Why I charge $55 for this 3D printed part (how to price)
Vložit
- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- FREE 3D Printed Part Pricing Tool - bit.ly/3UGOTxx
Don't miss out on information about the upcoming course! www.printfarmacademy.com
Calculating the selling price of 3D printed products can be intimidating and LOTS of people out there do it wrong. I'll show you exactly what I do for my successful print farm business. I also put together an excel workbook and PDF worksheet so that you can do it yourself!
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.
rent is a fixed cost. it doesnt scale with your production. if it affects your production, it does so in the form of limiting your maximum output but it doesnt affect the cost of each part produced per se. that is the rent is $1000 regardless if you sell 10 pieces or 10,000. in that sense you shouldn't be counting it as part of the cost of goods sold. this type of cost typically goes under Selling, General & Administrative costs, as do costs like utlity bills to run the AC and lights, the website, wages for labor that doesn't directly have to do with the actual part like janitor, supervisor, etc. if you do include such fixed costs in your COGS then you will find that low volume sales projections make the part look expensive to produce, but high volume sales make it look overly profitable. if you then start adding new SKUs to your pipeline, you will then end up double and triple counting all those fixed costs. the reality is that your spreadsheets will tell you set unrealistically high prices for each SKU.
if however the landlord is imposing a percentage of revenue on top of rent, as do some F&B landlords in parts of the world, that directly translates to cost per part sold and that would be a reasonable justification to count as COGS.
@@suivzmoi Not exactly. Regardless of the ratio to part made it is hardly a fixed cost. Space that you wouldn't otherwise need does cost money. Things like shelves, tools, fixtures, furniture, web presence, taxes, licenses, design computers and network, all cost money and need to be accounted for in the cost of products sold.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ I would watch what you deduct. I have an accountant for that. You could end up in jail for fraud if you aren't careful and they audit you.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ yeah there's a place for all that. its not COGS. you have no idea what fixed cost means. just get an accountant.
@@BowWowPewPewCQ accounting wise, rent is fixed. It’s not variable. Yes, you can increase the available space needed but it is not directly related to output volume. This would an be indirect cost or overhead and should be allocated accordingly.
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.
yep, so true, this is where capitalism can either work for you or against you. thankfully distributed manufacturing like 3d printing can be a really cool way to make capitalism work FOR you by leveling the playing field slightly instead of against you like it does in many cases for small players in this kind of economy. as you allude to the big question is: are you willing to undercut?... aka can you still make money at 25 or 30% margin vs 50%? maybe, maybe not, all depends. if you are shrewd and have done your research properly or are willing to invest larger amounts to produce more units in less time it might be possible... but also the possibility to lose it all increases because if someone copies your idea or someone has a million of the same thing injection molded in china somewhere and then sells them here.... you get the picture. but if you (whoever) follow me here there is another aspect to this: perhaps you are the person who steps ahead and sees the demand and has those particular parts or items batched out from a factory or buys the next level of tool or equipment to make more etc... anyway, not at all being adversarial, more enjoying and summarizing the fact that we can 3d print things and learn not only engineering, materials science, computers/programming possibly but also fundamentals of business and economics .... all of it has direct application to this one little machine or two in our office or shop. Most importantly... the critical thinking skills to put it all together and decide what is or is not important in the given scenario!
If i were a high school shop or science teacher i would be doing a month (or whatever reasonable time) of every semester on 3d printing and its direct applications to the subjects being taught, coordinating with other subject's teachers so they could further amplify the effect of tying things together to other aspects students needed to learn. STEM coupled with proper communication skills (making youtube videos in addition to writing and reading) is wonderful eh?
There's also choice 4, the "bullshit the market" choice. Works great for Apple :)
Yep...my rule is to avoid saturated markets...if it is easy then more people will be in it making it a race to the bottom for margins.
I use C as well when selling items on Ebay
@@DeagleBingo If you don't know whether you're making money at 30% margin, you're doing your math wrong. A positive margin by definition means you _are_ making money. The question is whether you could make _more_ money making/selling something else.
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.
Great honest response. There is also design, your knowledge too. The material cost might be low, but there is so much more to it. At first I was undercharging due to guilt on material cost. It was hard going past that guilt.
