I watched a video I won't link despite it being a good video. It was just not what I've seen happening in real life.
The presenter begins from a premise "can I make my initial outlay back after a month, starting from nothing?" SPOILER ALERT: They do not in fact make their initial outlay back after a month. I have to say that I wasn't surprised.
When I bought Brucely (long story...) it was just so I could print functional models, it was a tool. I did price up a set of common prints for things people might buy, and the spreadsheet for a venture such as the presenter posited, not promising.
The Proposition
that the OP presented was that they were going to "... start from a position of no experience, no equipment, no stock ..." and so they made a list - printer, models, materials - and then went about obtaining them.
So they bought a Bambulabs P1P, and set about creating a series of models using the CAD software that somehow wasn't included in the initial capital nor the initial experience to be acquired. Then they revealed that A) they were already a successful Maker, B) already owned two larger format 3D printers, and C) already used CAD as part of their Making.
The Startup
They designed models for several tools and accessories, refined them, and declared that they'd print them on demand. They also bought posting packages, packaging, and had custom labels printed for their products-to-be.
The Execution
They then sold their items on their existing Etsy store, operated it for a month, and as expected, didn't really make a dent in the outgoings let alone a profit.
My Take
First of all, I'd be more realistic. Do actual groundwork before committing a single dollar. To me, that groundwork starts with an analysis of what sort of income I could expect. No point developing a widget store if someone else was making them at lower cost than I could get my materials for. I mean, it was fine for the OP to say they were going to start from zero but then they really should have tried to imagine being a newbie.
They wasted money on buying custom packaging and labels - suppose you decided after six months and only three sales that this wasn't the side-hustle you were looking for? You can sell the printer and filament and recoup some of your capital, but the packaging and labels printed with your name and details are dead money.
And if the OP had said "I already know about 3D printing, I already have an online shop presence and experience with both," then perhaps I'd have been inclined to be kinder to them.
Products
I calculated costs and prices (Google Docs spreadsheets are magic) by working out how long each piece would cost in time to print (and thus wear and tear on the printer, and electricity costs) time to clean up and prepare for sale, grams of filament, any filler or paint or fittings, for a series of items I knocked together in Tinkercad, which was the lowest-cost in terms of money (free) and experience needed. I worked out my time taken to do the design, and included some of that in the prices of finished items.
The margins would be slim and not recoup the costs of the printer and materials in a month. I realised there needed to be a "killer" niche product or it wasn't worth it. But let me take it further anyway.
Now the OP was, as I said, a Maker and already had a Youtube channel to publicise their mainly carpentry / woodworking endeavours. That's already starting from a privileged position that no-one else can expect to have.
I'll mention the "killer" products you need if you want to charge a price that would recoup your costs, this Maker decided to make some well-known woodworking accessories, and here I'll say only that these accessories already exist, and are of two kinds, accurate and machined in metal or molded in ABS, or less accurate and 3D printed. OP chose to sell 3D printed items at machined prices, which is the best way I know to guarantee low sales.
My Inclination:
would have been to use the printer(s) I already had for the video, explaining that there are multiple different ways of working such a printing business. That would have been a bit more fair on the person watching and looking for information.
My first inclination would be to look around for something people needed and that didn't exist yet or that I could do better than existing products. My second would have been to test myself. Can I design it and make a model that prints well and makes best use of my machine and material? And only then would I have any idea of what to sell it for.
Selling
As I mentioned, the OP already had an audience for their woodworking channel, they already had customers for such of their wooden products that they chose to sell on a new store. They had new packaging and labels made, a custom domain as I recall, and sold through a popular online store. They had the video directing possible customers to it, and probably a link to it from their existing store and website. I know I'd do all that at the very least.
And still they didn't recoup more than a fraction of their initial outlay.
If you are starting out new, you can expect that unless you include a promotion budget, your products will only sell to a fraction of those of your friends and family that you personally email and send to your online store.
This is one of the more important things to accept. Your products will not even be seen unless you're prepared to drop a large chunk of cash to get the right kind of customers to your store. And no matter where you go, they will charge fees commensurate with the reach they provide.
My Inclination:
is that if I already had a store, I'd sell on that. If they were products that I designed and made all myself I'd go to Ko-Fi-com and also set them up there, and if I made a Wix shopsite as well I'd make sure they all link to each other, I'd make sure they're all linked to in my all my social media profiles, I'd write a piece and post it to ever social media site I could, and I'd look at getting advertising in front of an audience local to me. And if I was the OP I'd make sure my audience understood that this is what it actually takes to start gaining a bit of online cred.
Ability
As I said right back in Products, and hard as it is to say, you need to be sure of your ability to make a product that people will buy.
The most important thing is that if you can make a very good quality item, then even if you have competition, your items will get a reputation fairly quickly. It probably won't be enough in that first month though.
Capital Outlay vs Production
Only now am I even bothering to consider the printer. I made a quick calculation here and it seemed to me that my existing printer, while slow, was accurate enough for the purpose. The only problem would be that I couldn't realistically expect to be able to print items on demand.
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My Inclination:
Would be to use what I have, or go for a reliable machine rather than the Machine Of The Day. Going for the newest printers in the range ensures you'll be paying a premium price. There are people still using Creality Ender3's almost five years after purchasing them, they've stood the test of time and there's a ton of help available online if I get stuck. Yes it's a slow printer but in some cases you can get one for as low as AUD $200. If you just wanted to dip a toe in the waters this would let you recoup the outlay far quicker than you could amortise a P1P (or now a P1S) so - choose your starting point.
