but often involved a senior technician who knew exactly what he was doing wasn't correct and/or some sort of loose clothing (especially gloves) 2) despite heavy equipment being used everywhere, most incident reports were from seemingly "innocent" tool like screwdrivers, hammers, little knives, etc. Here at our print farm the "innocent" tools concept definitely still applies. In 8 years we've had 2 recordable events - both of which involved.... a spatula. We've discarded the darn thing and changed the process to eliminate the need for this tool entirely. Outside of these incident, the most dangerous thing we have in the shop based on non-recordable minor first aid events is little pieces of plastic support material that can either cause little cuts or maybe end up in someone eye.
Thank you for the video. I just quoted a selection of parts and hardware, requiring extensive custom fitting and assembly. The response to my price was "what do the materials cost?" With all the incredibly cheap items coming from China, many believe that any item should cost pennies. Printing can be a business or a hobby.
Love this new channel idea! I also spend a lot of time watching you on Shop Nation. Here are a few ideas for videos I would love to see: 1) Material selection for specific use cases / parts and why 2) Settings for the various materials on the Bambu Lab X1C or P1S 2) Post Processing of your 3D Prints I just started printing functional parts for a friend (for $) and it has inspired me to pursue this as a side hustle. My PA-CF prints are just OK and I'm still learning how to clean them up.
Probably common knowledge at this point @bleed4glory10, but a small cheap but reliable butane torch, a burr knife, and some 180-400 grit sandpaper (wear a N95 mask...please) goes a long way when post processing PA-CF.
@@TheAdeptGuitarist Thanks! I ended up switching to Atomic Filament ASA-CF for this particular part. It is strong enough, although not as good as Nylon. Sanding is not an option because appearance matters and it will leave the part with a faded or white washed look after sanding.
Seriously, thank you so much for the spreadsheet. I've started modifying it for my use by adding a "Material Database" setup sheet where I can do a lookup for the filament prices based on selecting Material Type and Brand on the main input sheet. I've had to adjust the sheet to my local currencies etc, but overall, extremely happy with it. Thanks.
Really good video. I feel like a few different 3d print farm creators have thought of this video idea but it can feel weird getting so intimate with the numbers. Thank you for demystifying some of these calculations.
I bought your Bosch dust chute and unfortunately it’s not worth the price unless you’re willing to provide a warranty. This product is good for the type of person who does a couple cuts a day but in a production shop I managed to blow mine up within the first two months. Per our conversation on Etsy you do not warranty your work so for me, a product that can’t stand up to production use isn’t worth it to me. If you change your policy to offer replacements, then I’d say it would be worth it but throwing $50 at something that only last me two months isn’t worth it.
Then you should have informed him to make a part out of much stronger material. I built ski/board boats, and we didn't make them for racing, or tricks, and we had them sign an agreement to this effect. I can ask, did you ask him to reprint them, ask for a stronger part, and did you tell him the professional use, or in your case, non-professional overuse? Just asking?
@@e2U Why should the consumer ask for a stronger part? If you pay $50 for a dust collecto you expect it to work no matter how many times you use your saw... unless there was a disclaimer saying it was for consumer or hobby users.
@@rjthomasindyusa Just to humor your thrust for complete and utter Idiocracy, here is the reason one reason you might connect with: Some people are self-destructive narcissist who need more padding in their helmet, because their head has been hit a thousands time more and one more hit and it's all over: you know fragile little "C"arens, or even like buying a harbor freight tool or a SnapON. I hope you have your face all washed off now, and outta the dark hole it was stuck in...Don't do that, ok! haha!
Great video. I'm not really planning on marketing any of my stuff, but watched intently as the presenter hit all the right spots and did it in a very comprehensive, understandable manner. No crappy music!! I agree with other commenter that space should be included, especially when you have a printer farm, not just a single printer like i have on my bench. Good luck, make millions.
A few big costs I forgot to account for when first getting started were costs for business licenses, software, credit card transaction fees, subscriptions to various services (ie. Canva, Adobe Lightroom, MS Office, etc). By the time I had a commercial space and had to account for rent, utilities, and internet, I had to double my product’s original price.
excellent video. many people totally forget machine cost. your video applies to every maker that uses machines whether cnc routers, laser engravers etc. thank you for sharing!!
Great channel and look forward to more. I find people generally grossly underestimate their costs to maintain a business. There is one thing you forgot to mention: development costs- your time, prototype parts, testing, extra machinery for testing, etc. this is all crucial to account for and is part of every vig company's price.
@@Stefan_Van_pellicom same.. R&D time.. modeling/design time etc etc.. big difference between just printing/assembling something vs spending a lot of time designing product that you can produce.. he also did not talk about ecommerce.. web site costs.. payment processing costs.. advertising costs.. correct me of I missed him covering all of that..
I once had someone give me shit on Facebook marketplace for something I was selling. “$130.00 seems very steep for something that costs 10 dollars in filament” I responded that I was selling a product, not filament. He didn’t have much to say to that.
Great honest response. There is also design, your knowledge too. The material cost might be low, but there is so much more to it. At first I was undercharging due to guilt on material cost. It was hard going past that guilt.
@@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel there is two parts to it. If you create the print file yourself that’s fair to charge more but if it’s not your own creation then you should never rip off people by charging that much as the Printer does the job for you. Power consumption even for a day or two continuous printing is not that much. There are many people that overcharge for just 3d printing a product they did not create themselves.
@@TranquilityTerrace I create my own designs, I don’t rip off from others. One person asked me to print multiples of something they found on thingyverse. I told them before I do that I will contact the creator first before committing and make sure they are credited and compensated for it conditionally on their response.
@@TranquilityTerrace There are other cost involved, cost of machine and repair cost, total labor per day, insurance building or space and other expenses if you payed for design and licensing the design. That item he’s sold with everything add should at a minimum be sold for a profit of 60 to 80% for him to stay in business. Best example of that is a product I sold my cost of the bought product was $20 for a per item this item was sold in 12 packs to me. A single item sold was $198, case price was sold for around $1300. My cost where a salesman who made 33% off the sale, building, other labor, insurance, cars, shipping, time spent making the sale as a consultant as advisor than the cost of not making a sale, teaching the customer how to use the product on there 1st use of it.
Those are all things that are a part of doing business. You couldn't run your business without utilities. Your tax obligation is yours and it's the law that you have charge sales tax. Your profitability is up to you. If what you are selling is worthwhile, useful, etc., then people will buy it and you'll make a salary. If not, then your business will die. That's capitalism.
Not to mention there’s like three or four other patents for a very similar devices. Is he paying licensing or just hoping nobody finds out because he’s DIY doing it himself?
quality of content, delivery style, production quality...........this is already a 1M sub channel in those terms. Didn't think i'd enjoy an accountancy video so much, but I did.
I have been discouraged from 3D printing as a business because; there are many products that are available in big box stores for less than it would cost me to Autocad them, trial print them and finish them into a better product than made in China. The most practical and cost effective would be a custom part paid for the cad work per hour; anything mass produced by any other company would be spinning wheels on grease.
That's sort of the point of 3D printing is that you're able to design and prototype new things quickly. If you were just looking to reproduce items en-masse to sell injection molding would be cheaper and faster per unit. If you need to make smaller quantity specialty products then 3D printing would be most cost effective than having to create new molds for each individual object.
that's why a niche is so important, there's no way to compete with 3D printing for products that have volume to justify injection molding. But if you've got a part that will sell 1000/yr, but the mold would cost $80k and you could sell it for $30, you can't start that business without 3D printing
Not true, you can improve on designs with 3D printing where methods like injection moulding cannot do. Or it will cost them a fortune to redo the molds to accommodate the improvements. I have found most end consumers don't want to spend money paying someone to design something for them because it makes it much more expensive.
Having worked in commercial factories on mature products, 10X material cost was the start of pricing. Not to be confused with engineering development or new products from scratch. Pass through parts are usually 3-10x cost or more depending on availability.
So glad you started this channel! I’ve been a fan for a long time of the Shop Nation channel. Crap. I sound like a bot…. I am working on a 3d printed product right now and this helps me a lot. We will be talking about this tonight on my show. Keep at it sir!
Great vid! One thing I would add to the cost is the prototyping and CAD drawing phase for complex products. Let's say you want to sell a specific piece that is not available in the market or that there is no model for it yet for you to buy. That means you'll need to spend hours in CAD software, which is often paid software, to design this product yourself. Furthermore, CAD drawing is often a considered a more complex and technical job, that assumes you have experience with it that others don't, that means you can charge money for it. So the hourly rate for designing the product should also be more expensive than the assembling of the product done after the print.
However you want to call it, landex costs, total cost of goods sold, etc., you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want. Your video was a fantastic overview and excellent when homebased biz and when other incomes (e.g., spouse) exist. As soon as you buy or rent space, and this is 100% your income source, then it's a whole different ballgame.
Great video. Glad to see i was pretty close to this with my pricing. :) Another one to remember is transaction fees. Whether it's amazon, ebay, or even directly through your own site, you're usually going to have to pay a transaction fee on sales.
I have made like 20% of the total cost of my printer selling beta designs basically. I want to design stuff, not just print stls. Some don't get that and want me to just print whatever. Which I get, but it doesn't have a future, I have done it, obviously, but still work as much as I can on my own designs. In over 9 months of learning all this from zero, to have at least 1 product (a phone stand) that I can be proud of, is huge for me. You have a great couple of channels !
