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.

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.

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.

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.

Design cost, especially for custom orders. I do custom engineering solutions so I factor in engineering labor into project costs.

Paint it ugly green. 😂 Utilities, taxes, business licenses, rent, salary. Great honest response that the average person doesn’t realize.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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 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.

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.

Thank you. One additional recommendation I would suggest is adding a % option for VAT costs. Transaction fees, tax, ect

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.

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.

Thanks for putting this together; for the most part I was running a 55% margin, but a few were short. Updated my prices accordingly :)

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!

I don't know if this will help anyone but: Say I have a 3D printer. The time used in printing something means that the 3D printer isn't available to me anymore. Because I design my own parts, that means I can't be prototyping for example. This is a cost to me... So when deciding whether I have a viable product on my hands, I attribute a cost to the time the printer is occupied in a print. For me, it's around $10NZD/hour (So that'd be around $7.50USD/hour). i.e. A print takes 4 hours, I attribute a cost of $40NZD to it. If it has no post processing, and no additional parts (micro controllers, LEDs, hardware etc.), then that's the "cost" (bullshit figure that I use to justify what I'm charging) I work on. I don't need to worry about how much filament I've used, the cost of electricity etc. That's it. I can then add my "margin" on top of that. Usually only $10-$20NZD because there is plenty left over in that bs figure I'm working from. i.e. Say I'm doing a 4 hour print and I'm charging $50NZD for it. I can produce 5 such items in a day assuming very little or no down time between prints. So on each printer I'm bringing in $250/day. Most of the cost that I was working on is based on the inconvenience of not having the printer so while my actual material costs are probably more like $50 for the week, each printer is bringing in $200 / day. $1400 / week. While the print is happening, I'm not doing much. Perhaps chucking bits in courier bags (assuming I'm doing non-fungible prints). And all I have to do to scale up is add printers... And I mean, it's not strictly linear because I have to factor in redundancy (if I have 5 printers, I should have one printer that isn't being utilized. Instead it should be used in case of a failed print. This is assuming non-fungible prints where keeping to a delivery schedule is important) but for the most part, more printers, more capacity. Shipping is for later. It shouldn't be included in the cost of the thing because I shouldn't be profiting off the shipping. I do not worry about the time to quickly debur and throw it into a courier bag or whatever, because it is such an insubstantial cost (it takes.... all of 3 minutes? If it was something that had A LOT of post processing, that's a whole other thing, but normally for those items, I'm also looking at additional costs like programming a microcontroller and testing etc.). Basically, the cost of filament is such a pointless thing to be basing your costs on, as to be deceptive and get you stuck calculating completely pointless figures.

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.

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.

For purcased parts, consider adding few % of material overhead to the purchased parts to cover work needed on buying, searching sources etc.

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!!

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!

27 dollars for a battery mount is insane

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.

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!

Thank you so much for this, I've always struggled coming up with formulas for pricing my parts... and this just makes a lot more sense. I look forward to checking out the upcoming course!

This was a great tutorial for any business, even a restaurant or food truck has the same principles.

basically same for leathercraft, a $130 handmade wallet material cost is $20 max, the rest is labor cost and profit

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!!

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 !

Thanks that's a great tool to start with. I appreciate that you left it open for us to adjust as we need.

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.

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.

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.

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.

every person selling 3d prints needs to see this!

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

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.

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.

