Pricing Transparency Update

avim · Feb 5, 2019

Many of you have been asking for more transparency on how we price our materials. We cannot provide the exact formula for competitive reasons, but our team has compiled the following guide that outlines the different factors used to price each material and will list it in this thread. Hopefully this will help you best design for different materials to help keep your costs lower.

We have updated these components on the Design Guidelines tab for each Material we offer on our website in the pricing section. For example, click on the Design Guidelines tab in our Fine Detail Plastic page and scroll down to the Pricing section.

As we make tweaks to our pricing algorithm in the future, we will update those Design Guidelines, and will deprecate this forum post so there is only one source of truth. This forum post reflects accurate pricing components as of today.

I'm going to keep this post unlocked for the time being, but please keep all comments in this thread on topic or they will be removed:

Questions about how to interpret this algorithm are OK.
Complaints about shapeways pricing policies are not appropriate for this thread and should be sent to avim+pricing@shapeways.com instead.
Questions about a specific model's pricing are not appropriate for this thread and should be emailed to pricingsupport@shapeways.com instead.

avim · Feb 5, 2019

PRICING COMPONENTS
________________________________________

Versatile Plastic

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Machine Volume - the amount of space your product takes inside our 3D printers
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is:

Natural White - $5.00
Natural Black - $7.50
Processed White - $6.00
Processed Color - $8.50
Premium White - $8.50
Premium Black - $11.00

________________________________________

Steel

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is $15
________________________________________

Professional Plastic

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Machine Volume - the amount of space your product takes inside our 3D printers
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is $7.50
________________________________________

Platinum

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material* needed to 3D print your product
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

* Note that the price of precious metals may fluctuate based on international market demand. This may impact the underlying material price.

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is $80
________________________________________

Gold

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material* needed to 3D print your product
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

* Note that the price of precious metals may fluctuate based on international market demand. This may impact the underlying material price.

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is:

14K Gold - $40
18K Gold - $50

________________________________________

Silver

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material* needed to 3D print your product
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

* Note that the price of precious metals may fluctuate based on international market demand. This may impact the underlying material price.

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is:

Natural - $17.50
Polished - $20
Antique - $25
Fine Detail Polished - $27.50

________________________________________

Bronze

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is:

Natural - $12.50
Polished - $17.50

________________________________________

Brass

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is:

Natural - $12.50
Polished - $17.50

________________________________________

Gold Plated Brass

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material* needed to 3D print your product
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

* Note that the price of precious metals may fluctuate based on international market demand. This may impact the underlying material price.

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is $25

________________________________________

Rhodium Plated Brass

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material* needed to 3D print your product
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

* Note that the price of precious metals may fluctuate based on international market demand. This may impact the underlying material price.

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is $25

________________________________________

Aluminum

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Bounding Box Volume - the dimensions of your product used to determine the space it takes inside our 3D printers
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is $15

________________________________________

Sandstone

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is:

Natural - $7.50
Coated - $11

________________________________________

Fine Detail Plastic (previously known as FUD)

How will the price of my model be calculated?

Material Volume - the amount of material needed to 3D print your product
Machine Volume - the amount of space your product takes inside our 3D printers
Support Volume* - the amount of support material required to 3D print your product
Number of parts - a part is a piece of a model that can be separated from other pieces of the model
Height - the height of the model when placed on the build plate. Taller orientations cost more than shorter ones
Production - associated production costs including labor; quality control; machine maintenance; general utilities; and other supporting services required to 3D print your product

* Fine Detail Plastic is printed on a build plate, where the print head deposits liquid plastic layer by layer, starting at the bottom. To overcome gravity, the 3D printer surrounds the cured plastic with wax that will support the layers that come above. So every cavity, overhang, and negative angle requires support in wax. That wax gets melted away after the product emerges from the 3D printer.

What is the minimum price per part?

The minimum price per part is $7.50

barkingdigger · Feb 5, 2019

Not happy entering a thread that started with a threat against free speech - a mannerism you really need to outgrow - but there are some important questions that I will ask on behalf of the community. The above info does not tell us anything we didn't already know, and does not help us design efficiently. I work only in Fine Detail (FUD as we all know it) and need to know how the footprint relates to height - is height more expensive per unit of dimension compared to footprint, and if so by what percentage? (The last published formula had a multiplier of something like 1.3 IIRC). Then there's the cost relationship between material and wax - how much is each per cubic cm? (Or at least a percentage relationship so I can decide whether it's worth just making things solid for example.). And do we still pay for 2.8mm of dead space under the model footprint? As for the "production" factor, how is this calculated? Is it a fixed fee? A percentage based on volume? Or just a random amount you add to see what you can get away with? We need to understand the rules if you want us to design effectively.

stannum · Feb 5, 2019

How much is the processing fee? Will old accounts be exempt forever?

GrumpyAlison · Feb 6, 2019

I tend to agree with this for the most part, but it is nice to at least get a bullet checklist confirming that certain materials still charge based of certain properties of the model. I remember the plated materials used to charge based of surface area, which is apparently no longer the case, so in that sense I can now ignore that as a factor in my designs. I still think it's kind of silly this info has only recently been listed on the material pages, but at least it's there now...

I also second that it would be interesting/useful to see the cost for things like height vs. width on certain materials/etc. I own a few of my own 3d printers and know that that kind of thing makes a difference.

I'm not sure about the processing fee, but some of my old models (up for over 2 years) have started getting converted into the new price structure. I just logged on this morning and noticed my most popular item rose from $56 to $90 which makes sense with the new pricing structure (which I'd already figured out by looking at the stuff I had uploaded) but I didn't get any email/update/warning that the price changed, so I actually just lost money on the sale I just made because I sell through 3rd party platforms.

avim · Feb 6, 2019

I'm really sorry to hear that. Did you not receive any emails regarding the changeover from grandfathered pricing? Or were they just not clear around which products they would impact?

