Bulk & Batch 3D Printing
Ten copies of a bracket, a box of enclosures, a run of parts for a product: X3D Studios prints batches on its own farm in Austin, Texas, priced by the gram like a single part, with volume breaks and no mould to pay for. The price per part stays flat from the first copy to the last.
- No tooling or setup fee
- 5% off from 5
- 10% off from 10
- Live lead time
- Order by API or MCP
How the price scales
Each part is its weight times the material’s rate, at least $1.00, times the quantity. The break comes off the whole line. It applies where a quantity is priced as one job: Print & Ship on /print, an order through the print API, and the MCP server’s quotes. A cart line is priced one part at a time and multiplied, so order a batch as one job.
| Copies of one part | Price |
|---|---|
| 1 to 4 | The per-gram rate × the quantity |
| 5 to 9 | 5% off the whole line |
| 10 or more | 10% off the whole line |
| Copies | Per part | Line | With US shipping |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $4.08 | $4.08 | $11.08 |
| 5 | $4.08 | $19.38 | $26.38 |
| 10 | $4.08 | $36.72 | $43.72 |
Print & Ship takes up to 20 copies of one part per order and the print API up to 50. The cost calculator prices any weight and quantity.
Multicolour batches
A print in 5 or more colours needs a second AMS unit loaded by hand, and its $25.00 fee is charged once per order line, not once per copy: the trays are loaded once for the whole run. The purge is already inside each part’s sliced weight. Multicolour printing covers how colour is priced.
How long a run takes, right now
One printer prints one plate at a time, so a run’s lead time is arithmetic: the plates, spread across the printers on orders, behind whatever is already queued, plus a day to pack. This is the same live panel as the farm page and the MCP server’s get_lead_time tool. Set your own part weight to re-quote it.
| Order placed now | Lead time | Ships by | Printer time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 order 100 g total | 1.4 days 1 hour printing + 8 hours queue + 1d handling | — | 4 h split across 5 printers |
| 10 orders 1,000 g total | 1.7 days 9 hours printing + 8 hours queue + 1d handling | — | 40 h split across 5 printers |
| 100 orders 10,000 g total | 4.9 days 3.6 days printing + 8 hours queue + 1d handling | — | 396 h split across 5 printers |
| 1,000 orders 100,000 g total | 37 days 36 days printing + 8 hours queue + 1d handling | — | 3,959 h split across 5 printers |
Based on 5 printers on order duty (5 reserved by the farm for production), running 22h/day at 26.6 g/hour (measured from completed jobs), 100 g per order, plus 1 day for packing and carrier hand-off. Large batches spread across every free printer, so the quote assumes the fleet stays available. Need a firm date or dedicated machines? Talk to the operator.
Plate size and what shares a plate
The largest plate is 340×320×340mm. Each copy in an order is planned as its own plate. If several small parts should share one, lay them out in Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer, slice the plate and upload it as .gcode.3mf: we print it exactly as exported, and its measured weight is the price.
Plastics for production parts
All FDM, all priced per gram, all-in. The materials guide has the detail.
| Material | Per gram | For |
|---|---|---|
| PETG | $0.12 | Functional parts that must not snap: brackets, clips, things that hold water |
| ABS | $0.12 | Warm environments and enclosures; sands, drills and glues |
| ASA | $0.14 | Outdoor parts and signage in year-round sun |
| PLA | $0.12 | Display pieces, prototypes and indoor parts |
| Flexible TPU | $0.25 | Gaskets, grips, feet and anything that bends |
What stays the same across a run
- The same slice, profile, nozzle and layer height on every plate, so dimensions behave the same way.
- The same price on every part: the billed weight rounds up to the whole gram per part, so it does not drift.
- Colour from a stock spool. A long run can cross more than one spool of the same colour; agree a colour and a material batch with us first if that matters.
- Parts can come off different machines. The fleet is Bambu Lab H2S and P2S, and the same part from each is not bit-identical.
- Parts are checked by hand before packing. There is no automated dimensional inspection and no per-part record.
- Print one first, in the material and colour you mean to run, and check the fit before you order the rest.
Repeat orders, reserved machines and agents
A part you reorder every month is worth scheduling rather than resubmitting, so talk to us. If you want guaranteed machine time instead of a share of the queue, a printer can be reserved at $1.50 an hour or $15.00 a day, filament at raw cost: reserving machine time.
Software can order the same part again without anyone opening a browser. The REST print API takes a file and an address and bills the card on file, and the MCP server lets an agent such as Claude or Cursor check the lead time, quote a file and place the order as tool calls. Ordering always takes a quote and an explicit confirmation.
When another process is the better buy
- We print FDM (filament) only. For metal, resin detail or powder-bed nylon, use a bureau that runs those processes.
- Nothing bigger than one plate in one piece: 340×320×340mm.
- For many thousands of identical parts with a frozen design, get an injection-moulding quote as well; once the mould is paid for, moulding is hard to beat per part.
Bulk 3D printing services compared sets the options side by side.
Questions about batch printing
What is the bulk discount?
5% off from 5 units, 10% off from 10 units, taken off the whole line. Nothing above 10% is offered on the website; a larger recurring run is quoted directly through /contact.
Where does the volume break apply?
Wherever a quantity is priced as one job: Print & Ship on /print, an order through the print API, and the estimate_price and quote_print tools on the MCP server. A cart line is priced one unit at a time and multiplied, so it does not pick up the break. For a batch, order it as one job.
How many copies can one order carry?
Print & Ship and a cart line take up to 20 of one part; an order through the print API takes up to 50. Beyond that, split the run across orders or talk to us first so the whole run comes off matching spools.
Is there a setup fee or tooling cost?
No. There is no mould and no setup fee, so the price per part is the same from the first to the last, less the volume break. Each part costs at least $1.00, and a print in 5 or more colours adds $25.00 once per order line, not once per copy.
How long will a batch take?
Every order ships at the print speed bought for it: Normal print in 4–5 business days, Priority print in 1–2. A large run is limited by printer-hours, so the live panel on this page and on /farm works out how long 10, 100 or 1,000 orders would take on the fleet as it stands right now. For a deadline on a big run, talk to us before you order.
Can I reserve printers for a recurring run?
Yes. A printer can be reserved at $1.50 an hour or $15.00 a day, with filament charged separately at raw cost, and reserved machines are held out of the general queue. /docs/farm/reservations explains booking and billing.
When is injection moulding cheaper than 3D printing?
Roughly from 5,000 to 10,000 identical small plastic parts, once the mould is paid for, and only when the design is frozen. Below that, printing usually wins because there is no tooling at all; many products print the first few hundred while the design settles, then cut a mould. /docs/farm/bulk compares the two.
Read next
- Bulk 3D Printing Services Compared: Farms vs Bureaus (2026)Farms, bureaus and marketplaces, side by side.
- 3D Printing vs Injection Molding: The Cost CrossoverWhere the cost crosses over.
- 3D Print Farm Setup: Scaling Past One PrinterWhat scaling a run actually takes.
- Bulk and production runs, in the docsThe tiers, the lead-time maths and the order limits.
- Reserving machine timeRates, minimums, booking and billing.
- The MCP serverQuote, order and track prints from an AI agent.
Price your part, then the run
Upload one part for a price from a real slice, set the quantity, and see the break applied before you pay.