This is not a criticism of the channel, on the contrary this channel has so many good ideas but unless I'm wrong and please correct me, unfortunately here in Brazil it's a little expensive to work with 3D printing. Follow my story...here's another piece of research I did about filaments here in Brazil; Recently, when comparing filament costs between the United States and Brazil, I came across a significant disparity. While in the United States the average cost of PLA filament is approximately 25.52 dollars, in Brazil, this cost is substantially higher, reaching around 127.08 reais on average. This price disparity led me to reflect on the accessibility of filaments for 3D printing in the Brazilian market. While in the United States the cost of filament represents approximately 2% of the average minimum wage, here in Brazil, this cost corresponds to approximately 9% of the minimum wage. This difference is considerable and raises questions about the access of these inputs to a wider audience. I understand that there are economic and logistical differences between the two countries that can influence production and distribution costs. However, the similarity in filament prices, despite these differences, suggests the need for a more in-depth analysis of pricing practices in the Brazilian market (I may be talking nonsense but in my opinion the value in Brazil should be at least 4% which is already twice as much as the United States and also some companies say that they are 100% Brazilian with raw materials from Brazil, so why this value of 9%) I can be one of the few to raise this flag and discuss ways to make PLA filaments more accessible and competitive in the Brazilian market, and accessible to more people. However, for personal reasons I may not directly enjoy this benefit if filaments become accessible to a wider audience. However, I insist and reiterate, I sincerely hope that more and more people raise this flag, firmly believing that a review of pricing and recycling policies for materials that went wrong or leftover printing (returning to that issue of multicolor printers), we will have more people with access to this incredible technology, and nature thanks you. este não é uma critica do canal , ao contrario este canal tem tantas ideias boas mais a menos que esteja errado e me corrija por favor , infelizmente aqui no Brasil fica um pouco caro trabalhar com impressão 3d . segue meu relato ...aqui vai mais uma pesquisa que fiz sobre filamentos aqui no Brasil; Recentemente, ao comparar os custos do filamento entre os Estados Unidos e o Brasil, deparei-me com uma disparidade significativa. Enquanto nos Estados Unidos o custo médio do filamento PLA é de aproximadamente 25,52 dólares, no Brasil, esse custo é substancialmente mais alto, chegando a cerca de 127,08 reais em média. Essa disparidade de preços me levou a refletir sobre a acessibilidade dos filamentos para impressão 3D no mercado brasileiro. Enquanto nos Estados Unidos o custo do filamento representa aproximadamente 2% do salário mínimo médio, aqui no Brasil, esse custo corresponde a cerca de 9% do salário mínimo. Essa diferença é considerável e levanta questões sobre o acesso desses insumos a um público mais amplo. Entendo que existem diferenças econômicas e logísticas entre os dois países que podem influenciar nos custos de produção e distribuição. No entanto, a similaridade nos preços dos filamentos, apesar dessas diferenças, sugere a necessidade de uma análise mais aprofundada sobre as práticas de precificação no mercado brasileiro (posso estar falando besteira mais na minha opinião o valor no Brasil deveria ser de pelo menos 4% que já é o dobro que os Estados Unidos e também algumas empresas falam que são 100% brasileira com matéria prima do Brasil, então porque este valor de 9%) Posso ser um dos poucos a levantar esta bandeira e discutir maneiras de tornar os filamentos PLA mais acessíveis e competitivos no mercado brasileiro, e acessíveis a mais pessoas. No entanto, por motivos particulares talvez eu não usufrua diretamente desse benefício se os filamentos se tornarem acessíveis para um público maior. Contudo, insisto e reitero, espero sinceramente que mais e mais pessoas ergam esta bandeira, acreditando firmemente que uma revisão das políticas de precificação e reciclagem dos materiais que deram errado ou sobras de impressão (voltando àquela questão das impressoras multicoloridas), teremos mais pessoas com acesso a esta incrível tecnologia, e a natureza agradece.

I think the importance of unique parts cannot be stressed enough, especially starting out. One needs realistic pricing for things to sell. For example injection molded power tool battery holders/hangers are about $2 on the open market. Buyers are not likely to choose ones that are over 10$. However once one has an established brand, loyal customers may be willing to pay more for that product.

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.

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.

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!

Don’t forget to include platform fees, since chances are you’re selling on Etsy or Shopify or something rather than having your own from-scratch ecommerce site.

Forgot one cost... How do you sell your stuff? Host your own website? Use a 3rd party service? Both have costs. If you take payment yourself, someone also has to absorb the credit card fee.

You're an og for making a pricing template.

Very useful tutorial. This is something every small business struggles with. Thank you for demistifying and sharing.

Thanks for sharing your pricing system with us.

I bought the dust collector for my Bosch mitre saw and actually seeing your cost to make it, I don't feel as bad paying that price tag haha. Haven't used it much but have definitely noticed a reduction of dust was cutting.

Great explanation of the way to think about things, and thanks for the spreadsheet!

Awesome Breakdown ! thank you for taking the time to detail your process. Happy Extruding and continued success !!!

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.

Repair/Maintenance labor. R&D costs. UPS systems. Taxes. More taxes. Cost of storage of materials (something that becomes more of a scale thing).

