neat coral
All your hard work has paid off. Building your printer, tuning and creating that perfect profile.
Now you landed your first paid job
But now that raises the question
“How do you quote 3d printing jobs”
@modest smelt
@steady quartz
@vocal peak
@tribal steppe
Everyone else fell free to chime in i would like to get a good way to help others make some money back
steady quartz
$1 per hour plus material cost for printing in general
neat coral
$1 per hour plus material cost for printing in general
Thanks, appreciate that
@whole nacelle heres the post i said i would do
whole nacelle
$1 sounds good.. I'm sending all my print jobs to @steady quartz ..
steady quartz
Obviously, it depends on what you are printing as well. I was just saying from what I have seen I think $1/hour is a standard baseline. Also depends on area and other factors.
whole nacelle
Nope... Got it writing and I'm sending all my printing needs to you...
steady quartz
So what would you charge?
whole nacelle
I don't know right now.. I can only go by what I've been charged in the past for my parts and what people charge for things they sell. But it's all over the place. No consistency to any of it. Hopefully @tribal steppe can add some clarity to the conversation.
modest smelt
$1 is roughly the cheapest you would change per hour, with a minimum print cost. Depending on the material and model complexity probably $3-$10 an hour
neat coral
Yeah I’m trying to get a resource or something where i could bid jobs properly when they come in. But most of my stuff has been kid toys. But i have parts i could print and sell the school district right now and wouldn’t know how to price them
A few are we have industrial paint sprayers that are air cooled. The fan impellers broke and they no longer sell the part. I need to 1 design in cad a impeller blade and 2 print in a temperature resistant material and install.
Another is we are installing custom welding regulators and they don’t sell a bracket to hold them to the wall so i need to 1 design a mounting method. Going with unit strut with a custom TPU cush clamp for the pipe.
They will be installing
plucky agate
All your hard work has paid off. Building your printer, tuning and creating that...
I usually charge mainly by material cost with a markup instead of any kind of hourly rate, so 3-5x filament cost depending on the material used, order volume, etc.
steady quartz
I usually charge mainly by material cost with a markup instead of any kind of ho...
Yea, that’s where you make the money so to speak.
iron lagoon
When yall say $xx per hour, you mean printing time or design time? From what I can tell the design work is the expensive part. If someone sent me an STL and paid me to print it I would probably charge based on the material used, probably 200% give it take, with a minimum charge to make sure its worth the effort. So if I use $5 worth of ABS I might charge around $10. If I have to do the design work, that's a different story with a lot more time involved.
tribal steppe
Per hour time is largely based on the machines
A $400 printer has a much lower depreciation cost, and a large format machine has much higher power consumption
Some I only charge 50c/hr some I charge $5 - typical stratasys machine rental cost is $16/hr with material
iron lagoon
$16/hr including material isnt too bad from a customer perspective
steady quartz
Design work is a completely different topic and thread since it’s a different thing all together.
I said the $1/hr rate with a prusa style printer in mind. Which seems on par with the above. The better/more expensive printer you have the higher the hourly rate.
neat coral
Thanks for everyone’s input I really love how openly you guys are. Coming from a trade that would rather die then share their knowledge
trail yew
$1/hr, My printers going to quit, and go pick up a fast food job
modest smelt
Thinking about it more, there's probably a lot more to the reliability of your printer/roi for the hardware itself
trail yew
Printer aside, your time and knowledge of operation is just as valuable. don't sell yourself short.
outer imp
CNC kitchen had a spreadsheet to help define the end price
neat coral
CNC kitchen had a spreadsheet to help define the end price
Could you link it? Or is that a patreon only sheet?
teal grove
o\ just started reading here. if you are just printing for other people to earn money, you will probs want to charge close to £2-£5 what you have got to include is, time setting up the printer for the next print, and also to cover any failed prints, the more printers you have and the more jobs you have will obviously make you more money (3 printers printing at the same time will always be better than 1)
Design then print for some one, this is a tricky spot as it depends on your experience with designing parts, you have also got to be aware that the first test print is always that, a test fit and will probs require modification to fit or its intended use, costs can run very high depending on what you are doing
designing your own stuff printing and selling it.
an ornament as much as you can make it look good and people will like it, is not worth any real money
a new tool or a replacement part for something, This is where if you find the right part can actually start to make you some money, you just then need to market your product
Designing toys or complicated things requiring lots of parts and printing them, This is something you can invest all your own time in, but with out doing some research of looking at what others are doing and doing it better etc, this again will need you to market your product.
designing stuff and sticking the files online, pretty much the same as the above designing toys / complicated parts, just less labour costs and dont need 1-how ever many printers
good example for my first part. If you have 3 printers going at £2 and hour, thats only £6 for that hour, It may take you 20 mins to set all 3 up and get printing, after that hour you may have to wait to let the bed cool down for 10-20 mins, then you have got to be there ready to get setup for the next part, Suddenly managing 3 printers, at 1 hour prints is taking up alot of time for very little money
neat coral
----
good example for my first part. If you have 3 printers going at £2 and hour...