A good example on why injection molding is almost always better than 3D printing. Aside from prototyping and making very small batches of parts, injection molding is almost always the better, cheaper, faster option. The plastic is about 1/5 the cost too. The big cost is the mold and injection welding machine. They usually have a much longer life and lower maintenance costs if I'm not mistaken also. Molds can be used many 10's of thousands or even 100's of thousands to millions of times... and the injection molding machines are build for mass production. With it only taking a couple seconds to make each part too, the other costs all come down. They use far less electricity, produce many, many times more parts per man-hour of work, have lower maintenance costs and lower material costs... but they're like $2000 - $4000 just for the most basic models and the molds are expensive too. You also can't simply change designs of a product if something doesn't work right. It usually requires part or all of the mold needing to be replaced (which is not cheap unless you own your own CNC/CAM lathes and milling machines). With a 3d printer you pretty much just have to change the design and re-slice it. It might take a lot of time changing the part and then making sure it can be printed without any new troubles... but it can be done at little to no cost. There are people that make their own injection molding machines, but they're not very cheap either. The cheapest I've seen a working one that could be used to produce several parts was $250 for the parts. That's not bad if you have it and also the time and patience to build your own... but most people probably couldn't/wouldn't do it.
And if you're going to make 100,000 or so of the exact same part, and a thousand different parts that will each require machining the mold, then I would agree with doing injection molding. But there are some geometries that injection molding can't handle properly, and most people doing 3D printing stuff like this are just printing stuff as it's ordered instead of creating a warehouse full of inventory that they have to pay for whether people buy the parts or not. So you're talking the difference between "consumer" level and "industrial" level. If you're a full-blown business with several employees, then maybe 3D printing your parts doesn't make sense. If you're a single person, selling maybe 1000 items a year, then injection molding doesn't make any sense.
is diferent buissnes dude. you compare mass production with custom production. I want L shape ok done. second customers want also L shape but instead of 90º he want a 130º open, done. The next one one also L shape but litle bit close at 65º. in injection mold that small variation cost 20.000$ per each customer. so that ask for MOQ on injection manufacturing. Is totaly diferent.
@@mikeb5664 Depends on what you call successful. If you design a 3D-printed item and sell 10,000 of them, and pricing them according to the principles explained in this video, you might consider that a success. But if the total market for these things is only 10,000, copycats with an injection molding machine aren't even going to look at it. 3D print shops serve the tail end of the market, where volume is low but people are willing to pay a relatively high price to get a part that they wouldn't have access to otherwise.
you can also injection mold lower scale using resin printed molds, there's a few resins that can handle pla temps pretty well so you can get like 20-100 prints out of them, which can be cheaper than directly printing them and you also get a much stronger part than if it was 3d printed. a small aluminium capable router is also the price of a printer, so you can cut your own mold for simple parts. though unless there's no other option, I would only offer it as a surcharge or for very popular designs.
The best thing I ever applied is the cost per hour of my time, this was good to hear. Depending on when the hour is used I modify with multipliers and I always double my current hourly job wage as a start due to me also having a full time job. No side hustle is worth missing out on your children.
Fantastic video brother, keep up the good work. Would love to have you back on the podcast to discuss print farming, since we didn't touch on it last time. Hit me up! BTW, $33 per kg is wildly expensive. Assuming you're printing PETG, reach out to Voxel, Elegoo, or Protomaker, they'll sell you bulk material, and at least in the cast of Protomaker, it's made in the USA.
I have an accounting background and you have left out G&A expenses, plant expenses (rent & building maint, auto expense ) Marketing (which will your biggest expense) Rule of thumb is Retail price = 5 times fully landed costs. In other words - whether you know it or not - you are running a charity. A distributor will pay you 50% and charge the retailer 75%. If you are selling direct on the internet you've got all those costs. If you use Amazon they will shift all the selling, packaging + delivery costs to you and continue to take a bigger and bigger cut - plus they'll share your design with other vendors cheating you out of your design cost (don't even think about a patent) But make sure you copyright your design. (costs you a stamp).
You could consider the finished good as a single part number and the parts, labor and time as individual parts in the finished good Bill of Materials. This way you can measure the individual parts performance and adjust accordingly. If the cost of a purchased part goes up, it will automatically calculate the finished good cost. Then you're only working with units produced, units sold, etc.
FWIW, you missed some large costs in overhead and infrastructure. The cost of the machine and the electricity might be far less than the cost of the room they are running in and the cost to maintain (cool) it. Depreciation has tax consequences so you want to get it right. Otherwise you will end up out of business because you paid tax on the value of your home for no reason. The labor likely needs better consideration. There is a lot of inefficiency to a small number of machines building random schedules.
Up here in Canada, I live in a small town full of other people printing. Sadly it's so competitive here that it's hard to turn a profit on small jobs. Big jobs RARELY come around, and that's generally by a company, which would rather a big business printing farm. There are some printers in my area cutting costs so hard, that flexi-dragons are being sold for $5CAD. To put that into perspective, the same dragon on my bambulab P1S at only 15% infill and 2 walls ends up being roughly $6CAD of just filament.
You may be falling into the same trap that other home based businesses do. To establish pricing, you also need to factor in the square footage that your business occupies, legal and other professional help, permits, insurances, initial time to construct the 3d products you sell, including prototyping, bad debts and returns, marketing costs and other expenses that may be unique to your situation. For example, in my particular case, using your excel sheet I come up with an overall cost of goods sold for a particular item of $18.64. You might think that selling this item for $40 would work out well. But when you factor in sales as a percentage of additional fixed and variable expenses, that number jumps to $29.40 (approximately), making my $40 selling price a bit low.
Another important thing that many do not consider is competition. Is there a product on the market that does the same thing, but costs less and has the same value for the end-user. Some parts aren't worth making, aside from making them for personal use.
Factor square footage of building. If you qualify, you can write that off in taxes. They do have a min. requirement in square footage. What permit or insurance do you think a home business is needed? Again they would be written off in taxes. He did add cost of making product. Prototypes?? For what. Bad debts is simple. File is your courts. If they owe you, you can also file a lien on there home or even cars. How much have you sold online? I ask this because when you have a mass market of sellers, you are in no way going to sell a product much higher then everyone else
Really nicely explained. I'd also add insurance to the mix, any subscriptions for software, any utilities bills and maybe travel costs (Going to buy stuff). From the revenue I would also deduct marketing and some other "after" costs, not to increase price but to get a proper profit calculation.
Hmmm, I can think of many costs that aren’t included: • Rent • Fit-out of the print farm, including shelves and electrical installation • Power for lighting, air conditioning, office equipment, coffee machine, etc. • Subscription fees for software • Designing the product (time, test prints, test parts) divided by estimated products sell. • Labour time seems low, around 2 minutes. Does that time include all the admin work, such as booking the job, loading the file to the printer, unloading the printer, packing the goods, printing labels, updating job status, transporting to the post office, updating the website, and handling customer reviews? • Printer costs are covered, but what about computers, stationery, and other office expenses? • Insurance costs. • Internet and mobile phone costs. • And many more I may not have thought of at the moment.
7 місяців тому+5
I’m curious about other costs such as insurance, software licensing, website costs, fees from Etsy and any other items. I’m assuming these are factored as well for your business. BTW great job. Love both channels.
Very good comments from your side. You are calculating the parts price almost on the same way like I do for my 3D printed parts. I am sometimes frustrated if hobby printer destroy the market price by charging only the material costs. They do not have a sense to run a business in a correct way.
Excellent instruction on operating a 3D Print Business , breaking down every detail and aspect of what it takes to see if the item is actually worth what one is selling it for..... I am attracted to your style because you are making products that people can use in a practical sense, Fun objects are okay and probably sell well, though products that serve a daily purpose are more useful to me, that's only my opinion ...We all like different styles , and that's a good thing...........Great Channel...........
I really liked your video. I would agree that the R&D part also has a roll. The other major aspect that I think is important, is repair “labor” costs? How long does it take to determine there is a problem? How long does it take to diagnose and get replacement parts? How long is the printer out of service? Keep making. I make parts for the Bosch also. I will purchase your dust collector, as mine is broken. I’ll keep watching and making! (Hopefully selling…)
An excellent tutorial on pricing of manufactured goods or services for any entrepreneur! Beware of hidden costs, they could be $180 per day if you’re not mindful of them!
I really like how you broke down the cost buildup for the landing cost. I would suggest a G&A calculation also. This general Margin and "what the market will bear" is good. The one issue with the labor calculated per part is that labor (FTE) is hired at one man year or a % of a man year. That can include Product Design and Development costs. Not trying to complicate things, its more information start-up awareness.
I used to sell high volume 3d printed parts and found that if you treat them like metal die cast, you'll cut down on print time, labor and material cost. Die cast as in thinning the part to the minimum, getting creative with no support prints and creating custom code that knocks the part off the print plate and starts another one with no human intervention.
can i add that you can also model in your own supports that are superior and can come off easier. personally i have a few models that required supports so what i did was model quick tab pull off supports for these models which were perfected to be the bare minimum required for supports as auto supports and software supports do not have such features yet. i.e my models i pull the supports off clean with my hands time required 5 seconds vs 30secs to 1minute if i used software supports.
At that point isn't plastic mold injection better? I mean I know there is a material cost to get going, but in the long run...or is it more of a space issue?
@@TechieTard I looked into injection and the molds would set me back almost 10k each from overseas, but that doesnt include the equipment cost or farming it out. The return of investment (ROI) was not there, so I continued perfecting my printing process.
One suggestion on the pricing sheet - if you could move the advanced inputs into the calculation sheet (maybe an expandable section), then I could have all my products in the same workbook, one on each tab. Then you could also add a rollup worksheet that could show all products in that workbook to see the important data across them at a glance. Still would allow others to use them as individual workbooks if that works for the as well. Just a suggestion, otherwise love it!
Machine costs are your fixed charges as you figure your depreciation cost and overhead like building costs electric power and other operations costs that are fixed from day 1. Depreciation will fall off but repair costs and replacement costs because you will need the money to expand or replace so those costs usually never go away. Also in labor don’t forget payroll taxes and benefits
I would consider extra components: - the cost of 3D-printing accessories and wearable parts (nozzles, bearings, printing surfaces) - furniture for 3D-printers and renovation of the building including electricity - the cost of renting the real-estate, associated with the production - "online" costs (website, ads, processing fees) - the cost of having an accountant Maybe it makes sense to take a look how insurance company would have charged your production.
