Nobody opens a 3D printing business planning to lose money. But almost every maker who starts selling makes at least three of the mistakes below, and the worst part is they are silent: the sale happens, the money comes in, the bill gets paid at the end of the month, and the margin simply isn’t there. Here are the seven, from most common to most cruel.
Mistake 1: charging only filament weight
"50g of PLA, R$ 5". That math ignores energy, machine depreciation, nozzles, failures and your time. Filament is only 40-60% of a part’s real cost. Fix: add material + energy + depreciation + failure reserve. That is your FLOOR, not your price.
Mistake 2: not charging for your own time
Sanding, painting, assembling, packing, answering clients, posting listings: all of that is work. If you don’t assign value to your hour (R$ 15-50/h is the market range), you are paying to work. Fix: estimate the labor minutes per part and include it in the cost. A client who won’t accept a part with labor built in is not a client, they’re an exploiter.
Mistake 3: the same price for everyone, always
A one-off custom part and 50 identical parts have different costs and risks. Volume justifies a discount (single setup, proportionally lower failure), custom parts demand a premium (test print, iteration). Fix: two minimum prices, unit and volume, and a clear discount rule from X parts up.
Mistake 4: forgetting failures are a cost too
With a 5% failure rate, one in every twenty prints becomes trash, and its loss must be spread across the 19 that worked. Fix: track your real failure rate and add that percentage to the cost. A calibrated machine and a frozen profile are the way to bring that number down.
Mistake 5: panic discounts
The month is closing without sales, the client is stalling, and you cut 30% "just to close". A sporadic discount is a tactic; a fear-based discount is a bankruptcy policy. Fix: define your minimum price (cost + minimum margin) and treat it as your negotiation floor: below that, it is better to have the machine print catalog items than accept a disguised loss.
Mistake 6: ignoring post-processing cost
Does the part come off the bed finished? Supports, sanding, primer, paint, resin cure, assembly. Whoever sells a "ready to paint" part and delivers it painted is donating hours. Fix: price the delivery state: raw, sanded or painted are three products with three prices.
Mistake 7: never revisiting prices
Filament went up, the energy tariff changed, your printer aged, and the price is the same as 8 months ago. Inflation slowly eating a fixed price is the slowest, most certain loss there is. Fix: revisit costs quarterly. If the tool you use doesn’t let you recalculate quickly, the friction will make you never do it.
The fix that solves all 7 at once
All these mistakes share the same root: pricing in your head, with no system. EiPrint was built for this: it calculates the real cost of each part (material, energy, depreciation, failures, labor), keeps your parts and printers, and shows the margin of every sale. Free to start, on Android and in the browser, and the math it does in 10 seconds is the same one most makers get wrong every month.