I weighed up the generally low cost of filament against the convenience of speed printing and guess what? If I printed ten each of my range of ten models to be kept in stock, that would still be way less than half the outlay of a more expensive CoreXY machine like the P1P. If I already had my printer and didn't need to add it to the capital outlays, this is a no-brainer. Work slowly and steadily, have a lot of stock, your first month won't be exactly meteoric...
The problem with continuous production and keeping stock levels would be that I'd have to be prepared to get up during the night to clear the printer bed and start another print, and if sales unexpectedly spike, being on the ball with those bed clearings/restarts erven if it meant setting alarms during the night.
Conclusion
My conclusion is that there's a place for bespoke or custom 3D printing at the "I'm doing this in my bedroom" level of enterprise. It's a cottage industry. It'll make cottage industry level income. It would be enough to give one a taste for the industry.
Larger print farms aren't included because they're not the premise of that OP video. Larger print farms generally print specialised parts for a manufacturer as that's bread and butter, or they generate parts for things they build in-house, they may possibly print bespoke specials, or just things they exclusively design, print, and sell. And most print farms use reliable machines that can continuous print with needing to be attended, not the latest speed racers that need a person in attendance every 20 minutes day or night. Multiply that by a farm of twenty machines and it's worse than production line conditions.
And beyond just print farms are larger shops that also offer 3D printing from FDM to resin to metal printing, and they invest tens (and up to hundreds) of thousands into their machines. And they're generally part of a machining fabrication business of some sort. PS: Those sorts of shops charge a mini-fortune for the parts their huge CNC machines and machining operators turn out to order, their prices for 3D printed parts are on par with those prices. Generally, for the level of accuracy and finish required by their customers, an Ender3 and a good selection of sandpapers in your spare room just isn't going to cut it.
Don't Lose Hope
It's still possible to make money by selling 3D-printed models. But the most profitable ventures are in bespoke and custom art prints. You can make lithophanes of people's photographs, for instance. Having a multi-colour-capable 3D printer like a Bambulabs P1P with the MMU (Material Management Unit, I believe?) becomes an advantage in those sorts of situations. But of course that involves an AUD $2000 investment at the very least, and that means you'll need to charge art prices on your products.
But people make a living at creating cosplay accessories and artistic objects. Here's a (very tongue in cheek) example:
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| This is a model (not mine) that I printed, of a "Premium Riding Sausage" |
I mean: Look at the image above.
That is a Premium Riding Sausage right there.
I found the model amusing (and could think of half a dozen people I'd have presented a personalised one to...) so I printed one as a test - and I can tell you that with my printer in standard trim it took around 75 minutes to print and used just under 10g of plastic so it'd cost me $1-2 to print, tops. On top of that, you have to check the licensing attached to the model. Some are quite liberal and let you do anything, but the licenses can go all the way to strict copyright.
Also a single colour PRS is, as you can see, quite boring. It would be better if the saddle and tack were a different colour, the plinth another colour, and so on. Only at that point would it become appealing enough for a customer to drop more than a few bucks for it.
If you have the multicolour printer, you'll find that every colour change costs a lot of material that the printer needs to just waste in between to be sure there's not a muddled-up mess of the old and new colour getting into the print. Depending on your printer and how often colours have to change in a layer, you can waste between 10% and 50% of the filament in the pile of waste that's called a "purge block." Some multicolour models can have a purge block that weighs more then the model itself. And a purge block is all wasted plastic.
If you only have a simple printer you either have to change colours manually, a process that you need extensive knowledge of gcode to achieve, or find the best base colour and print it in that, and then you have to paint the item by hand afterwards. That means sanding and preparing, several coats of paint, and puts this into the same sort of class as a custom printed and painted Imperial trooper helmet made for a Star Wars cosplayer.
You might put a $320 price on the Star Wars accessory to account for your time and skill in painting it. Similarly, the PRS would need to be on your store for $32. A customer may very well pay several hundred dollars for the bespoke and carefully "distressed" and movie-accurate helmet, but you may find that the novelty item doesn't sell all that well even though it was harder to sand down and paint due to the small size of it.
Added to that is the fact that really, anyone can buy a 3D printer and print their own things using one of the by now millions of free model files online. Or they know someone they can ask to print that one print for them. And let's face it, buying a 3D printer is fun, learning to use one is getting easier all the time, making something useful / artistic / amusing is a great hobby, and so your customer base will always be slowly slipping into becoming your competition. . .
Conclusion
So the correct answer is that it definitely can be a source of income - I know any number of people who have a successful 3D printing business. But almost all of them run print farms, and most print (and manufacture from in-house printed parts) things that are more than just printed models. But it's possible.
Similarly, if you want to just design great and unique models, there's money to be made just selling the files for them. Nothing says you actually have to print the item as long as the model files are definitely your own.
Also you could consider trade shows, expos, and markets. This means a large stock of pre-made items but can be lucrative. Hey! - You could just pay someone else to printfarm the items for you and take them on to road with you and just do itinerant sales like that.
Or just do it for the pocket money. Prepare to spend a lot of time making things for your own enjoyment and selling them for a bare minimum profit.
You have to pick your battles...
My battle's to keep this blogging venture afloat. All donations are going towards running this series of blogs and the projects I develop, so it'd be most helpful if you could just click above and make a donation. And if anyone did buy a P1-P and then lost interest and wants to send it somewhere, I do have a postal address . . . 😺
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