# Packaging

> What arrives in the box, how X3D parcels are sized and rated, what postage covers, drop-shipping to your own customer, and designing parts that survive transit.

Source: https://x3dstudios.com/docs/farm/packaging  ·  Updated: 2026-10-20

Every X3D order is packed by hand in Austin, Texas and posted from there. This page covers what actually goes in the box, how the parcel is sized and rated, what you can change about it, and how to have parts sent to someone other than yourself. It also covers the part of packaging you control: geometry that survives a courier.

The short version — parts go into a plain box with no paperwork, postage is a flat rate that does not move with size or weight, and the ship-to address is whatever you put on the order.

## What arrives

- The parts, boxed in plain corrugated.
- Nothing else. There is no packing slip, no invoice and no printed insert in the box by default.
- A carrier label showing the X3D Studios return address in Austin, Texas.

Your paperwork is electronic: a receipt email when the order is paid, a shipping email carrying the tracking number, and the order page at /orders, which shows each order's material, colour, quality, size and quantity alongside its tracking number. The fuller work order — scale, infill, colour count and billable grams — goes to the operator who prints it, not to your order page.

## The parcel

Prints from /print and the store go out in a house-standard parcel: a 6 x 6 x 6 inch box declared at 1 lb. That is the parcel X3D declares to the carrier when a batch of labels is bought. It is a standard rather than a measurement — the carrier re-rates on real weight, and an oversized part gets the box it needs.

> **Postage does not scale with the box** — US standard shipping is a flat $7 per order and free once goods reach $49.50; express is a flat $15 and never free. International is a flat $30, free once goods reach $500. A 900 g part and a 9 g part post for the same amount, so there is no packaging penalty for ordering a big part or several parts at once.

Farm jobs shipped from the dashboard are rated differently, because they are rated live. The shipment weight is the sum of the parts plus a 50 g packaging allowance, the parcel is declared at 10 x 8 x 6 inches, and the total is the carrier rate plus a $3 handling fee per shipment. Rates come back from UPS and FedEx by preference, sorted fastest first.

| Route | What you pay for postage | Carrier |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Order at /print or /store, or through the print API | $7 flat US standard, free over $49.50, or $15 express. $30 flat international, free over $500. | Bought as a batch after the parts are packed. Tracking is emailed at the shipped stage. |
| Farm shipment from the dashboard | Live carrier rate on parts weight + 50 g, plus a $3 handling fee. | UPS or FedEx where available, three-day service or faster, sorted by speed. |
| Collect in person, farm shipment | $0. No label is bought. | The shipment is recorded as a manual delivery and marked shipped immediately. |
| Pickup, on an order agreed with us | $0. No postage is charged and no label is bought. | The order ends at Picked up instead of Shipped and Delivered, and never goes on a label run. |

*Two shipping paths, two rating models, and pickup. A cart order never becomes a farm shipment.*

## Between the printer and the box

A finished print is not a collectable print. Parts release from a PEI plate when the bed contracts on cooling; pulled warm, they either will not come off or they deform. So a job that finishes is held, fans running, until the machine reports a removal temperature.

| Material | Bed target | Chamber target |
| --- | --- | --- |
| PLA, PETG, TPU, PVA | 35 C | not checked |
| ABS, ASA | 45 C | 40 C |
| PA / nylon, PC | 50 C | 45 C |
| Anything unrecognised | 45 C | 40 C |

*Cooldown gates before a part is called ready. A job that has not reached target within 45 minutes is released anyway, flagged as still warm.*

After that, the order moves through six customer-visible stages: placed, queued, printed, packed, shipped, delivered. Every stage after placed emails you by default. The tracking number arrives with the shipped email.

### Pickup orders

An order we enter by hand, or one you pay through a payment link we send, is either Shipping or Pickup. Shipping is everything above. Pickup takes no address and charges no postage, and the order goes placed, queued, printed, ready for pickup, picked up. Ready for pickup emails you that the order is packed and ready to collect, and you reply to that email to arrange a time. Picked up closes it with a thank-you. A pickup order is never put on a carrier label run, and its ready-by day is agreed when the order is entered. Pickup is not offered at /print, in the cart or on the print API, which always post.

## Designing for transit

Packing protects a part from the box. It does not protect a part from itself. A printed part is weakest across its layer lines, and a courier will find that plane. The cheapest protection is geometry.

- Thin unsupported spikes, antennae, blade edges and outstretched limbs are what actually breaks. Thicken them, fillet them where they meet the body, or model them as separate pieces that press-fit after delivery.
- Keep the load path off the layer boundary. A tab printed flat on the plate is far stronger than the same tab printed standing up.
- Give thin walls a real thickness. Below about 1.2 mm you are relying on two perimeters and nothing else.
- Fillet sharp internal corners. They are stress risers in a printed part exactly as they are in a moulded one.
- Pick the plastic for the journey, not just the look. PLA is stiff and brittle and chips at edges; PETG takes an impact and bends first; ASA and ABS survive heat in a parked van; TPU does not break at all, it deforms.
- For a tall, slender part, print it in two pieces and post it flat. A 300 mm mast in a box is a lever arm.