This is a great discussion and all entrepreneurs who make items for sale need to watch. It’s easy to go broke with these unaccounted for seemingly little costs that are part of your COGS.
Another thing to consider is opportunity cost. Having your own business is fine and dandy, but its good to consider if you're not leaving money on the table by not being deployed in some other way, especially if you are doing it full time. Personally I'd be happy to take a pay cut just to be my own boss and work from home, but even then there's other ways to make money besides 3D printing. It maybe counter intuitive but sometimes scaling down the business so you can do it on the side actually gives you higher margins. But honestly if it keeps the lights on, bread on the table, and you're happy doing it thats way more important than trying to optimize profits.
OMG someone finally speakign the truth about 3d printers and the sellers. Though your still under charing labour, labour costs still apply while the maching is running, for every hour they are in operation.
Travis, in my role as a corporate trainer I work with people all the time who struggle to understand how costing of goods works. This video and your examples are excellent and from now on I'm sharing your video when this topic comes up. Well done. Scott
I like to ask friends if they have a hobby or craft they love(if I don't already know), and then offer a trade. ~Sure I'll print you a set of custom parts. Will you crochet me a custom hat? ~
I feel guilty sometimes which the prices I charge because filament is cheap but also know some of my products do not exist elsewhere and if it isn’t worth it for me to create, then nobody would even have an option to buy them at all. This video helps me feel better about my pricing plan. I really appreciate what you’ve presented here. Thank you!! You’ve easily earned a new subscriber.
In some parts of the country the cost of a kw hour is a LOT more. Based on my last electric bill here in the Boston area the cost of Electricity is about $0.148 / KW hour. However there are numerous other surcharges! These add up to $0.1764 / KW hour, for a Total cost of $0.324 / KW hour. That's more than TWICE the cost you used! In the Boston MA area we pay separate charges for the energy and the transmission of the energy, IE: costs for the use of the grid. There are charges for electric vehicle usage (even if YOU don't own one), and connection of solar systems (even if YOU don't own this), as well as charges for upgrading electric meters (even if yours wasn't due for upgrade), etc, etc, etc...... Welcome to the future!
Pretty good calculation, but I would add in the space as mentioned below, and other equipment like the UPSs, extra wiring for all the printers, networking costs etc... This would be the overhead.
I used to do resin casting. The mistake I made was not factoring failure cost. I realised how important that was when a biggest mould failed after the 2nd pull it pushed back my break-even by a chunk. I prefer to work on break-even work out my fixed costs and then variable costs. I'd want to break even after X amount. Then you have to work out you opportunity cost which is a whole rabbit hole balance of fix cost/time and profit
Good point! In manufacturing, this concept is mostly described as yield - the ratio of working parts to not. Was 90% here. But that seems like it could easily be on the low side. Ideally, one would track it, to know one's actual number.
Here's a professional suggestion that will help you avoid deserved bad press on videos like this one: Show the landed cost in your thumbnail as well as the material cost and sale price. As currently designed, your thumbnail is purely rage bait that leaves your viewers and customers alike with the first impression that you regularly overcharge your clientele 11× what your products cost you, and that impression can be enough to lose you steady long-loyal customers even if they stay to watch the full video (and your cavalier delivery of certain statements near the end won't help). You would also do well to address that particular triumvirate in brief early in the video when it's the explicit topic at large (as it is with this video) instead of at the end, which is again done to engage with your customers and audience and to prevent the impression of fraudulent practices that are already far too common in many industries. As someone who has worked both direct sales and retail, I have personal disagreements with some of the factors you included with what is implied to be your base price and some of the arbitrary numbers you've assigned, but those at least remain within the realm of legitimate capitalism practices and not the anti-capitalistic price-gouging that your thumnail heavily implies.
@PrintFarmAcademy Your attempt at implied insult aside, perhaps not. I do howeve know business and marketing and public relations, and that it takes a special kind of fool to lash out at sometime who is trying to help you when you're making a mistake.
Thank you for this and the spreadsheet! I just ran the numbers on a few prints I sell. Turns out I was taking a loss on one, and coming out at 50% margin on another. My old calculation was garbage, Thank You for providing the insight from your business!
It was $27 for 6 battery mounts, wasn't it? My mind immediately went to thinking about how wealthy (or busy) would I have to be to own SIX(6!) Dewalt battery packs. Those things ain't cheap. Somebody who is that rich in lithium cells can probably find $27 in their couch cushions.
You calculation of profit margins are wrong - Example Landed cost $8.45 + 50% margin = $12.67 - You example shows a price of $19.99 which is really a 130% profit margin.
You’re incorrect. You’re talking 130% markup, not profit. Profit is measured off of the final selling price backwards to COGS, markup is the same but measured forward. Therefore his profit is actually 58ish %
This is awesome. I started doing this on my own worksheet when I was preparing to sell items, but this was quite a bit more in depth than I was doing. Still ended up with similar numbers off by a few %. However one of the biggest things to consider is taxes or any fees for the place you're selling. Where I'm at, I'm looking at 21.8% on every item for taxes when you calculate state sales tax and then federal taxes since I would hope to make over $400 in a year. So for a $25 item with $13 as the FLC, I would add $5.45 to the "cost" of the item as well or subtracted from total profit. Which gives you only 6.55 or 26.2% as the total profit which really isn't good enough I would think. So I'm modifying your worksheet for myself to include those tax numbers as a consideration, so I can look at the profit margins and make an even more informed decision.
Thank you. I've thought about trying selling parts, but always worry about the reality of making a profit. On parts where i think there would be real demand i circle to trying injection molded parts instead but the upfront cost is high as is the risk. It's not as easy as poeple think and these types of videos are informative as well sobering too,. Helping people make more informed decisions with viideos like this has a lot of value.
I am using simple version of print calcualtion on my P1S - for example PLA, $33/kg. Fillament print cost + $1/hour. If a fillament in print cost $3.5, and print time is 10hours. It will cost $13.5 - $14
I didn't see anyone mention this so I will here. Quick note for the end of the video when OP reviews the markup. The math used in the video is incorrect. You DO NOT take your landing cost and divide by your desired markup as done here. If your landed cost is $8.45 and you want a markup of 60%, the selling price would be $13.52, not $19.99 The math here is simple. Landed Cost x Markup% + Landed Cost = Selling Price. Or you can simplify and add 1 to your desired markup. In this case it is 1.6. 1.6x$8.45. You can always check your math by taking your markup $5.07 and dividing it back in to your landing cost. 5.07/8.45=.6 In the video example the math is as follows: $19.99-$8.45=$11.54 To find markup as a percentage you take your $11.45 (markup) and divide it by your landing cost. $11.45/$8.45= 1.36 or 136% markup. This is VERY important when attempting to price your products.
Many places have multiple power rates, based on time used. Power used overnight is usually cheapest, and middle of the day is the highest cost. In FL, middle of the day is 4x the nighttime cost. I am assuming the low cost operation hours are 0 (new) to about 4500 hours, and higher cost of operation after that...
Excellent video and super informative. Rather than adding the 10% filament amount at the end, how about loading it at the front? Example, for a $33 roll of filament, use $36.30 in the slicer. That way a 40 gram print is costed at 40 grams rather than 44 grams. Yes, same result but different optics.
This was really interesting. I used to run a custom woodworking business and having to account for all of the little costs here and there in the process of making a product was mind blowing at first. This is definitely a similar, yet simpler path. Sounds like you kind of have to be an parts engineer/inventor to run a print farm, though. Otherwise, what are you printing? Other people's designs? I think I'll definitely have to get a quality FDM printer at some point and mess around with it.
im just gearing up my shop now and i know im not good at taking a good price, i shortsell myself all the time, so i made a excel ark, like yours and i see im on the right track here, thanks for the inspiration.
Biggest thing... 3d printing is for iterative design. Not mass production. If you're serious about producing a plastic based product. Injection molding period. Unless it some esoteric part. Have a wonderful day ❤
Thank you for the analysis and breakdown. I got a few products I'm interested in bringing to the market and i found this extremely helpful when considering a start up.
In the quick pan you did of the print farm, I thought I saw several UPS's (okay, technically, not a UPS, a battery backup). So 2 comments: they also have a lifespan that needs to be accounted for, as well as power consumption; and I hadn't thought of doing that for my printers, so now I will, which is is funny, 'cuz I have them on everything else!
I always thought that if I started selling prints I would need to figure in print time somehow since it can vary widely based on layer height, infill, ect. Your "Machine Cost" looks like it would cover it nicely. Very informative video, thank you.
So you include the hourly labor rate in the total landed cost. Afterwards you multiply the total landed cost by 2 (50% margin prince). So the labor rate is also multiplied by that factor (2 in this case). This means that you actually work at double the hourly rate. Isn't it more correct to add the labor cost afterwards? It will result in a much lower price of course, but I think this will be a much more reasonable price. What are your thoughts on this?
