3D Hubs etc. Worth it?

[pyronaught]

Anyone here participating in the 3D hubs type thing as a printer? Is it worth the trouble and how do you calculate your prices? I would think you could wind up burning through a lot more of your personal time than you are charging for if a print doesn't go well. My machine sits idle a lot of the time though so it would be neat to have it making money as long as it pays enough to be worth the hassle.

[3dPrintingMD]

I'm on it, been trying it for a few weeks now, and haven't had any takers on printing.

The printer is usually good to go on its own once its started. Cost of the job, you charge a setup fee, and then the amount of filament, which I would just take from what S3D says.

All in all, can't tell you if its worth it, but I'd say its worth the try. Keep in mind, you would have to get the print right, and then more than likely ship it as well. Could be as you indicated alot of time spent.

[johnross808]

I setup a hub and have been really enjoying it.
I loose money compared to my regular job on the labor, but its great for learning about the different issues and challenges 3d printing for others gives you.
Another good part is that for each print you can buy like 8x the material to replace it. You'll end up with tons of filament!
https://www.3dhubs.com/honolulu/hubs/john-ross

[pyronaught]

So when you figure out what to charge, do you submit a job in your area and see what others are charging first to get an idea what the going rate is?

[johnross808]

if you click on the 3d print you can upload a file and see what others charge compared to you.
I just charge 10$ for setting up and 1$ per square cm.
I don't try too much to compete on prices since there are some out there that will print for dirt cheap.

[dklassen]

A few thoughts on 3D Hubs.

I've found 3D Hubs is a good model as long as the print is very simple, short in duration, inexpensive and minimal interaction is required. Don't expect to make much money.

The fact is most real jobs where you make money are prototypes and alike where they are willing to pay more as opposed to someone who just wants a rubber band gun off Thingiverse printed and expects to pay eight bucks for it even though it's a three hour print.

Most of my clients require more interaction than just messages back and forth through 3D Hubs and they are willing to pay for it. By the time you've invested enough time with the client, it doesn't make sense to run the job through the Hub at that point and give up 12.5% in profit.

Yes, I realize the job came in through 3D Hubs but time is money and I'm not going to run my printer two hours just to make ten bucks. If you add up time for communications, shipping, etc. you may break even or actually loose money.

Their pricing structure only takes into account the amount of filament used plus a setup fee. For some jobs that works but for most I find it doesn't. Print jobs can range from very simple to very complicated. If a job is going to tie up my printer for 10 hours, the client is going to pay more based on time, not just the amount of filament used.

Depending on the client and quantity, I might not charge a setup fee at all if the print is simple but takes an extended time to print. On the other hand the print may be shorter in duration but more complicated and require more setup time in which case I may charge a setup fee. How does 3D Hubs handle that?

The point is, in 3D printing there are too many variables involved for a single pricing model. Most folks that come directly to my site email me the STL file so I can look at it, slice it, find out how long it will take to print, ask a few questions and how much work is involved BEFORE I give an estimate.

Their new widget just announced so you can embed uploads and estimating on your own site is a flawed model as well. I'm driving traffic to my own site through my own effort and I'm going to pay 3D Hubs 7.5% of my profit just so the client can estimate their own job and pay through 3D Hubs? Why?

As far as payment, most just Paypal the money directly to me and I don't have to wait for 3D Hubs to process it. Also, when your dealing with larger clients many want a W9 filled out and occasionally a non-disclosure completed. most of them pay via an invoice by their purchasing department. They want to deal directly with me and not messaging through a third party hub.

If you are really serious about doing 3D printing for profit, you'd be much better off setting up your own site and drive traffic there. Use Wordpress as a platform, search engines love to gobble up Wordpress pages and give them high rankings. It's easy.

Here's a hint. If you live in Atlanta try not to use Bob's 3D printing as a name. You can, but all your content on your site should be geared to Atlanta 3D printing. Most often people who are searching to have something 3D printed will Google Atlanta 3D printing or 3D printing in Atlanta. Guess who's site will come up first?

Make sure you have pages with file names like Atlanta-3D-Printing and then title the page Atlanta 3D printing and then include content with the text Atlanta 3D printing. Google will eat them alive and give you a nice ranking so people can find you. You can expand on that if you are looking for national clients too.

I've had only a few jobs come in through 3D Hubs but many many more who found my site on their own.

[pyronaught]

A few thoughts on 3D Hubs...

Good info, thanks!

Another strategy is to find some specialty items to print and just sell those items yourself. This is more difficult because you have to produce something that is not already being mass produced at a fraction of the price you can print them at, but if you can find some niche items that allow you to charge a lot more money than what plastic things normally sell for then you don't have to kill any time with setups, communication, configuring each print etc. It's hard to come up with something that is 100% produced from 3D printing though, as anything useful that can be made from all plastic already exists out there somewhere being injection molded. Add some electronics or other non-printed elements and it gets a little easier, but then you have time going into assembly and money going to parts inventory.