It’s important to know how much you pay to produce something so that you can know your margins, but this is not really the correct way to set a price. There’s an old adage “The market sets the price”, basically, you charge as much as people are willing to pay. In a fair market where supply roughly matches demand, this is the correct way to price your product. You can adjust from this point if you want to for example undercut a larger competitor slightly, or you can charge more if you have value added above the competition. That being said, there is not always just one way to do something. I just thought I’d share my 2 cents on what the “correct” way is to price based on classical business principles.

Another option for increasing sales/profits is to always look at customer feedback and see how you can design a part to have a lower material cost and faster print times. As most of you are probably assuming, that'll decrease your costs and increase your profit margin.

I agree with the design and copyright comments. What I didn't see is the cost of your computer, training, slicing the design etc, etc. Whenever I design and print something, the bulk of my time is spent designing. And don't forget about slicing and reslicing to make prototypes and different batch runs. There's a lot of time. And, since you can deduct part of your house on taxes for business use, you should also be able to account for a percentage of your home. So, just make sure to round everything up, and you'll be closer to being accurate. In other words, if you try to get everything into the price, you'll probably price yourself out of the market. It always costs more than you think to produce a part. You said your labor for the Stop Block was 12 minutes. How did you do that? You also have to maintain your inventory, set up your equipment, clean your work area etc, etc. I think you are drastically underselling your time. There is more to labor than just the time you are touching the part. I think you should have a labor minimum. Say a 1/2 an hour. Looking at your Stop Block again, I would expect your total design time (this includes flushing out the idea, measuring your saw, finding the parts to use, etc.) to be somewhere around 30 hours (this may even be low). You will probably sell a couple hundred, so that design cost would be around $4.50 per part @ $30/hr. So, with a 1/2 hour minimum and your design time, your labor should be $19.50. A rough guess on your machine cost, when you factor in your computer and design software, you're looking at an additional $0.35, so your machine cost would be $0.65. Making the total landed cost of $33.92. So, at your $40 price point, your actual profit would be around 15%. At least you're still making a profit. This is all very subjective. I'm not trying to beat you up. I'm just saying I agree with you. There is a lot that is not accounted for when you're a one-person small business. And the majority of people give it away. I know I do! Before I watched this video, I didn't account for all the labor. But you got me thinking, and WOW, it added up!

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.

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...........

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.

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.

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.

Great information thanks for sharing! You should see my scrap paper of notes from your video. Yes I know everything will be on the free worksheets you so kindly shared with us, but I need to reinforce it by doing it as you moved along. 😊

THE ELECTRICITY, INVESTMENT AND REPAIR COSTS HAVE NOT BEEN ADDED TO THE PRICE Although you included a formula that calculates the cost to cover the investment, repairs and electricity, you omitted to add these costs when determining the selling price. Thanks for the explanations and the table. I hope my comment helped you and the whole community. Good luck

I'm very close to the same but I also factor in my design time, especially on more complex parts. If I have 10 hours of design time I generally like to pay myself back for those hours on the first 100 sales of that item.

Yeah I would suggest adding a percentage in there for general overhead to accommodate rent and to pay yourself back for all of the hours spent designing.

Things like this should be in a slicer :)

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.

I wish costs were calculated by how much the part costs to manufacture... but we all know damn well that's not the case in most situations. Parts are market up by how bad people need them and/or by how effective or time saving they are... or if they're life saving. Just look at the cost of insulin and countless other medications. People overseas buy them for $5/bottle, but here where they're made they're $50 per pill. You can buy a box of 50 screws for $5.00... but if those same screws are sold for a handgun grip panel, they'll cost $9 to $20 for 2 or 4 of them. Handgun magazines most likely cost no more than a dollar or two to manufacture, but they sell them anywhere from $20 to $50+. The list can go on and on forever.

the simple part one can defo cnc a mould for and produce in thousands driving the cost to pennies.

Two things I’d like to add - I often use UPS for shipping, so I estimate cost to whatever the furthest delivery zone is from my shop and roll that cost into my product. There are some products for which I use Priority Mail, and those prices are fixed regardless of location. However, once I use those estimated prices from UPS and USPS, I then use an aggregator shipper such as PirateShip (no affiliation) and get a personally cheaper price than I get quoted from UPS or USPS and then can pocket the difference. One word of warning, USPS is getting less and less reliable, even with “Priority” mailings. Decide whether or not a customer is worth the risk for USPS and plan accordingly.

great content! Thanks for the calculation table!