I didn't read EVERY comment but the first thing I noticed while watching your video is you never mentioned the cost of "space". Your print farm occupies space, either owned (basement, garage, etc.) or rented. I had a home based consulting business for years and part of my cost doing business was using a bedroom converted to an office. The costs of using that space are deductible by using Form 8829 (Also see Tax Topic 509), Expenses for Business Use of Your Home. It is a legitimate expense and part of the cost of goods sold.
rent is a fixed cost. it doesnt scale with your production. if it affects your production, it does so in the form of limiting your maximum output but it doesnt affect the cost of each part produced per se. that is the rent is $1000 regardless if you sell 10 pieces or 10,000. in that sense you shouldn't be counting it as part of the cost of goods sold. this type of cost typically goes under Selling, General & Administrative costs, as do costs like utlity bills to run the AC and lights, the website, wages for labor that doesn't directly have to do with the actual part like janitor, supervisor, etc. if you do include such fixed costs in your COGS then you will find that low volume sales projections make the part look expensive to produce, but high volume sales make it look overly profitable. if you then start adding new SKUs to your pipeline, you will then end up double and triple counting all those fixed costs. the reality is that your spreadsheets will tell you set unrealistically high prices for each SKU.
if however the landlord is imposing a percentage of revenue on top of rent, as do some F&B landlords in parts of the world, that directly translates to cost per part sold and that would be a reasonable justification to count as COGS.
@@suivzmoi Not exactly. Regardless of the ratio to part made it is hardly a fixed cost. Space that you wouldn't otherwise need does cost money. Things like shelves, tools, fixtures, furniture, web presence, taxes, licenses, design computers and network, all cost money and need to be accounted for in the cost of products sold.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ I would watch what you deduct. I have an accountant for that. You could end up in jail for fraud if you aren't careful and they audit you.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ yeah there's a place for all that. its not COGS. you have no idea what fixed cost means. just get an accountant.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ accounting wise, rent is fixed. It’s not variable. Yes, you can increase the available space needed but it is not directly related to output volume. This would an be indirect cost or overhead and should be allocated accordingly.
There are three choices when analyzing the market. A: Position as superior. B: Decrease your margin. C: Choose to not enter that specific items market. The third choice should always be considered.
yep, so true, this is where capitalism can either work for you or against you. thankfully distributed manufacturing like 3d printing can be a really cool way to make capitalism work FOR you by leveling the playing field slightly instead of against you like it does in many cases for small players in this kind of economy. as you allude to the big question is: are you willing to undercut?... aka can you still make money at 25 or 30% margin vs 50%? maybe, maybe not, all depends. if you are shrewd and have done your research properly or are willing to invest larger amounts to produce more units in less time it might be possible... but also the possibility to lose it all increases because if someone copies your idea or someone has a million of the same thing injection molded in china somewhere and then sells them here.... you get the picture. but if you (whoever) follow me here there is another aspect to this: perhaps you are the person who steps ahead and sees the demand and has those particular parts or items batched out from a factory or buys the next level of tool or equipment to make more etc... anyway, not at all being adversarial, more enjoying and summarizing the fact that we can 3d print things and learn not only engineering, materials science, computers/programming possibly but also fundamentals of business and economics .... all of it has direct application to this one little machine or two in our office or shop. Most importantly... the critical thinking skills to put it all together and decide what is or is not important in the given scenario!
If i were a high school shop or science teacher i would be doing a month (or whatever reasonable time) of every semester on 3d printing and its direct applications to the subjects being taught, coordinating with other subject's teachers so they could further amplify the effect of tying things together to other aspects students needed to learn. STEM coupled with proper communication skills (making youtube videos in addition to writing and reading) is wonderful eh?
There's also choice 4, the "bullshit the market" choice. Works great for Apple :)
Yep...my rule is to avoid saturated markets...if it is easy then more people will be in it making it a race to the bottom for margins.
I use C as well when selling items on Ebay
@@DeagleBingo If you don't know whether you're making money at 30% margin, you're doing your math wrong. A positive margin by definition means you _are_ making money. The question is whether you could make _more_ money making/selling something else.
I loved the fact that you used several examples, each with a slightly different level of difficulty. You also covered all the small details that many people miss.
I bought your dust collection part for my miter saw and it works well. I was also glad to pay your price and hope you made money on it. Money is an easy way for consumers to benefit from your creativity
Absolutely, and remember that that also does not take into account the amount of time he had to spend to design and prototype the part. I think that's the one aspect he left out.
I'm really glad I didn't buy the part but bought the file because it breaks about every three months and I have to print another one. I'm only printing in ABS but I'm printing at 75% infill and still breaks.
@@SoFalsey-ff4ttif it does then it is a crap design.
@@SoFalsey-ff4tthow does it break? If it’s in layer lines you can prob adjust temps for better cohesion.
As someone who does cost accounting for major manufacturing companies - you'd be surprised how many of them cannot properly get their costs together because their ERP is such a mess.
I worked for a small company that the owner was basically driving into the ground because he was scatter brained and couldn’t keep his ERP in check or managed. Put a whole migration and operations plan together for him to have everything work automatically between website, warehouse, ERP, etc. but he couldn’t follow through and now he is still paying costs related to incorrect stock tracking, unoptimized shipping profiles. Really makes me think how some businesses have made it as far as they have
I'm not surprised. I worked as a manufacturing engineer and learned that most companies have a hard time calculating actual labor costs....and estimating labor costs...
I work for a Fortune 500 company and you are spot on here.
Spot on, it's a truly mess
Omg I worked for one of the major automotive manufacturers as cost accountant/data analyst and was responsible for the cost accounting of the entire plant. QAD was a cluster and trying to reconcile BOM cost rollups after ECN's because of 0 costs on the part by materials, engineering not versioning the part, parts not being switched to the correct model and having an older model/different model's part on the BOM, it was a constant mess.
Such impeccable timing! I was just asked what it would cost to 3D print a fairly simple part an X number of times, but since I don't have a 3D printing business I had no idea how to price this. But now I do! So thanks!
hahaha same and it poped in my recommandations...
One thing I'll add is that as an Etsy seller offering free shipping for many years, I have realized that for whatever reason, my buyers do not care about shipping cost, they buy at the same rate whether it's free shipping or $5.50. I don't know whether this is an Etsy specific thing, where people feel more justified paying shipping on a "handmade" item, but it came as a big shock to me. I had assumed that Amazon had spoiled people and anything other than free shipping would scare the buyers off. Not the case, in my experience. Has really boosted my bottom line, since shipping was by far the biggest slice of the pie taken out of my profits. Great production value on the video by the way.
If shipping is declared seperately, the buyer can order more items at once, so he and you can both save money.
Agree and disagree I have bought off ebay many times and always go for the free shipping ones and have gone back and looked it was the same price on both products the ones with free shipping was a little more expensive and the ones without free shipping were cheaper but the same after shipping
I don't care to pay shipping as long as you combine shipping. If I buy 1 small part and shipping is $10 then it should STAY $10 if I order 10 of those tiny parts.
How much does Etsy charge for their fee?
i always look at the full cost of something. If I can buy something for $15.00 with $5.00 shipping vs another item for $18.00 with free shipping, I would be more inclined to go for the $18.00 one because it's cheaper overall.
Design cost, especially for custom orders. I do custom engineering solutions so I factor in engineering labor into project costs.
Consider non sale price for filament. Can not count on always buying it on sale.
Totally! To me that would fall into the "labor" category but good point for engineering costs for one-off projects
Charge by the job or hour? Some of the projects I've done in this space have gotten a little crazy. I mean 70 - 80 hours of design and redesign. Basically taking a drawing on a napkin to a viable product.
@@jamesdmc2928/videos sounds like you are going more into the niche space of design consultation rather than print production. if you are creating something out of nothing, you should obviously charge per hour. this is because your production profit is not guaranteed. they may just say thank you and leave once you have completed the design. at any point if they feel they are not getting the required rate of results vs rate charged, the relationship ends and you still get paid. the hourly rate incentivises the customer to treat everyone's time as valuable, which it is. separate the design cost from the print cost.
if the relationship is worth future business (you should be able to tell after working 60hours with them on something), you can do tricks like offer lower rate for the next 20 hrs. or do it for free if they commit a minimum order qty of the final product via which you can recoup the design cost.
Well, no crap, design time costs your time and you should be compensated for it.
I charge $75CDN per hours for custom CAD design, if it’s a small part that would take me way less than 1hr, I charge a basic $25 when it’s person that needs an item for their hobby or small house hold part. For example I just did a small clip for a knitting machine that is no longer in production or sell parts for it. I charged $25 to design and $10 per printed clip. Any future orders for this clip for other people in her knitting guild is $10 since it’s been designed. I got extra orders for 7 of them. No one out there have that part available.
I just wanted to point out the great thing you’re doing for the environment in this way. You’re keeping a machine alive with your knowledge and a small 3D-printed part. We need stronger rights to repair and open-source plans (like CAD models for parts) for all discontinued machines around the world. Keep up the great work!
@@Homie111092 Thanks, the fancy pants shower that was installed in our house by previous owner has a lot of custom parts. Even the glass rollers. A small 1ix2 inch part of over engineered part broke. Was going to be over $300 and 6 months wait for it. 20 mins to design about the same amount to print at cost of $0.4 to print (including electricity). The waste is mind boggling. I think the idea of the roller being non standard and engineered to break and that cost is for people to buy a new shower unit. The greed is crazy. We need printers in every homes so people can have more meaningful and compelling jobs aligned to what they want to do instead of being stuck in factories.
@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel I want to get started, Im making my way through youtube to soak in as much information as possible. Where do you recommend I start? A youtube channel? A specific video? A 3d printer model you recommend? Tell me what you can, I completely agree, all households need a 3d printer. A regular appliance that is used whenever something breaks, just find the part design online, print and repair. What a world we'd be living in then.
@@AdrianDWolfe I was in your shoes about a year ago today lol.