> **Ask for the fragile treatment in the note** — Every order carries a free-text note — up to 1000 characters on an API order, 900 in the cart — and it is stored on the order manifest where the operator sees it. Use it to say what is fragile and which way up the part should travel. It does not change what is packed automatically, but it reaches the person doing the packing.

## Branded, blank, or your own inserts

Everything ships blank today. There is no self-serve option for a printed insert, a branded box, your own packing slip or a different return address, and nothing in the ordering flow accepts one. The label carries the X3D Studios return address in Austin.

For a resale or fulfilment arrangement — your inserts in the box, your return address on the label, or a specific box standard for a repeating part — that is arranged directly rather than through the site. Talk to us at /contact with your volume and what you need enclosed.

## Drop-shipping to your customer

There is no separate drop-ship product. The order carries whatever recipient and address you submit, so drop-shipping is just putting your customer's address on the order instead of your own. One order carries one destination, so one order per customer.

`POST /api/print/orders`

Submit a print with the recipient and ship-to address on the request. Billed to the card on file.

Auth: api-key

**Address fields**

| Name | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `recipientName` | string | yes | Who the parcel is addressed to. Accepted as name as well. |
| `street1` | string | yes | Street address. Accepted as address1 as well. |
| `street2` | string | no | Suite, unit or apartment. Accepted as address2 as well. |
| `city` | string | yes | City. |
| `state` | string | yes | State or province. |
| `zip` | string | yes | Postal code. Accepted as postalCode as well. |
| `country` | string | no, default `US` | Two-letter country code. This route accepts US plus the 23 international destinations listed on the shipping page — the same list the website checkout uses. Anything else is rejected with a 400. |
| `email` | string | no | Who gets the order emails: the confirmation, printed, shipped with tracking, and delivered. One to five addresses, repeated or comma separated; the first is the main contact. Defaults to the email on the API key, so leave it off to keep your customer out of X3D's mail, or add their address after your own so they get the tracking too. Every address gets the confirmation with the total charged. |
| `note` | string | no | Free text, up to 1000 characters, stored on the order and shown to the operator who packs it. |

**Send a part to someone else**

```bash
curl -X POST https://x3dstudios.com/api/print/orders \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer x3d_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -F "file=@bracket.stl" \
  -F "recipientName=Dana Reyes" \
  -F "street1=1100 Congress Ave" \
  -F "street2=Apt 4B" \
  -F "city=Austin" \
  -F "state=TX" \
  -F "zip=78701" \
  -F "country=US" \
  -F "material=petg" \
  -F "quantity=2" \
  -F "note=Fragile clip on the long edge - pack that side up"
```

The response carries an order code and a status URL. The statusUrl page needs no login, so it is safe to hand to your customer instead of adding them to the order's emails. Every email follows the email field, receipt included, which is why you will usually want the first address to be your own.

---

- [Shipping and delivery](https://x3dstudios.com/docs/studio/shipping) — Rates, thresholds, destinations and what each order stage means.
- [Bulk and production runs](https://x3dstudios.com/docs/farm/bulk) — Discount tiers, lead time maths and when to talk to us instead.
- [Submit an order by API](https://x3dstudios.com/docs/api/submit-order) — The full field list, validation rules and error codes.

[Talk to us about custom packaging](https://x3dstudios.com/contact)

## Frequently asked

**Does a bigger part cost more to ship?**

No. Domestic standard postage is a flat $7 per order and free once goods reach $49.50, whatever the part weighs or which box it needs; express is a flat $15 and never free. International is a flat $30, free over $500. The parcel size only affects what X3D pays the carrier, not what you pay.

**Can I collect my order instead of having it posted?**

Yes, for an order you agree with us directly. When we enter it for you, or send you a payment link for it, it can be set to Pickup instead of Shipping: no postage is charged, nothing is boxed for a carrier, and you are emailed when it is ready to collect. Orders placed at /print, in the cart or through the print API are always posted.

**Can you ship straight to my customer?**

Yes. The order carries whatever ship-to address you submit, so put your customer's address on it. The label still shows the X3D return address in Austin, Texas, and nothing in the box identifies your business unless you have arranged that with us first.

**Is there a packing slip or invoice in the box?**

No. Nothing is printed and enclosed automatically. Your receipt is emailed when the order is paid, and the order page at /orders carries the itemised record and the tracking number.

**Are parts packed straight off the printer?**

No. A finished plate has to cool before the part will release cleanly, so the job is held until the bed is at or below its material's target — 35 C for PLA, PETG and TPU, 45 C for ABS and ASA — and only then is it collected and packed.