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.
I worked for a small company that the owner was basically driving into the ground because he was scatter brained and couldn’t keep his ERP in check or managed. Put a whole migration and operations plan together for him to have everything work automatically between website, warehouse, ERP, etc. but he couldn’t follow through and now he is still paying costs related to incorrect stock tracking, unoptimized shipping profiles. Really makes me think how some businesses have made it as far as they have
I'm not surprised. I worked as a manufacturing engineer and learned that most companies have a hard time calculating actual labor costs....and estimating labor costs...
I work for a Fortune 500 company and you are spot on here.
Spot on, it's a truly mess
Omg I worked for one of the major automotive manufacturers as cost accountant/data analyst and was responsible for the cost accounting of the entire plant. QAD was a cluster and trying to reconcile BOM cost rollups after ECN's because of 0 costs on the part by materials, engineering not versioning the part, parts not being switched to the correct model and having an older model/different model's part on the BOM, it was a constant mess.
Design cost, especially for custom orders. I do custom engineering solutions so I factor in engineering labor into project costs.
Consider non sale price for filament. Can not count on always buying it on sale.
Totally! To me that would fall into the "labor" category but good point for engineering costs for one-off projects
Charge by the job or hour? Some of the projects I've done in this space have gotten a little crazy. I mean 70 - 80 hours of design and redesign. Basically taking a drawing on a napkin to a viable product.
@@jamesdmc2928/videos sounds like you are going more into the niche space of design consultation rather than print production. if you are creating something out of nothing, you should obviously charge per hour. this is because your production profit is not guaranteed. they may just say thank you and leave once you have completed the design. at any point if they feel they are not getting the required rate of results vs rate charged, the relationship ends and you still get paid. the hourly rate incentivises the customer to treat everyone's time as valuable, which it is. separate the design cost from the print cost.
if the relationship is worth future business (you should be able to tell after working 60hours with them on something), you can do tricks like offer lower rate for the next 20 hrs. or do it for free if they commit a minimum order qty of the final product via which you can recoup the design cost.
Well, no crap, design time costs your time and you should be compensated for it.
Paint it ugly green. 😂
Utilities, taxes, business licenses, rent, salary. Great honest response that the average person doesn’t realize.
Those are all things that are a part of doing business. You couldn't run your business without utilities. Your tax obligation is yours and it's the law that you have charge sales tax. Your profitability is up to you. If what you are selling is worthwhile, useful, etc., then people will buy it and you'll make a salary. If not, then your business will die. That's capitalism.
@@isthattrue1083 that’s right ALL business cost plus salary and any profit is passed on to the consumer.
@@isthattrue1083 Remember that when your next auto repair bill hits you!
@@crisnmaryfam7344 will fix it myself like always because im not to lazy to pick up a book like you apparently
Not to mention there’s like three or four other patents for a very similar devices. Is he paying licensing or just hoping nobody finds out because he’s DIY doing it himself?
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.
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.
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!
Thanks for putting this together; for the most part I was running a 55% margin, but a few were short. Updated my prices accordingly :)
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 came here to comment that too.
@@MyTubeSVp same.. R&D time.. modeling/design time etc etc.. big difference between just printing/assembling something vs spending a lot of time designing product that you can produce.. he also did not talk about ecommerce.. web site costs.. payment processing costs.. advertising costs.. correct me of I missed him covering all of that..
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!
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!
hahaha same and it poped in my recommandations...
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.
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!!
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...........
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!!
Thanks that's a great tool to start with. I appreciate that you left it open for us to adjust as we need.
For purcased parts, consider adding few % of material overhead to the purchased parts to cover work needed on buying, searching sources etc.
This was a great tutorial for any business, even a restaurant or food truck has the same principles.
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.
i wonder how much is the liability cost per part for having all those battery holders with the DeWalt name on it.
@@suivzmoi Get you sued into the dirt.
@@suivzmoi It's annoying because he'd probably win the lawsuit, but still be bankrupt from lawyers fees. A reasonable person would consider the branding to mean Dewalt compatible.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for the idea!