CNC kitchen has a lot of great stuff but honest once you watch enough 3dp videos you will get recommended them enough you wont need to look. for my printer I went with a bambulab p1s and its served me extremely well, its much cheaper now even, i paid about 900 usd shipped with filament, about 150 was CF stuff, CF filament (pet and petg) a hardened nozzle and extruder gear. It seems like they have a massive sale on everything from late october to black friday, I recently added a multi material system (AMS) which was 100$ off with that which should still be running. though if you dont plan on doing engineering filaments an A1 or mini could be fine too. There are a LOT of really competitive machines out there now too, bambu (specifically the p1p, p1s, x1c chassis) has REALLY good support for aftermarket parts which has been amazing. Since then I have learned fusion (I had used autocad for a few years a decade ago) and have been constantly designing and fixing my own stuff since. I have only had to open it up once to rotate a REALLY rattly linear bearing, but nothing that has affected printing really.
as far as stuff I have made off the top of my head (not all designed by me but a lot were)
.Glasses frames (which I am still wearing right now)
.shelf pegs
.wall hooks
.MANY p1s upgrades
.toys and personalized christmas gifts
.storage and organization
.a visor mount for a car
.a clamp screw (that was plastic to begin with) that was 40USD to replace from the OEM shipped
and so many more, I dont think its saved me money, but besides a 3090 for mining eth its the one machine I have bought that has actually paid off a significant portion of its value. and not to forget just how much it kept out of a landfill by making repairs possible. recycling pla at home on the cheap is still a few years out, but its not a big deal to keep a trash bag or so a year around until then.
If I had to guess ive spent around 1100-1200 total on printing stuff, and id wager its saved upwards of 600$. the glasses frames really carried here at 200, the visor part for the car was also 80+ shipping. Theres also the "one of a kind" stuff like I printed a marble PLA weeping angel (250mm tall or so), good luck finding something like that for a christmas gift. I honestly think we are moving towards that time where people will be more likely than not to find that someone already made a model and uploaded it for the exact thing they broke. more often then not printables has what I need, and for free. printables has a rewards program that lets you get (cheap, you pay shipping) rolls of filament for uploading makes of others models, and uploading your own, though most of the points come from makes. comparing your models to others is a great way to learn, especially if you are looking to design your own. Look into tinkercad if you are new to design. and then you can move onto something like fusion 360. even though I really dislike the business practices of subscriptions and paywalls its still the best parametric modeling program. its still free for personal use, and commercial with limitations, but a lot of subscription scumminess.
thats about all I can think of now, welcome to the world of 3d printing!
Do you have some kind of storefront where you list/sell all these one-off items? It would be the best way for other people needing that specific thing to find your version.
Something that someone in retail told me is if you are not pissing off about 10% of your potential customers with the price you are under priced.
My father was in manufacturing for 30 years. He worked for a moderately-large manufacturer on the production side. Material costs were no more than 15% of the sale price of a part. Normal stuff that was used on the end-product cost about 1/2 of what was charged when they were sold as replacement parts. Replacement parts for out of production products cost about double what current-production parts did simply because of the time involved in setup for very short runs.
It's also often not possible to produce new replacement parts via the same methods as the original parts were produced, so they may need to be CNC machined or even fabricated - neither of which gets the price any closer to that of the original production. But, hey, you need the part, right? lol
in a larger company we must also consider the overhead costs of the building, equipment replacement, management team, sales team, accounting etc etc. That all contributes to the price of a product sold.
Excellent video and information. Something everyone who’s selling printed parts should consider is insurance. Liability at the minimum. If a part you sell fails and causes damage or injury , that’s it. In the litigious world we live in you have to CYA. Labor cost for an employee should be figured at closer to 3 times what’s stated in the video. Again, insurance. workman’s compensation, Disability….etc and don’t forget taxes. There are payroll services that make it really easy. You should list yourself as an employee and pay yourself through one of these services so you find a huge tax bill at the end of the year.
i wonder how much is the liability cost per part for having all those battery holders with the DeWalt name on it.
@@suivzmoi Get you sued into the dirt.
@@suivzmoi It's annoying because he'd probably win the lawsuit, but still be bankrupt from lawyers fees. A reasonable person would consider the branding to mean Dewalt compatible.
No one would give you product liability insurance on parts made on a 3d printer from a home workshop, in the uk you sell everything like this as a kit then the rules dont apply.
Thank you for spreading the word. I have many years of business experience, a degree in accounting/economics and also teach cost accounting, fixed and variable costs to operate a business, to fledgling inventors. One thing that I noted is that you did not account for the labor cost of processing the order not the time to to the packaging and going to the shipping store, etc.
Well for me, I don't factor that in because a computer does all that work automatically. I do not have to even pay for it. So it would be fraudulent to charge for it. I would bet that there have been some illegal things you've been doing not realizing it. This is where you could start violating racketeering laws.
@@isthattrue1083 - so nearsighted of a comment. Computers are a dumb brick. It's the software that makes your request for a proper answer you whatever you want a correct answer. There is also the old "garbage in-garbage out" syndrome of not enough information or incorrect information will never give you the best possible answer. Once upon a time I was a system designer/analyst and have had to delt with your lack of knowledge to get proper results off of that computer.
@@isthattrue1083 rAcKeTeErInG 🤡
I forgot who I got it from, but another UA-camr prices his prints at Price pet Printing Hour. I actually took his formula and turned it into a Notion database that automatically helps me price my prints. I think I'll incorporate some of your pricing techniques to fine-tune my Notion formula. Love the breakdown on pricing! Thank you!
One thing we've had to factor more as we've scaled is insurance costs. Most hazard and liability insurance companies have no idea how to place 3D print farms on a risk analysis so they tend to put us in a "light manufacturing" category along side companies that, in my opinion, have much more dangerous equipment such as lathes, CNCs, etc.
As always, great content!
Lathes, CNCs, Etc. are far less likely to burn down your house since you use them in a shop and don't leave them running unattended. Most 3d print farms are running unattended in someone's basement or attached garage.
@@SuppaflyZSM This is a good point but I would probably assume that most people running small farms in a garage or basement likely don't have full time employees and probably aren't even thinking about workers comp or liability insurance at that scale. I can only truly speak for myself at least and I admittedly wasn't at that phase.
Our fleet ranges from consumer grade FDM machines to industrial additive technologies and fire and/or burn hazards are one the biggest concerns but in comparison to a traditional machine shop I think we are far less likely to have major OSHA recordable incidents with employees.
@@i-solids As someone who had to file the reports for OSHA and Corporate HQ, any time there was an injury/accident.... It might surprise you that 80% of the cases I filed weren't the miter saws, table saws, pneumatic gantry, automatic nailers (The things that could mame and/or kill), it was little simple tools that people let their guard down around and assumed it couldn't hurt them. I can unfortunately also attest, that if there is barely even a 2% chance that a machine could deglove a finger, but you had to be especially profoundly unlucky or doing something very massively wrong.... you'll still be filing a degloving report on it given a few years time.
Don't even get me started on the number of people wearing any form of working glove while at a saw (it got to the point where if we saw it in the shop, they were warned the first time, fired on the spot immediately the second time.)
@@DragonCMNDR I can definitely relate and agree with this response in its entirety.
I spent some time as an engineer in various O&G companies that mostly delt with large rotating machinery. This has led me to have a big respect for anything that spins fast. I never held a dedicated HSE role but as application engineer I would often be pulled into scenario investigations. I personally noticed 2 common trends:
1) major incidents were statistically rare but often involved a senior technician who knew exactly what he was doing wasn't correct and/or some sort of loose clothing (especially gloves)
2) despite heavy equipment being used everywhere, most incident reports were from seemingly "innocent" tool like screwdrivers, hammers, little knives, etc.
Here at our print farm the "innocent" tools concept definitely still applies. In 8 years we've had 2 recordable events - both of which involved.... a spatula. We've discarded the darn thing and changed the process to eliminate the need for this tool entirely. Outside of these incident, the most dangerous thing we have in the shop based on non-recordable minor first aid events is little pieces of plastic support material that can either cause little cuts or maybe end up in someone eye.
Thank you for the video. I just quoted a selection of parts and hardware, requiring extensive custom fitting and assembly. The response to my price was "what do the materials cost?" With all the incredibly cheap items coming from China, many believe that any item should cost pennies. Printing can be a business or a hobby.
Love this new channel idea! I also spend a lot of time watching you on Shop Nation. Here are a few ideas for videos I would love to see:
1) Material selection for specific use cases / parts and why
2) Settings for the various materials on the Bambu Lab X1C or P1S
2) Post Processing of your 3D Prints
I just started printing functional parts for a friend (for $) and it has inspired me to pursue this as a side hustle. My PA-CF prints are just OK and I'm still learning how to clean them up.
Thanks for the idea!
Probably common knowledge at this point @bleed4glory10, but a small cheap but reliable butane torch, a burr knife, and some 180-400 grit sandpaper (wear a N95 mask...please) goes a long way when post processing PA-CF.
@@TheAdeptGuitarist Thanks! I ended up switching to Atomic Filament ASA-CF for this particular part. It is strong enough, although not as good as Nylon. Sanding is not an option because appearance matters and it will leave the part with a faded or white washed look after sanding.
Seriously, thank you so much for the spreadsheet. I've started modifying it for my use by adding a "Material Database" setup sheet where I can do a lookup for the filament prices based on selecting Material Type and Brand on the main input sheet. I've had to adjust the sheet to my local currencies etc, but overall, extremely happy with it. Thanks.
Really good video. I feel like a few different 3d print farm creators have thought of this video idea but it can feel weird getting so intimate with the numbers. Thank you for demystifying some of these calculations.
This was one of the best manufacturing and sales business videos that I've seen in a long while.
I bought your Bosch dust chute and unfortunately it’s not worth the price unless you’re willing to provide a warranty. This product is good for the type of person who does a couple cuts a day but in a production shop I managed to blow mine up within the first two months. Per our conversation on Etsy you do not warranty your work so for me, a product that can’t stand up to production use isn’t worth it to me. If you change your policy to offer replacements, then I’d say it would be worth it but throwing $50 at something that only last me two months isn’t worth it.
Then you should have informed him to make a part out of much stronger material. I built ski/board boats, and we didn't make them for racing, or tricks, and we had them sign an agreement to this effect. I can ask, did you ask him to reprint them, ask for a stronger part, and did you tell him the professional use, or in your case, non-professional overuse? Just asking?