As far as offering additional detail, we will try to create guides / more detailed help tips for each material where possible. This is a work in progress. I wanted to err on the side of getting this out sooner so everyone at least had a starting point to work with and figured we could refine it over time.

Rick_D_Ryo · Feb 6, 2019

Given the minimum price per part, I guess the key element is to sprue everything from now on.
I see the guidelines are there for Versatile, but there is nothing clear for other material (Steel and Brass being our most common use).
Would it be possible to have these guidelines added, to avoid rejections?

Next, I think a good way to help would be to define clear "saving cost tips" (if any) in the guidelines.
Like bulletpoints:
- make sure to check FUD orientation and set for lower cost
- make sur eto sprue small part to you main model ...

EvieL · Feb 6, 2019

Would love to know if "Part Minimum Fee Exceptions for Earrings & Cufflinks" still being worked on and if there is any ETA that you can provide as to if and when this would be release?

avim · Feb 6, 2019

Yes. This is a priority now that grandfathered pricing work has ended. We first had to make sure this would work within our precious metal vendor contracts and now that this is confirmed, are figuring out the software approach for this.

avim · Feb 6, 2019

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure what we can do to design for steel and brass, as they are weighted heavily for material volume. Unless you mean how to best sprue for them?

I like your saving cost tips idea. We do have a (possibly outdated) document somewhere on some materials. Are you looking for something like this for other materials?

Rick_D_Ryo · Feb 6, 2019

Yes, I meant how to best sprue parts, so that we can be more cost efficient in case of a series of small parts in an assemblies.

And yes, I think putting this kind of tutorial as an additional tab on the material page would be useful.
For example, I'm just discovering the concept of looping... First I'm surprised not having seen that before in all these years, but then it justify my comment. The material page is a "go to" place to understand each material, having a tab aside of info and guideline for cost efficiency tips could be quite relevant

MitchellJetten · Feb 7, 2019

I'm currently working on a document that goes over a few points when spruing parts for Fine Detail Plastic.
While still WIP, you can already see it here by scrolling down to "Using sprues efficiently"

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Im_cmlhBmQXC0ffl18Z18aOpI5gs_wCy2WcFL9_Re_c/edit?usp=sharing

avim · Feb 8, 2019

The processing fee is 5% and impacts new accounts only.

Well I can't promise that since our algorithm is always being adjusted to stay market competitive. But we have no plans to charge old accounts that processing fee at this time.

Greaseball · Feb 10, 2019

Is "Machine Volume" similar to the old "Machine Space"? Or is it something new that uses the old machine space in combination with other things like a bounding box or other parameters? It all comes down to knowing if packing stuff together as close as possible is better than something like a flatter structure; particularly for multiple parts sprued or looped together.

barkingdigger · Feb 10, 2019

Exactly. Without the details, the announcement is kind of like a boardgame whose rules sheet says "there are rules for moving, attacking, scoring points" without actually explaining those rules! We cannot design in the dark, Avi.

ChristianH · Feb 10, 2019

Not much help at all.
What is your problem with criticism ? Threat to lock a thread?!

Sloris · Feb 11, 2019

I'm sorry if this has been covered somewhere else, but I searched the forums and couldn't find specific information about rush and priority production pricing:

What is the the percentage up charge for rush and priority production versus economy?

Also, is there a list of all the material production times and the costs?

I see 'ships as quickly as' on the materials page, but when I click through to a material, I can't find a list of different production times and the costs. I know I can put items in my cart one at a time and see specific examples there, but I'd like to be able to give customers on my website a general idea of what they can expect priority production to cost.

Clearing up these pricing differences would be really helpful, thanks

Greaseball · Feb 11, 2019

I think machine volume is the same as the old machine space, at least for versatile plastic. I changed the positioning of a looped together product and the price drop made more sense for a reduction of the formerly defined machine space as opposed to a bounding box change pricing impact. Revisions resulted in a savings to the customer of $0.36.** Woot!

**Price reduction also includes some material reduction due to a change of the connecting loop.

AlanHudson · Feb 11, 2019

Machine Volume is what we used to call Machine Space. I took the opportunity to optimize the code a bit so it won't return exactly the same values, but it uses the same concepts as before.

AlanHudson · Feb 11, 2019

barkingdigger said: ↑

Not happy entering a thread that started with a threat against free speech - a mannerism you really need to outgrow - but there are some important questions that I will ask on behalf of the community. The above info does not tell us anything we didn't already know, and does not help us design efficiently. I work only in Fine Detail (FUD as we all know it) and need to know how the footprint relates to height - is height more expensive per unit of dimension compared to footprint, and if so by what percentage? (The last published formula had a multiplier of something like 1.3 IIRC). Then there's the cost relationship between material and wax - how much is each per cubic cm? (Or at least a percentage relationship so I can decide whether it's worth just making things solid for example.). And do we still pay for 2.8mm of dead space under the model footprint? As for the "production" factor, how is this calculated? Is it a fixed fee? A percentage based on volume? Or just a random amount you add to see what you can get away with? We need to understand the rules if you want us to design effectively.
Click to expand...

The FUD support costs are currently calculated the same way as before with a few optimizations.
But we are actively looking at this material formula currently, so I would wait for the final pricing
model details before optimizing FUD models.

Log in

Additive Manufacturing

Traditional Manufacturing

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

Binder Jetting

Multi Jet Fusion (MJF)

Stereolithography (SLA)

Selective Laser Melting (SLM)

Material Jetting

Wax Casting

About

Resources

My Shapeways

Pricing Transparency Update

Ready to get started?

Services

Support

Shapeways