Awesome Breakdown ! thank you for taking the time to detail your process. Happy Extruding and continued success !!!
Very useful tutorial. This is something every small business struggles with. Thank you for demistifying and sharing.
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!
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.
Thanks for sharing your pricing system with us.
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.
If shipping is declared seperately, the buyer can order more items at once, so he and you can both save money.
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.
great content! Thanks for the calculation table!
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. 😊
Great video. Will be using this as I want to start a side business with my 3D printing. 🤓
Thanks for the great video. I am no accountant but your calculation are really helpful
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!
Lathes, CNCs, Etc. are far less likely to burn down your house since you use them in a shop and don't leave them running unattended. Most 3d print farms are running unattended in someone's basement or attached garage.
@@SuppaflyZSM This is a good point but I would probably assume that most people running small farms in a garage or basement likely don't have full time employees and probably aren't even thinking about workers comp or liability insurance at that scale. I can only truly speak for myself at least and I admittedly wasn't at that phase.
Our fleet ranges from consumer grade FDM machines to industrial additive technologies and fire and/or burn hazards are one the biggest concerns but in comparison to a traditional machine shop I think we are far less likely to have major OSHA recordable incidents with employees.
@@i-solids As someone who had to file the reports for OSHA and Corporate HQ, any time there was an injury/accident.... It might surprise you that 80% of the cases I filed weren't the miter saws, table saws, pneumatic gantry, automatic nailers (The things that could mame and/or kill), it was little simple tools that people let their guard down around and assumed it couldn't hurt them. I can unfortunately also attest, that if there is barely even a 2% chance that a machine could deglove a finger, but you had to be especially profoundly unlucky or doing something very massively wrong.... you'll still be filing a degloving report on it given a few years time.
Don't even get me started on the number of people wearing any form of working glove while at a saw (it got to the point where if we saw it in the shop, they were warned the first time, fired on the spot immediately the second time.)
@@DragonCMNDR I can definitely relate and agree with this response in its entirety.
I spent some time as an engineer in various O&G companies that mostly delt with large rotating machinery. This has led me to have a big respect for anything that spins fast. I never held a dedicated HSE role but as application engineer I would often be pulled into scenario investigations. I personally noticed 2 common trends:
1) major incidents were statistically rare but often involved a senior technician who knew exactly what he was doing wasn't correct and/or some sort of loose clothing (especially gloves)
2) despite heavy equipment being used everywhere, most incident reports were from seemingly "innocent" tool like screwdrivers, hammers, little knives, etc.
Here at our print farm the "innocent" tools concept definitely still applies. In 8 years we've had 2 recordable events - both of which involved.... a spatula. We've discarded the darn thing and changed the process to eliminate the need for this tool entirely. Outside of these incident, the most dangerous thing we have in the shop based on non-recordable minor first aid events is little pieces of plastic support material that can either cause little cuts or maybe end up in someone eye.
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.
Thanks for an awesome video and the part pricing tool❤
Hey just ran across your channel from CZcams 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.
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.
Well for me, I don't factor that in because a computer does all that work automatically. I do not have to even pay for it. So it would be fraudulent to charge for it. I would bet that there have been some illegal things you've been doing not realizing it. This is where you could start violating racketeering laws.
@@isthattrue1083 - so nearsighted of a comment. Computers are a dumb brick. It's the software that makes your request for a proper answer you whatever you want a correct answer. There is also the old "garbage in-garbage out" syndrome of not enough information or incorrect information will never give you the best possible answer. Once upon a time I was a system designer/analyst and have had to delt with your lack of knowledge to get proper results off of that computer.
@@isthattrue1083 rAcKeTeErInG 🤡
Master Class for 3d business 101. Very well stated and covered this topic nicely and REAL world numbers
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.
Another important thing that many do not consider is competition. Is there a product on the market that does the same thing, but costs less and has the same value for the end-user. Some parts aren't worth making, aside from making them for personal use.
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.
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.
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.
That's awesome thank you so much for the information!
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!😁👌
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.
every person selling 3d prints needs to see this!
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.
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.
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.
Great info!
Thanks, Bob!
Thanks for this break down I keep getting print requests and don't know how to charge.
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.
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
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.
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.