@@e2U Why should the consumer ask for a stronger part? If you pay $50 for a dust collecto you expect it to work no matter how many times you use your saw... unless there was a disclaimer saying it was for consumer or hobby users.
@@rjthomasindyusa Just to humor your thrust for complete and utter Idiocracy, here is the reason one reason you might connect with: Some people are self-destructive narcissist who need more padding in their helmet, because their head has been hit a thousands time more and one more hit and it's all over: you know fragile little "C"arens, or even like buying a harbor freight tool or a SnapON. I hope you have your face all washed off now, and outta the dark hole it was stuck in...Don't do that, ok! haha!
@@rjthomasindyusa You dont take Harbour Freight tools to work in a dealership service center.
@@dinneryeti Harbor Freight wouldn't charge $50 for a dust collection boot. However.... that is what I would expect from a company like Snap On.
Great video. I'm not really planning on marketing any of my stuff, but watched intently as the presenter hit all the right spots and did it in a very comprehensive, understandable manner. No crappy music!! I agree with other commenter that space should be included, especially when you have a printer farm, not just a single printer like i have on my bench. Good luck, make millions.
A few big costs I forgot to account for when first getting started were costs for business licenses, software, credit card transaction fees, subscriptions to various services (ie. Canva, Adobe Lightroom, MS Office, etc). By the time I had a commercial space and had to account for rent, utilities, and internet, I had to double my product’s original price.
excellent video. many people totally forget machine cost. your video applies to every maker that uses machines whether cnc routers, laser engravers etc. thank you for sharing!!
Great channel and look forward to more. I find people generally grossly underestimate their costs to maintain a business.
There is one thing you forgot to mention: development costs- your time, prototype parts, testing, extra machinery for testing, etc. this is all crucial to account for and is part of every vig company's price.
I came here to comment that too.
@@Stefan_Van_pellicom same.. R&D time.. modeling/design time etc etc.. big difference between just printing/assembling something vs spending a lot of time designing product that you can produce.. he also did not talk about ecommerce.. web site costs.. payment processing costs.. advertising costs.. correct me of I missed him covering all of that..
I once had someone give me shit on Facebook marketplace for something I was selling. “$130.00 seems very steep for something that costs 10 dollars in filament”
I responded that I was selling a product, not filament.
He didn’t have much to say to that.
Great honest response. There is also design, your knowledge too. The material cost might be low, but there is so much more to it. At first I was undercharging due to guilt on material cost. It was hard going past that guilt.
@@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel there is two parts to it. If you create the print file yourself that’s fair to charge more but if it’s not your own creation then you should never rip off people by charging that much as the Printer does the job for you. Power consumption even for a day or two continuous printing is not that much. There are many people that overcharge for just 3d printing a product they did not create themselves.
@@TranquilityTerrace I create my own designs, I don’t rip off from others. One person asked me to print multiples of something they found on thingyverse. I told them before I do that I will contact the creator first before committing and make sure they are credited and compensated for it conditionally on their response.
What more is there to say though? He is never going to buy it. He did not even ask a question, he was telling you.
@@TranquilityTerrace There are other cost involved, cost of machine and repair cost, total labor per day, insurance building or space and other expenses if you payed for design and licensing the design. That item he’s sold with everything add should at a minimum be sold for a profit of 60 to 80% for him to stay in business. Best example of that is a product I sold my cost of the bought product was $20 for a per item this item was sold in 12 packs to me. A single item sold was $198, case price was sold for around $1300. My cost where a salesman who made 33% off the sale, building, other labor, insurance, cars, shipping, time spent making the sale as a consultant as advisor than the cost of not making a sale, teaching the customer how to use the product on there 1st use of it.
Paint it ugly green. 😂
Utilities, taxes, business licenses, rent, salary. Great honest response that the average person doesn’t realize.
Those are all things that are a part of doing business. You couldn't run your business without utilities. Your tax obligation is yours and it's the law that you have charge sales tax. Your profitability is up to you. If what you are selling is worthwhile, useful, etc., then people will buy it and you'll make a salary. If not, then your business will die. That's capitalism.
@@isthattrue1083 that’s right ALL business cost plus salary and any profit is passed on to the consumer.
@@isthattrue1083 Remember that when your next auto repair bill hits you!
@@crisnmaryfam7344 will fix it myself like always because im not to lazy to pick up a book like you apparently
Not to mention there’s like three or four other patents for a very similar devices. Is he paying licensing or just hoping nobody finds out because he’s DIY doing it himself?
quality of content, delivery style, production quality...........this is already a 1M sub channel in those terms. Didn't think i'd enjoy an accountancy video so much, but I did.
I have been discouraged from 3D printing as a business because; there are many products that are available in big box stores for less than it would cost me to Autocad them, trial print them and finish them into a better product than made in China. The most practical and cost effective would be a custom part paid for the cad work per hour; anything mass produced by any other company would be spinning wheels on grease.
That's sort of the point of 3D printing is that you're able to design and prototype new things quickly. If you were just looking to reproduce items en-masse to sell injection molding would be cheaper and faster per unit. If you need to make smaller quantity specialty products then 3D printing would be most cost effective than having to create new molds for each individual object.
that's why a niche is so important, there's no way to compete with 3D printing for products that have volume to justify injection molding. But if you've got a part that will sell 1000/yr, but the mold would cost $80k and you could sell it for $30, you can't start that business without 3D printing
Not true, you can improve on designs with 3D printing where methods like injection moulding cannot do. Or it will cost them a fortune to redo the molds to accommodate the improvements. I have found most end consumers don't want to spend money paying someone to design something for them because it makes it much more expensive.
@@ggcf 3D printing has its place but not so much where the hobbyist getting filthy rich is. That guy would make more money flipping burgers.
@@Mojo4884 you mean don't go in trying to print hobby stuff?
Having worked in commercial factories on mature products, 10X material cost was the start of pricing. Not to be confused with engineering development or new products from scratch. Pass through parts are usually 3-10x cost or more depending on availability.
So glad you started this channel! I’ve been a fan for a long time of the Shop Nation channel. Crap. I sound like a bot…. I am working on a 3d printed product right now and this helps me a lot. We will be talking about this tonight on my show. Keep at it sir!
Great vid! One thing I would add to the cost is the prototyping and CAD drawing phase for complex products. Let's say you want to sell a specific piece that is not available in the market or that there is no model for it yet for you to buy. That means you'll need to spend hours in CAD software, which is often paid software, to design this product yourself. Furthermore, CAD drawing is often a considered a more complex and technical job, that assumes you have experience with it that others don't, that means you can charge money for it. So the hourly rate for designing the product should also be more expensive than the assembling of the product done after the print.
However you want to call it, landex costs, total cost of goods sold, etc., you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want. Your video was a fantastic overview and excellent when homebased biz and when other incomes (e.g., spouse) exist. As soon as you buy or rent space, and this is 100% your income source, then it's a whole different ballgame.
I’m in that exact boat and still rely on this method
Great video. Glad to see i was pretty close to this with my pricing. :)
Another one to remember is transaction fees. Whether it's amazon, ebay, or even directly through your own site, you're usually going to have to pay a transaction fee on sales.
every person selling 3d prints needs to see this!
I have made like 20% of the total cost of my printer selling beta designs basically. I want to design stuff, not just print stls. Some don't get that and want me to just print whatever. Which I get, but it doesn't have a future, I have done it, obviously, but still work as much as I can on my own designs. In over 9 months of learning all this from zero, to have at least 1 product (a phone stand) that I can be proud of, is huge for me. You have a great couple of channels !
A good example on why injection molding is almost always better than 3D printing. Aside from prototyping and making very small batches of parts, injection molding is almost always the better, cheaper, faster option. The plastic is about 1/5 the cost too. The big cost is the mold and injection welding machine. They usually have a much longer life and lower maintenance costs if I'm not mistaken also. Molds can be used many 10's of thousands or even 100's of thousands to millions of times... and the injection molding machines are build for mass production. With it only taking a couple seconds to make each part too, the other costs all come down. They use far less electricity, produce many, many times more parts per man-hour of work, have lower maintenance costs and lower material costs... but they're like $2000 - $4000 just for the most basic models and the molds are expensive too. You also can't simply change designs of a product if something doesn't work right. It usually requires part or all of the mold needing to be replaced (which is not cheap unless you own your own CNC/CAM lathes and milling machines). With a 3d printer you pretty much just have to change the design and re-slice it. It might take a lot of time changing the part and then making sure it can be printed without any new troubles... but it can be done at little to no cost. There are people that make their own injection molding machines, but they're not very cheap either. The cheapest I've seen a working one that could be used to produce several parts was $250 for the parts. That's not bad if you have it and also the time and patience to build your own... but most people probably couldn't/wouldn't do it.
And if you're going to make 100,000 or so of the exact same part, and a thousand different parts that will each require machining the mold, then I would agree with doing injection molding. But there are some geometries that injection molding can't handle properly, and most people doing 3D printing stuff like this are just printing stuff as it's ordered instead of creating a warehouse full of inventory that they have to pay for whether people buy the parts or not. So you're talking the difference between "consumer" level and "industrial" level. If you're a full-blown business with several employees, then maybe 3D printing your parts doesn't make sense. If you're a single person, selling maybe 1000 items a year, then injection molding doesn't make any sense.
is diferent buissnes dude. you compare mass production with custom production. I want L shape ok done. second customers want also L shape but instead of 90º he want a 130º open, done. The next one one also L shape but litle bit close at 65º. in injection mold that small variation cost 20.000$ per each customer. so that ask for MOQ on injection manufacturing. Is totaly diferent.
You can expect any successful 3d product to be quickly copied and manufactured by someone using injection molding.