Great point. So have a minimum and the. A price morning forward
Thanks for the input. Would love to hear peoples experiences if they start using these tips and stepping up that side hustle
outer imp
There are online various spreadsheets similar to the one fromCNC kitchen, they all show the various components of the final price and are easy to follow/understand
teal grove
those google sheets tell you 5 hours into a 8 hour print for example the print could fail and you have to start over?
do those^
the simple question then is do you bill the person for the 5 hours, or is that just then a waste of time
hard remnant
Now you landed your first paid job
But now that raises the question ``` my question is how do you land paying jobslol
so far I've paid dearly to build this high performance machine so I can print really fast and quality benchies
xD
so many benchies ....
teal grove
that could be as simple as advertising on fiver, or putting a sign on your front lawn to tell neighbours, doing transactions online, where you never meet the person, is up to you, but can cause (in my opinion) more head aches than its worth
Give examples of what you can print so people can see what is expected,
empty vale
Wholly depends on which printer and material is needed. One piece helmet that’s gonna take 3 days? I’ll use my 400x400 and charge about 5$/hour, small part, usually material cost x 1.3 or 1.5. If I have to design too? Then the price starts increasing
whole nacelle
Wholly depends on which printer and material is needed. One piece helmet that’s ...
So around $360 for a 3 day print?
neat coral
So around $360 for a 3 day print?
So what about materials that others can’t print? Pc, ultem, peek @empty vale
outer imp
the simple question then is do you bill the person for the 5 hours, or is that j...
Of course not, it's not their fault. The surcharge you apply to everyone should include your own failures.
Unless design is part of the job
hazy roost
I charge 2/hr and integrate the price into the cost of the product
teal grove
you have also got to look at some other printing defects that can happen, this could be something cosmetic that does not effect the structural rigidity of the part but just makes the part look less "clean" as it were,
you could argue part works as intended, and does not need to be reprinted then the customer will demand you should.
teal grove
if you are actually wanting to setup a 3d printing business where you mass print parts for people, you would probs want to charge close to £7 an hour (if not more) as you have got alot more overheads,
if you are doing it from your home as a hobby, you can charge very little, as you do not have many over heads, other than the printer, filament, free time, and electric
as a business you are then competing with the smaller hobby people charging 1-2 an hour, so you have got to show the worth of the product and your services to charge that much in price
neat coral
if you are actually wanting to setup a 3d printing business where you mass print...
Thanks i think a few here are hobby level sellers and i know of at least 2x pro level
teal grove
you have also got to look at things then like your setup. having thing like different filaments available, different material, colour, and different setups on printers to print said materials. as some one wanting something printed in pink filament, may only come around once in a while, but you need to have it in stock, and what if the total job cost, is less than the filament you needed to purchase to print it,
neat coral
Good point.
teal grove
you have then got any legal problems, for example what if some one wants you to print copy righted stuff, or you dont know you are, and some one just gave it to you to print
neat coral
That’s an excellent point. Never really thought about that when i started printing for money
teal grove
I live in the UK, i have not personally looked at things live fiver or any other place like that because i have my own printers, But if i was wanting to get parts 3d printed. I would actually go to a machine shop. as they already know about tolerance and setting up that sort of stuff. and would probs have there own 3d printers in house themselves, and can already design stuff to spec
empty vale
So around $360 for a 3 day print?
Depends on what it is and what people will pay, but yeah that’s in the ballpark for sure
empty vale
So what about materials that others can’t print? Pc, ultem, peek <@2906067782137...
For sure that means you can charge more.
empty vale
So what about materials that others can’t print? Pc, ultem, peek <@2906067782137...
Never mind the fact that PEEK is stupid expensive before you start printing lol
outer imp
teal grove
even that dose not cover everything
what about public liability. aka you print something it breaks / fails and kills some one
cloud valve
you have also got to look at things then like your setup. having thing like diff...
If someone requests I print them something in a filament I do not regularly use, they are given 2 options, purchase the filament and have it sent to my office or I purchase the filament at cost +. If they want the unused filament back, they pay the shipping, if they do not, it goes in one of the 50 bins I have full of partial rolls after I print a sample swatch.
cloud valve
I do my pricing all the same, if it's a model already in existence, there's a one time $25 "setup" charge regardless if they want one or 500.
Cost of materials based on what the slicer says it's going to use in grams. If a roll of ABS cost me $30 for 1000g and the model says it will use 100g, the math is 30/1000 * 100 * 2 or $6.00 for materials per part.
Machine time is $2.50 per hour (rounded to the 1/4 hour) per plate based on slicer estimated time.
I'm printing parts right now that are $94 per roll of filament, use 70.58g and take 13H 47m to print. So, each one, without initial setup is $41.00 each.
Yes, hourly cost seems high when printing with something that requires the printer to move like a snail, however, this printer is also a one-off built for one material that requires A LOT of TLC between parts to keep it going. My hour of time between each print taking care of the printer to keep it going for the next one is still far less than I get paid per hour at my full time job.
teal grove
yeah people often do forget the setup and clean up process after printing, you have also got to wait for it to cool down after it is finished
i quoted some one 90 pair of parts wanting to print, each part would take around 10 -1 5 hours to print, so about 24 hour print per pair, I would then have to spend atleast 3-4 hours a day setting up / cleaning the machines to print it, If he wanted 10 pairs from me on 3-5 printers thats almost a weeks work
neat coral
I do my pricing all the same, if it's a model already in existence, there's a on...
Wow thanks for sharing this information.
teal grove
So what do you need to actually start doing this.
Printer / Printers
Filament
Work Space
Setup for work Space
Spares
Any upgrades you want to do
weekly costs
Electric
Rent of work space
Filament
Equipment Depreciation
Printer maintenance
Insurance
Postage and packaging,
Sundries
you have then finally got to include your labour into it.
your time is valuable. and the last thing you want to find out if you include labour is you are making a loss,
What have you got to look out for / also take into consideration,
Failed Prints,
Broken Printer
Customer un happy with product
Power Cuts
Running out of filament,
item lost in postage / failed to deliver