Frequently asked questions

The questions people actually ask before ordering, answered with the numbers the site runs on. If yours is not here, email [email protected] or use /contact.

Money and time#

What does a print cost?#

Weight times one all-in rate. PLA, PETG and ABS are $0.12 per gram, ASA is $0.14, TPU is $0.25, and that rate covers the filament and normal machine time together — there is no separate hourly line on an ordinary single-colour part. Premium 0.1mm layers cost 1.75 times the rate; standard 0.2mm is the base. Billable weight rounds up to the whole gram, the way postage does, so the quote agrees with the whole-gram figure Bambu Studio shows. There is a $1.00 minimum per part, 5% off at 5 or more of the same part and 10% off at 10 or more. A colour we do not keep on the shelf is at least $0.20 per gram, because we have to buy a spool in for it; TPU, already above that, stays at $0.25. Full workings are on the pricing page at /docs/pricing.

How long does it take?#

Two choices at checkout decide it, one for each half of the wait. The print speed: Normal print is included and ships in 4–5 business days, and Priority print ($5, or 10% of the items when that is more, once per order) puts your order first in the queue and ships it in 1–2. The shipping speed: in the US, standard is 4–6 business days in transit and express ($15) is 2–3. Business days skip weekends; carrier transit is a typical window, not a guaranteed delivery date. Both choices are offered on /print, in the design studio and in the cart when it holds a print.

A large batch is a different question, because it depends on how much of the farm it needs. For that, /farm shows a live lead time worked out from three real numbers: how many printers can take work today — the fleet minus anything offline, under maintenance or held by a customer reservation — the median grams per hour measured across the last 200 completed jobs, and how much work is already queued in front of you. One day is added for packing and handing the parcel over. You can set your own part weight to re-quote it, and it shows the answer for 1, 10, 100 and 1000 orders separately. Two things it does not model: weekends and holidays count as ordinary calendar days, and a print that fails and has to be run again is not in the figure.

Can I get an invoice or a statement?#

Yes. Each payment on /orders has Stripe's receipt beside it. For several orders, filter /orders to a date range and press Statement / invoice: it lists every order in the range with a total, and Download PDF gives you it as a PDF on our letterhead, with your print API orders included. Cancelled and refunded orders are listed under Not charged and kept out of the total.

We agreed an order by email. How do I pay for it?#

We send you a payment link, x3dstudios.com/pay/ followed by a code. It shows exactly what was agreed, items, postage or pickup and the total, and Pay takes you to Stripe. You do not need an account. A link is paid once and does not expire, and paying it creates your order, with an email at every stage like any other. If a link says it was cancelled, reply to the email it came in and we will send a new one.

Why is the Checkout button disabled on my cart?#

Because the slicer has not finished measuring one of your models yet, and we bill by weight. It usually takes 10 to 60 seconds. The cart holds checkout closed and the server refuses an unmeasured print rather than charging you a volume estimate, which undercounts thin parts badly — one plate that estimated at 12.9g came off the printer at 21g. Wait a moment and try again.

Files and materials#

What files do you take?#

Two kinds. A model we slice for you: STL or GLB up to 100MB, or a 3MF model or Bambu Studio / OrcaSlicer project up to 40MB. Or a plate you already sliced yourself, exported from Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer as .gcode.3mf, up to 40MB, printed exactly as you exported it with its own weight and time becoming the quote. A bare .gcode is not accepted, because the farm starts every print from a plate 3MF; use Export plate sliced file instead. OBJ is not accepted on the print upload either: the server has never accepted it, so it is not offered. Convert it to STL first. The free printability checker does read OBJ, and the studio can export a generated model as STL, OBJ or 3MF.

What materials can I choose?#

Five: PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA and flexible TPU. PLA for display pieces and prototypes, PETG when a part has to take some abuse, ABS for heat and impact, ASA when it lives outdoors and has to survive UV, TPU for anything that bends. Twelve stock colours print at the material rate — black, white, red, cyan, sakura pink, sunny orange, green, yellow, mint green, lavender, silver and brown. Ask for anything else and it prices at $0.20 per gram (TPU keeps its own $0.25), because that spool has to be bought in and most of it will not be used on your order. Material detail is at /docs/materials.