Hey just ran across your channel from KZfaq recommendation. I have been into 3D printing since about 2016. I now have a Bambu Lab P1S and still have multiple Ender 3 models but they are collecting dust these days. I look forward to new content on your channel as I just Sub'd. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

"machine cost: 1.5-5.5% of landed costs" unsurprised people aren't worrying about it, if your labor is circa 10x then that seems like a more important flow to optimize.

I have your vacuum attachment for my Bosch and it’s perfect. Worth every penny. If I could get my Prusa running well on ASA I’d love to sell parts

Great video. Will be using this as I want to start a side business with my 3D printing. 🤓

I am impressed with your logical approach to this. There are a few things that could be shifted around or assessed in other ways to improve analysis. A couple of (possibly) minor things werent included but at a high level, well played good sir, well played indeed.

Great video, lots of good information. Consider working the cost of the UPS into the machine cost. Also UPS maintenance as the batteries inside them need to be replaced every couple of years (2-3 has been my experience). Over time the battery capacity depletes.

Helpful video. Trying to get an idea of what it's going to cost to 3D print something I designed. Thank you for uploading.

brilliant video taking into account al lthe hidden costs and explaining why thing cost what they cost!😁👌

Thanks for this break down I keep getting print requests and don't know how to charge.

Your cost for labor time should be based on employee that has just started the job and has no experience. Cost of the building should also be added, (rent electric, vehicles if you have a company vehicle and any employee that is added that to do other jobs. You have a set amount of daily labor each works x amount per day, unless less you are not paying yourself for a full day. Not all your labor changes are added to the production of parts at this time. So you are leaving out a lot out on your cost per part. It not much of a increase on total cost but when you start discounting the part your profit will drop even more or if you have to dump inventory that is no longer moving out the door at a deep discount below cost that becomes a loss than, a bigger loss if the other factors are not added because that lost can than be taken off your profit.

I simply charge what the market will bear. If you have a unique item you have designed on your own, and it is not simple for someone without proper cad software, you have an advantage and can mark up. I make a much simpler part than you showed and I charge $50.

Good to make other printers aware of all costs: your competitors will offer realistic prices too.

This is a good starting point. To make this more precise, I add selling charges to COGS. That is, Etsy or Ebay or even Shopify fees. On my channel you can see details on how to do accounting entries for that... Cheers!

This is missing costs of business. Rent for the shop, insurances, returns, utilities for the shop, taxes, book keeping and all that. And suddenly you profit margin is not 50% but 0%

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.

Thanks for the great video. I am no accountant but your calculation are really helpful

There is a cost that might go unaccounted for here. Often people just use the "sticker price" of what material, parts etc. that you purchase, when computing material/parts costs. But - it is very likely that you will need to have these things shipped - or drive and get it yourself - often a once-per-shipment type cost. And to guarantee ability to deliver your goods - you may sometimes need to buy from a more expensive source. So one ends up paying more than sticker price. This is often called "sourcing overhead" in manufacturing. Typical estimates might be 15% - pick your own number that fits, but just know that it is basically never 0%!

Honestly, that adapter works so well on my Bosch slider I’d have happily paid twice that.

Don't forget to price in support and returns.

You should have customers pay standard shipping rates, and you get a negotiated rate so you can make additional margin.

$0.15/kwh - ha I WISH residential in CT is closer to $0.32/kWh (inc. delivery/transmission.) Commercial power? nearly triple that.

You're not charging enough. You're on the right track but not quite there. Yes, I'm a product designer. My first business started in 2017.

There’s a few more costs I would associate depending on your strategy such as design and printer prep time (not just removing parts, but starting prints, repairing parts, maintenance). It’s just a shame that, at least in my experience, people just expect that because I can design and make something for them, that it’s going to be super cheap because I’m just one guy and don’t have a whole factory of expenses. Most people want custom parts made for slave wages, and I really don’t understand how they can be so adamant about that

yeah i love your bosch adapter. i could have just bought the stl and get the rubber screws and everything else but i preferred to not have to do all of that cause i didn't have that blue color :))