Pricing 3D prints

Did you just get handed an STL for printing or did you cad/model/design the object and then print it?
CAD time is expensive, time spent letting the printer do its thing is much less so.
Materials are pretty cheap. People who can 3D model a printable object are not.

So you have to make the call to figure out what the market will bear in your area.

 

Well, like I said materials are relatively cheap (and getting cheaper) so that doesn't add a huge amount to the cost. You can afford to be low priced and not go in the hole (so to speak). I'd still make it an hourly charge (to cover for wear and tear on the printer).

 

Just add a mark-up if they want a premium material of some sort (CF or something a lot more).
And something that takes 20+ hours to print is worth more than something that takes 5 (IMHO)

 

So,
1: Not a business. Been there done that (my own business) twice. This is full on, hard core hobby and side stuff. This is a very (really) hard tech to actually make money in. Locally we have a LOT of competition (tons of fabrication places including huge injection molders). There are a lot of local makerspaces and a very large number of printers in the Florida area (ignoring commercial concerns). Trying to spin up a business around this here would be difficult. Not impossible, but it would be a lot of initial investment (at a minimum a couple dozen machines with at least half of those being higher end units). Even then I would not consider a local only business.
2. Orlando Florida. Yes, the weather is harsh right now
3. Mostly for our own consumption for various projects although a small percentage has been for other businesses and people (we have done work for a number of local businesses including a theme park who shall remain nameless). All really small scale IMHO.
4. Me and my son. He does 80% of the modelling and design work, he enjoys that part more
5. 2 Robo's, a home built SLA and a home built DLP. Usually at least one is always running.
6. 3/4 of the time I will use the Robo and most often the one configured for large format (1.0mm nozzle and a volcano adapter). Just to quickly squeeze out a print for tests. If I need small detail precision then SLA or DLP

 

Quite honestly I would not use the Robo's (not the current ones at least) in production environment. I did a recent run of almost 1000 models over a week that were all 99% the same (each one varied slightly) and the failure rate was 5-8% and that was often due to the printer just being the printer... false starts or odd hangups mid-print that would not reproduce. Electronics or communication glitches undoubtedly. For me that would be too high to do on an extended basis as an assembly run. However, given the design of these that is probably a good number. I would want something I could reliably hand a job of 1000 units to and expect a 1% or 2% failure at most (and those due to 'out of spec' not complete failures).

 

It is an emerging market at the low end, but not new at the commercial level.
Makes it tough to try and compete and you aren't likely to succeed with consumer level gear.

 

I had thought of doing a local business also, but the issues for me were marketing and setup. What I did was eventually just set up shop on Shapeways and uploaded my designs to them. Mark up all items above Shapeways cost and let them take care of all production, shipping and customer service. The biggest issue is that you still need to work hard to get the information out beyond their walled garden. It is slow and tedious. Honestly I can deliver a better product to people using a service like Shapeways, i.materialise, Sculpteo, etc. I still use the Robo 100% in the design process, usually to just print either sections of the final product or complete models to verify design details or make sure it actually does what I want it to do.

It is very hard to compete with the big services, and the few extra minutes it takes to set up your own models (or upload someone else's models) to these services more than makes up for the price gouging so often found from single individuals on sites like 3DHubs, etc.

Please note this is just my opinion and all my research was done approximately one year ago (I have had my Shapeways shop open for 11 months). I would not consider individual persons with consumer level printers if I planned on selling any products. Even for my own use, depending on service life, I will usually favor something printed by a service over that of anything I print myself. Of course Robo upgrades and small items I am perfectly fine with the Robo's attainable level of quality.