@@mikeb5664 Depends on what you call successful. If you design a 3D-printed item and sell 10,000 of them, and pricing them according to the principles explained in this video, you might consider that a success. But if the total market for these things is only 10,000, copycats with an injection molding machine aren't even going to look at it. 3D print shops serve the tail end of the market, where volume is low but people are willing to pay a relatively high price to get a part that they wouldn't have access to otherwise.
you can also injection mold lower scale using resin printed molds, there's a few resins that can handle pla temps pretty well so you can get like 20-100 prints out of them, which can be cheaper than directly printing them and you also get a much stronger part than if it was 3d printed.
a small aluminium capable router is also the price of a printer, so you can cut your own mold for simple parts.
though unless there's no other option, I would only offer it as a surcharge or for very popular designs.
The best thing I ever applied is the cost per hour of my time, this was good to hear. Depending on when the hour is used I modify with multipliers and I always double my current hourly job wage as a start due to me also having a full time job. No side hustle is worth missing out on your children.
Fantastic video brother, keep up the good work. Would love to have you back on the podcast to discuss print farming, since we didn't touch on it last time. Hit me up!
BTW, $33 per kg is wildly expensive. Assuming you're printing PETG, reach out to Voxel, Elegoo, or Protomaker, they'll sell you bulk material, and at least in the cast of Protomaker, it's made in the USA.
I am in Australia, and I buy it for about $10 kg and I still avoid low quality filament.
Thank you. One additional recommendation I would suggest is adding a % option for VAT costs. Transaction fees, tax, ect
I have an accounting background and you have left out G&A expenses, plant expenses (rent & building maint, auto expense ) Marketing (which will your biggest expense) Rule of thumb is Retail price = 5 times fully landed costs. In other words - whether you know it or not - you are running a charity. A distributor will pay you 50% and charge the retailer 75%. If you are selling direct on the internet you've got all those costs. If you use Amazon they will shift all the selling, packaging + delivery costs to you and continue to take a bigger and bigger cut - plus they'll share your design with other vendors cheating you out of your design cost (don't even think about a patent) But make sure you copyright your design. (costs you a stamp).
OMG you keyboard experts are exhausting.....Any sentence that starts off by telling your perceived expertise is typically not worth the read
You could consider the finished good as a single part number and the parts, labor and time as individual parts in the finished good Bill of Materials. This way you can measure the individual parts performance and adjust accordingly. If the cost of a purchased part goes up, it will automatically calculate the finished good cost. Then you're only working with units produced, units sold, etc.
FWIW, you missed some large costs in overhead and infrastructure. The cost of the machine and the electricity might be far less than the cost of the room they are running in and the cost to maintain (cool) it. Depreciation has tax consequences so you want to get it right. Otherwise you will end up out of business because you paid tax on the value of your home for no reason.
The labor likely needs better consideration. There is a lot of inefficiency to a small number of machines building random schedules.
Up here in Canada, I live in a small town full of other people printing. Sadly it's so competitive here that it's hard to turn a profit on small jobs. Big jobs RARELY come around, and that's generally by a company, which would rather a big business printing farm.
There are some printers in my area cutting costs so hard, that flexi-dragons are being sold for $5CAD. To put that into perspective, the same dragon on my bambulab P1S at only 15% infill and 2 walls ends up being roughly $6CAD of just filament.
You may be falling into the same trap that other home based businesses do. To establish pricing, you also need to factor in the square footage that your business occupies, legal and other professional help, permits, insurances, initial time to construct the 3d products you sell, including prototyping, bad debts and returns, marketing costs and other expenses that may be unique to your situation. For example, in my particular case, using your excel sheet I come up with an overall cost of goods sold for a particular item of $18.64. You might think that selling this item for $40 would work out well. But when you factor in sales as a percentage of additional fixed and variable expenses, that number jumps to $29.40 (approximately), making my $40 selling price a bit low.
Another important thing that many do not consider is competition. Is there a product on the market that does the same thing, but costs less and has the same value for the end-user. Some parts aren't worth making, aside from making them for personal use.
imo 30% margin once everything is considered is pretty fair if you are on a tax free business.
Factor square footage of building. If you qualify, you can write that off in taxes. They do have a min. requirement in square footage. What permit or insurance do you think a home business is needed? Again they would be written off in taxes. He did add cost of making product. Prototypes?? For what. Bad debts is simple. File is your courts. If they owe you, you can also file a lien on there home or even cars. How much have you sold online? I ask this because when you have a mass market of sellers, you are in no way going to sell a product much higher then everyone else
Really nicely explained. I'd also add insurance to the mix, any subscriptions for software, any utilities bills and maybe travel costs (Going to buy stuff). From the revenue I would also deduct marketing and some other "after" costs, not to increase price but to get a proper profit calculation.
My MAN!! Very kind of you to provide a free worksheet. Liked and subscribed!
Hmmm, I can think of many costs that aren’t included:
• Rent
• Fit-out of the print farm, including shelves and electrical installation
• Power for lighting, air conditioning, office equipment, coffee machine, etc.
• Subscription fees for software
• Designing the product (time, test prints, test parts) divided by estimated products sell.
• Labour time seems low, around 2 minutes. Does that time include all the admin work, such as booking the job, loading the file to the printer, unloading the printer, packing the goods, printing labels, updating job status, transporting to the post office, updating the website, and handling customer reviews?
• Printer costs are covered, but what about computers, stationery, and other office expenses?
• Insurance costs.
• Internet and mobile phone costs.
• And many more I may not have thought of at the moment.
I’m curious about other costs such as insurance, software licensing, website costs, fees from Etsy and any other items. I’m assuming these are factored as well for your business. BTW great job. Love both channels.
Very good comments from your side. You are calculating the parts price almost on the same way like I do for my 3D printed parts. I am sometimes frustrated if hobby printer destroy the market price by charging only the material costs. They do not have a sense to run a business in a correct way.
Thanks for putting this together; for the most part I was running a 55% margin, but a few were short. Updated my prices accordingly :)
Excellent instruction on operating a 3D Print Business , breaking down every detail and aspect of what it takes to see if the item is actually worth what one is selling it for..... I am attracted to your style because you are making products that people can use in a practical sense, Fun objects are okay and probably sell well, though products that serve a daily purpose are more useful to me, that's only my opinion ...We all like different styles , and that's a good thing...........Great Channel...........
Great info!
Thanks, Bob!
I really liked your video. I would agree that the R&D part also has a roll. The other major aspect that I think is important, is repair “labor” costs? How long does it take to determine there is a problem? How long does it take to diagnose and get replacement parts? How long is the printer out of service? Keep making. I make parts for the Bosch also. I will purchase your dust collector, as mine is broken. I’ll keep watching and making! (Hopefully selling…)
An excellent tutorial on pricing of manufactured goods or services for any entrepreneur! Beware of hidden costs, they could be $180 per day if you’re not mindful of them!
I really like how you broke down the cost buildup for the landing cost. I would suggest a G&A calculation also. This general Margin and "what the market will bear" is good. The one issue with the labor calculated per part is that labor (FTE) is hired at one man year or a % of a man year. That can include Product Design and Development costs. Not trying to complicate things, its more information start-up awareness.
I used to sell high volume 3d printed parts and found that if you treat them like metal die cast, you'll cut down on print time, labor and material cost. Die cast as in thinning the part to the minimum, getting creative with no support prints and creating custom code that knocks the part off the print plate and starts another one with no human intervention.
can i add that you can also model in your own supports that are superior and can come off easier. personally i have a few models that required supports so what i did was model quick tab pull off supports for these models which were perfected to be the bare minimum required for supports as auto supports and software supports do not have such features yet. i.e my models i pull the supports off clean with my hands time required 5 seconds vs 30secs to 1minute if i used software supports.
At that point isn't plastic mold injection better? I mean I know there is a material cost to get going, but in the long run...or is it more of a space issue?
@@TechieTard I looked into injection and the molds would set me back almost 10k each from overseas, but that doesnt include the equipment cost or farming it out. The return of investment (ROI) was not there, so I continued perfecting my printing process.
One suggestion on the pricing sheet - if you could move the advanced inputs into the calculation sheet (maybe an expandable section), then I could have all my products in the same workbook, one on each tab. Then you could also add a rollup worksheet that could show all products in that workbook to see the important data across them at a glance. Still would allow others to use them as individual workbooks if that works for the as well. Just a suggestion, otherwise love it!
What I'm hearing is I should get my own printer instead of paying for the huge overhead of someone else doing it for me.
Where is the cost of the time you spent on designing the parts, the administration you need to do for your business?
Machine costs are your fixed charges as you figure your depreciation cost and overhead like building costs electric power and other operations costs that are fixed from day 1. Depreciation will fall off but repair costs and replacement costs because you will need the money to expand or replace so those costs usually never go away. Also in labor don’t forget payroll taxes and benefits
I would consider extra components:
- the cost of 3D-printing accessories and wearable parts (nozzles, bearings, printing surfaces)
- furniture for 3D-printers and renovation of the building including electricity
- the cost of renting the real-estate, associated with the production
- "online" costs (website, ads, processing fees)
- the cost of having an accountant
Maybe it makes sense to take a look how insurance company would have charged your production.
For purcased parts, consider adding few % of material overhead to the purchased parts to cover work needed on buying, searching sources etc.
Honestly, that adapter works so well on my Bosch slider I’d have happily paid twice that.
Things like this should be in a slicer :)
They are in Cura. It's how I calculate the prints I sell.
This is a great discussion and all entrepreneurs who make items for sale need to watch. It’s easy to go broke with these unaccounted for seemingly little costs that are part of your COGS.
