Hi! I’m curious how you guys price out SLA prints for clients. I have been running $1/ml of material. I have this one client that is always complaining about pricing and recently ordered 100 parts at $5. He told me he called a friend who told him he should expect quantity price breaks at least 50% off at over 20 parts. This seems strange to me but I don’t have anyone else to ask. How do you guys handle pricing at quantity?
Prices go down based on the amount of time saved.
If I print 1 or 10 pieces, I only have to setup the print once. So setup costs are divided by 10 and that’s the saving for the customer.
Is this guy throwing numbers based on 3D printing or something else ? It really depends on how the pricing is done… if setup cost is 75% of the total cost (CNC machining a somewhat simple part), then ordering more parts will very rapidly lower the price per part, but if most of the cost is on the actual production of the part then the drop is only marginal.
If you are submitted a print that is very simple to plan for (simple to orient and place supports on), but you can only print one at a time and it take 58 hours because of resolution and volume, then the price won’t change much with quantity and as a client I would not expect it to OR understand once I am given the explanation. As a ciient I now know you limits and that is I want to reduce price based on volume I’ll have to go to someone with a bigger printer.
EDIT : @charliepeckar tagging you since I have edited the post after your answer 
I see. I haven’t charged the guy any setup fees.
You’re being suckered on that. Stick to your price. Giving away your product so someone else can make money on it isn’t good business practice. I have had a few of those customers and I won’t budge on price.
I have an Excel spreadsheet I developed that costs all my 3D and Cast resin products. That’s the price I go with.
On r Wholesale purchases I offer 20% plus a 10% loyalty discount on their next order based on what they purchased on a previous order. but 30% is the absolute maximum discount and that’s ONLY on volume purchases like 100 or more parts at a time.
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Walter, I think your stated premise can be easily misinterpreted.
Unless your client is the End User of what you produce they Absolutely had BETTER be able to make a profit on it or they really don’t need you at all.
The reason Robert Downy Jr, gets 20 million bucks per picture is because getting him means someone ELSE is going to make a hundred million dollars.
That said- no- don’t “give it away”- the Op should figure out a 3 tiered pricing model.
The cost- plus profit- of the consumables by the ml.
The cost of labor- per hour- to prep the file. ( multiple builds will take labor for each build )
The cost- plus profit- of the machine Per Hour.
To derive the latter- figure the Form2 has to pay for itself within a specific time frame- depending on the volume of your business… say 6 months.
How many Hours of operational cost is that? Well you can’t ever really expect to run the machine 24/7- it has to have SOME down time to set up, remove prints, swap tanks and cartridges… but your client is not responsible for the time you Don’t run the machine for lack of an order. So figure a fair estimate is 16 hours per day for 180 days.
At $4 grand for a Form 2 The machine costs you $1.38 per hour. Plus its share of your shop overhead and profit, So you might figure that you have to charge between $3 to $5 per hour for machine time.
When you set the file up look at the estimated print time and multiply it by the cost per hour factor to determine the cost of the machine time.
Look at the estimated volume to determine the cost of materials- Be aware that since tanks have to be replaced every few cartridges, and ISP has to be renewed every X amount of resin printed, that you should factor ALL of those costs into a Per ml cost factor that will cover the resin, the ISP, the tanks and your profit on those items.
So there you have it- you charge an hourly rate to get the file prepped- and the estimated time and estimated volume get multiplied by factors that account for everything else.
In this way you automatically give clients a break if you can run all their parts in one build. And if they demand higher resolutions, that take longer times, they get charged for the machine time, even though its not using more resin.
Well Sculpingman, it’s worked for me for 20 years. I’ve resellers complain my prices are too low. They feel they might be competing against me and their markup is higher ending up in a higher price.
My main sales are to individuals. So resellers just have to deal with it. Local hobby shops look for a 50% discount but I can’t handle that as the are “onezy” buyers. Buying one item at a time at 50% of the selling price. Too much handling to do that.
Basically you need to know your industry and do what best for you in that environment.
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Please don’t think I was disagreeing with you… I understood your post- Just the wording of that one sentence may have left the impression in folks less experienced that other people have no right to make money on what you do for them.
I know that’s not what you meant. But I can’t tell you how many apprentices I have had who came in with the attitude that the companies they did work for were “enriching themselves” on their talent.
I’ve spent many an hour trying to explain to young folks that their value in any economy is directly proportional to the money their efforts generate for others.
Your prices are low because you understand that you only need to make a profit- and that anyone reselling what you print for them needs to make a profit, too.
That works for me, too.
Much of my business success is due to the fact that my clients know I am as concerned with THEIR profitability as I am with my own. Because if they don’t make a profit- they won’t be there to send any work my way.
If I can think of a more cost effective means to achieve what they want done, I will recommend it even if it means them sending the work elsewhere.
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