Can you print in more than one colour?#

Yes, up to eight colours, three ways. Upload a Bambu Studio or OrcaSlicer project with its filaments assigned and painted, and we slice each plate in those colours and offer it in colour once two or more really print. Upload a plate you painted and exported as .gcode.3mf, and we print it exactly as exported. Or generate a model in the Studio, and we paint and slice it in the colours of its texture by ourselves, then select it in colour at that price once two or more really print. Every colour price is that real slice, purge and filament changes included, at a colour rate per gram of +$0.03/g for two colours and +$0.02/g for each colour after (PLA $0.15, $0.17, $0.19 for two, three and four), and colours are counted by what actually prints. Five or more colours adds a $25 second-AMS fee once per order line. A plain STL has no colour regions and prints in the one filament you pick. A project that uses two filament types on one plate, even PLA and PLA-CF, or changes colour at a set layer height, prints in one colour, and the page says why. See /docs/studio/multi-color.

Shipping, problems and privacy#

Do you ship internationally?#

Yes, to 23 countries: Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, India, Mexico, Singapore, Japan and the UAE. International postage is $30 flat and free over $500. Domestic US postage is $7 flat and free over $49.50. You pick international at checkout, which switches the address form to that country list. Duties and import taxes, where they apply, are yours.

What happens if the print fails?#

A print that fails on our machine is our cost, not yours. Your order does not advance to printed until parts are actually off a printer, so a failed plate is re-queued and run again — the operator can send it back to the queue and pick a different machine or spool for the second attempt. What you will notice is time, not money: a re-run is not in the lead-time estimate, so a failure pushes your ship date out. If something is wrong with the part when it arrives, email [email protected] with your order number. There is no self-service refund button — a person handles it, and a cancelled order is refunded in full.

Do you keep my files?#

Your models are stored against your account so we can quote, slice and print them, and so they are still there if you reorder. Generated models sit in your history in the studio at /design, and you can delete one from there. Uploaded print files are kept with the order, because the operator has to be able to fetch the exact bytes that were validated and paid for. The work-order email that reaches the operator carries a signed download link that expires after seven days. Nothing you make is published anywhere unless you choose to post it to the community gallery, which is an explicit action. A file you upload at /print while signed out is kept only for that browser, and is deleted after 14 days unless you sign in to order it. If you want a file removed, email [email protected].

Accounts and automation#

Do I need an account?#

Not to see a price. Anyone can upload a file at /print and get its real sliced quote; you are asked to sign in or create an account when you press Print & Ship or Add to Cart, and the upload moves onto your account without being sent again. You do need an account to check out on the site, whether from /print, the design studio, the cart or a store product, and to generate a model. You do not need a card saved first; Stripe collects payment details at checkout. A card on file is only required for two other things: generating an API key, and reserving a printer by the hour. A payment link we send you needs no account at all.

Can I use X3D programmatically?#

Yes. Generate a key on your profile and POST a file plus a shipping address to https://x3dstudios.com/api/print/orders with an Authorization: Bearer x3d_live_... header, as multipart/form-data. The order is charged to the card on file and queued at the farm, and the response carries an order code and a status URL you can poll. Because it bills automatically, a key can only be generated on an account that has a card saved. The API section of these docs at /docs/api covers authentication, errors, rate limits and every endpoint.

curl -X POST https://x3dstudios.com/api/print/orders \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $X3D_API_KEY" \
  -F "[email protected]" \
  -F "material=pla" \
  -F "color=Black" \
  -F "quality=standard" \
  -F "quantity=1" \
  -F "recipientName=Ada Lovelace" \
  -F "street1=13359 N Highway 183 Ste 406" \
  -F "city=Austin" \
  -F "state=TX" \
  -F "zip=78750" \
  -F "country=US"

The quote endpoint is public and needs no key at all, so you can price a bounding box before you build anything else.

curl -X POST https://x3dstudios.com/api/price \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"bboxMm":{"x":120,"y":80,"z":60},"material":"pla","quality":"standard","quantity":1}'