Another thing to consider is opportunity cost. Having your own business is fine and dandy, but its good to consider if you're not leaving money on the table by not being deployed in some other way, especially if you are doing it full time. Personally I'd be happy to take a pay cut just to be my own boss and work from home, but even then there's other ways to make money besides 3D printing. It maybe counter intuitive but sometimes scaling down the business so you can do it on the side actually gives you higher margins.
But honestly if it keeps the lights on, bread on the table, and you're happy doing it thats way more important than trying to optimize profits.
OMG someone finally speakign the truth about 3d printers and the sellers. Though your still under charing labour, labour costs still apply while the maching is running, for every hour they are in operation.
Travis, in my role as a corporate trainer I work with people all the time who struggle to understand how costing of goods works. This video and your examples are excellent and from now on I'm sharing your video when this topic comes up. Well done. Scott
Unfortunately when I print for friends I tend to say forget about paying 😂
I like to ask friends if they have a hobby or craft they love(if I don't already know), and then offer a trade.
~Sure I'll print you a set of custom parts. Will you crochet me a custom hat? ~
can we be friends? hahahhaa
For sure 😂
I feel guilty sometimes which the prices I charge because filament is cheap but also know some of my products do not exist elsewhere and if it isn’t worth it for me to create, then nobody would even have an option to buy them at all. This video helps me feel better about my pricing plan. I really appreciate what you’ve presented here. Thank you!! You’ve easily earned a new subscriber.
Thank you for this , I’ve gotten grief for selling parts for 20 bucks made from petg that do not exist anywhere else.
In some parts of the country the cost of a kw hour is a LOT more. Based on my last electric bill here in the Boston area the cost of Electricity is about $0.148 / KW hour. However there are numerous other surcharges! These add up to $0.1764 / KW hour, for a Total cost of $0.324 / KW hour. That's more than TWICE the cost you used!
In the Boston MA area we pay separate charges for the energy and the transmission of the energy, IE: costs for the use of the grid. There are charges for electric vehicle usage (even if YOU don't own one), and connection of solar systems (even if YOU don't own this), as well as charges for upgrading electric meters (even if yours wasn't due for upgrade), etc, etc, etc......
Welcome to the future!
Pretty good calculation, but I would add in the space as mentioned below, and other equipment like the UPSs, extra wiring for all the printers, networking costs etc... This would be the overhead.
I have a feeling he's making more money from social media views.
I used to do resin casting. The mistake I made was not factoring failure cost. I realised how important that was when a biggest mould failed after the 2nd pull it pushed back my break-even by a chunk.
I prefer to work on break-even work out my fixed costs and then variable costs. I'd want to break even after X amount. Then you have to work out you opportunity cost which is a whole rabbit hole balance of fix cost/time and profit
That's his "efficiency factor" - but x1.1 is tiny. That's only 1 in 10 things going wrong in any way!
Good point! In manufacturing, this concept is mostly described as yield - the ratio of working parts to not. Was 90% here. But that seems like it could easily be on the low side. Ideally, one would track it, to know one's actual number.
Here's a professional suggestion that will help you avoid deserved bad press on videos like this one: Show the landed cost in your thumbnail as well as the material cost and sale price. As currently designed, your thumbnail is purely rage bait that leaves your viewers and customers alike with the first impression that you regularly overcharge your clientele 11× what your products cost you, and that impression can be enough to lose you steady long-loyal customers even if they stay to watch the full video (and your cavalier delivery of certain statements near the end won't help). You would also do well to address that particular triumvirate in brief early in the video when it's the explicit topic at large (as it is with this video) instead of at the end, which is again done to engage with your customers and audience and to prevent the impression of fraudulent practices that are already far too common in many industries.
As someone who has worked both direct sales and retail, I have personal disagreements with some of the factors you included with what is implied to be your base price and some of the arbitrary numbers you've assigned, but those at least remain within the realm of legitimate capitalism practices and not the anti-capitalistic price-gouging that your thumnail heavily implies.
You sir, have zero idea how UA-cam works
@PrintFarmAcademy Your attempt at implied insult aside, perhaps not. I do howeve know business and marketing and public relations, and that it takes a special kind of fool to lash out at sometime who is trying to help you when you're making a mistake.
Thank you for this and the spreadsheet! I just ran the numbers on a few prints I sell. Turns out I was taking a loss on one, and coming out at 50% margin on another. My old calculation was garbage, Thank You for providing the insight from your business!
27 dollars for a battery mount is insane
It was $27 for 6 battery mounts, wasn't it?
My mind immediately went to thinking about how wealthy (or busy) would I have to be to own SIX(6!) Dewalt battery packs. Those things ain't cheap. Somebody who is that rich in lithium cells can probably find $27 in their couch cushions.
The red caps they come with can be used as mounts.
Then you design and print it yourself for cheaper
Thanks. Clear, fast, and very meaningful, even for the student who may never print!
You calculation of profit margins are wrong - Example Landed cost $8.45 + 50% margin = $12.67 - You example shows a price of $19.99 which is really a 130% profit margin.
LET HIM KNOW BOAH WOOOOOOOOOOO
You’re incorrect.
You’re talking 130% markup, not profit.
Profit is measured off of the final selling price backwards to COGS, markup is the same but measured forward. Therefore his profit is actually 58ish %
This is awesome. I started doing this on my own worksheet when I was preparing to sell items, but this was quite a bit more in depth than I was doing. Still ended up with similar numbers off by a few %. However one of the biggest things to consider is taxes or any fees for the place you're selling. Where I'm at, I'm looking at 21.8% on every item for taxes when you calculate state sales tax and then federal taxes since I would hope to make over $400 in a year. So for a $25 item with $13 as the FLC, I would add $5.45 to the "cost" of the item as well or subtracted from total profit. Which gives you only 6.55 or 26.2% as the total profit which really isn't good enough I would think.
So I'm modifying your worksheet for myself to include those tax numbers as a consideration, so I can look at the profit margins and make an even more informed decision.
No worries, I'll get it elsewhere
Thank you. I've thought about trying selling parts, but always worry about the reality of making a profit. On parts where i think there would be real demand i circle to trying injection molded parts instead but the upfront cost is high as is the risk. It's not as easy as poeple think and these types of videos are informative as well sobering too,. Helping people make more informed decisions with viideos like this has a lot of value.
I am using simple version of print calcualtion on my P1S - for example PLA, $33/kg. Fillament print cost + $1/hour. If a fillament in print cost $3.5, and print time is 10hours. It will cost $13.5 - $14
Cost of space and cost of R&D are two costs that come to mind that you didn’t mention, but loved the thorough explanation of “hidden” costs… 🙏
for one-of prints i always factor the whole print time as labour cost.
also, i feel you have to consider all your fixed cost as well.
This was a great "Business 101". I appreciate your thorough explanation! So many don't get all these factors.
I didn't see anyone mention this so I will here. Quick note for the end of the video when OP reviews the markup. The math used in the video is incorrect. You DO NOT take your landing cost and divide by your desired markup as done here. If your landed cost is $8.45 and you want a markup of 60%, the selling price would be $13.52, not $19.99 The math here is simple. Landed Cost x Markup% + Landed Cost = Selling Price. Or you can simplify and add 1 to your desired markup. In this case it is 1.6. 1.6x$8.45. You can always check your math by taking your markup $5.07 and dividing it back in to your landing cost. 5.07/8.45=.6 In the video example the math is as follows: $19.99-$8.45=$11.54 To find markup as a percentage you take your $11.45 (markup) and divide it by your landing cost. $11.45/$8.45= 1.36 or 136% markup. This is VERY important when attempting to price your products.
I’m SO glad you created a separate channel from SN. I’m a long time fan of that channel but also very interested in this as well. Love the content!!
Many places have multiple power rates, based on time used. Power used overnight is usually cheapest, and middle of the day is the highest cost. In FL, middle of the day is 4x the nighttime cost. I am assuming the low cost operation hours are 0 (new) to about 4500 hours, and higher cost of operation after that...
Excellent video and super informative. Rather than adding the 10% filament amount at the end, how about loading it at the front? Example, for a $33 roll of filament, use $36.30 in the slicer. That way a 40 gram print is costed at 40 grams rather than 44 grams. Yes, same result but different optics.
This was really interesting. I used to run a custom woodworking business and having to account for all of the little costs here and there in the process of making a product was mind blowing at first. This is definitely a similar, yet simpler path. Sounds like you kind of have to be an parts engineer/inventor to run a print farm, though. Otherwise, what are you printing? Other people's designs? I think I'll definitely have to get a quality FDM printer at some point and mess around with it.
im just gearing up my shop now and i know im not good at taking a good price, i shortsell myself all the time, so i made a excel ark, like yours and i see im on the right track here, thanks for the inspiration.
Biggest thing... 3d printing is for iterative design. Not mass production. If you're serious about producing a plastic based product. Injection molding period. Unless it some esoteric part. Have a wonderful day ❤
L.O.L....
Thank you for the analysis and breakdown. I got a few products I'm interested in bringing to the market and i found this extremely helpful when considering a start up.
In the quick pan you did of the print farm, I thought I saw several UPS's (okay, technically, not a UPS, a battery backup). So 2 comments: they also have a lifespan that needs to be accounted for, as well as power consumption; and I hadn't thought of doing that for my printers, so now I will, which is is funny, 'cuz I have them on everything else!
I always thought that if I started selling prints I would need to figure in print time somehow since it can vary widely based on layer height, infill, ect. Your "Machine Cost" looks like it would cover it nicely. Very informative video, thank you.
So you include the hourly labor rate in the total landed cost. Afterwards you multiply the total landed cost by 2 (50% margin prince). So the labor rate is also multiplied by that factor (2 in this case). This means that you actually work at double the hourly rate. Isn't it more correct to add the labor cost afterwards? It will result in a much lower price of course, but I think this will be a much more reasonable price. What are your thoughts on this?
I just got a 3d printer and IDK why i'm watching this have no plans on a business in it but was super informative and interesting