Love the in depth breakdown of the costs. Do you know of a cost breakdown of selling a stl/model?
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
That's his "efficiency factor" - but x1.1 is tiny. That's only 1 in 10 things going wrong in any way!
Good point! In manufacturing, this concept is mostly described as yield - the ratio of working parts to not. Was 90% here. But that seems like it could easily be on the low side. Ideally, one would track it, to know one's actual number.
Great video!!!! Very useful!! Greetings from the Netherlands!😊
Didn't know you had another channel :)
Great info
basically same for leathercraft, a $130 handmade wallet material cost is $20 max, the rest is labor cost and profit
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.
I’m in that exact boat and still rely on this method
Thank you for the detailed info! I have designed and sold a handful of products, I would love to be able to scale it up one day. Coming up with useful products that don't exist, or what people need is the tricky part. I assume you haven't patented your products?
I have no idea how I landed here, but the video was amazing. And it's no wonder why you have a business and I don't. lol
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 :))
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.
Repair/Maintenance labor. R&D costs. UPS systems. Taxes. More taxes. Cost of storage of materials (something that becomes more of a scale thing).
Thanks for this!
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.
Great video. There's several ways to achieve the same end, but I don't include postal costs in the landed costs - the customer pays what I pay.
Another thing is insurance. Certain products increase the cost of my public liability insurance directly and/or have been lab tested. In which case those products get the bump in landed costs. Anyway good video.
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.
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.
Excellent video.
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.
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.
My MAN!! Very kind of you to provide a free worksheet. Liked and subscribed!
Excellent video thank you
Things like this should be in a slicer :)
They are in Cura. It's how I calculate the prints I sell.
I love your detailed videos, very helpful. I am also still hoping and waiting for the Metabo 12 in miter saw dust collection part. You have been teasing it for some time but now I see it is off your website. Any good news on it?
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.
You should have customers pay standard shipping rates, and you get a negotiated rate so you can make additional margin.
What about any 3D modeling/design time? I do a decent amount of custom prints, which can sometimes take a couple of hours to model and test. Or, if you are buying the files, you would still have that cost. What are your thoughts on this? Great video by the way.
Nicely planned video. Thank you. Care to share which filament you used for the Bosch color match? It is a bigger trying to match that blue-green reliably. Kudos again.
What about your labor costs in developing the CAD and G-code designs and prototyping your products in the first place? Do you calculate that into any of your products, or do you figure you will sell enough that the per-unit R&D cost will be negligible at best?
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.
Thank you very much !
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
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.
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 could add an advanced way of selecting filament prices, for example a drop down with a list of filaments, the price of filament would be set in the Adv.Inputs sheet and that adjust everything accordingly
there's a gramatical error in Adv.Inputs, E11 , " The claculation is" (not being cocky, just letting you know)
I use the CNCkitchen spreadsheet which is very similar to the one you described. What I did was remove the costs associated with setup and removal when doing bulk prints. I only add an initial setup/removal fee and the bulk material costs after with a flat scaling factor based on difficulty of part. Using multi material or multicolor prints such as hueforge or signs I have a modified spreadsheet to accommodate materials/percentage of total print to price out. I forgot to mention I also have a friends & family (F&F) discount option and discount code for failed parts that were obvious defective. Do you roll the cost of HVAC/heating/storage/fuel costs on the business as a whole or through the parts? I am still very small business, using only my garage space for the moment with very little online sales.
Good content and info. A significant cost allocation you didn't include was overhead. Taking rent, insurance, marketing costs, and other indirect costs are huge. Even if these costs aren't a factor now, one still has to charge for all this. Not charging for rent, wrokers comp, or product liability insurance because you don't need it right now is a serious mistake. Once one does try to grow to a legitimate business they'll find that the whole business model isn't feasible. Charge for extra overhead items today, the added margin will help the business grow. Then, once those items hit, thre business won't lose it's business model. Another good, related topic for your channel might be how to do a break even analysis. 🍻
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.
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!
@Print Farm Academy First of, I'd like to thank you for this tutorial. However, I'm a bit confused. When I downloaded the sheet from the link you provided, are we supposed to get one file or two? Thank you.