In August 2023 we released an article about Printables Clubs, where we announced the launch of a new subscription model system to support your favorite creators and gain access to Club-exclusive models. We said we’re aware the subscription model isn’t the optimal choice for everyone and that we might implement an additional system for selling individual models in the future. Well, the future is now. Today we introduce the Printables Store!
The core idea – all 3D printable models in one place
Many creators have profiles on half a dozen of sites these days. On some, they share their free models, on others, they have a subscription based collection of models, and lastly, many sell their advanced creations through their own websites. As 3D printing enthusiasts and makers, we find this rather annoying. One may not even learn about the existence of these extra models at all. We want to fix this and so we’re making Printables the one place, where you’ll find it all, making life much easier for both creators and makers!
To begin with, we would like to reassure you that we are not transforming Printables from a library of free models to a paid platform by any means. Just like with the launch of clubs, we have carefully set up the system in a fairly unique way, keeping the main database of free 3D models in mind. At the same time, we want to give creators another way to monetize their advanced models directly on Printables, which will, in turn, enable them to spend more time doing what they love.
The RC plane models from 3DLabPrint are great examples of high-quallity and creative (vase-mode) 3D printable designs
Printables Store basic rules
All Printables users can start publishing models in the store, but to ensure the Printables won’t change to just an online market platform, filled with hundreds of models with a price of a few cents, we decided to implement some basic, but essential rules.
First things first. Each user initially has only one slot for uploading their paid model to the Store. Once this model reaches a few sales, additional upload slots will be unlocked. This prevents spamming the site with a hundred small variations of one model and, at the same time, it motivates the creators to care about their chosen creations.
Furthermore, the minimum price per model is set to $5. As we mentioned above, our goal is to allow creators to publish their more advanced models here and reward the time they’ve spent creating them. Or even to turn their hobby into a full time job of their dreams! At the same time, we want to avoid the situation, where every single small model will be moved to the Store with a price of a few cents, instead of being free. We believe that the minimum price of $5 will require the quality of the model to justify it being in the store. 😉
The Rescuer by 3D Sets has customizable parts to create your own graphic design or text on the bodywork, utilizing features of the PrusaSlicer
It is also worth noting that only free models can participate in competitions and generate Prusameters.
Printables Clubs vs Printables Store
For creators who publish new models regularly, the Printables Clubs are usually the preferred choice. Vice-versa, for creators who post irregularly, or publish models which took a very long time to finish, the Printables Store is the more suitable option. With that said, there is certainly an overlap, where some models work well both in a Club membership and in the Printables Store. And so we do allow models to be easily available in both systems. If you find such a model, you will have two options to access it. It’s up to you whether you’ll go with a club membership or a one-time purchase. Either way, you’ll be supporting the creator to continue what they’re doing!
Dracula’s Castle – Castlevania by MiniWorld3D
How to set up the Store?
As we said, all Printables users can start publishing models in the store. In the top menu bar, click on the “Settings” item below your avatar, and then select “Store & Sales”. Here you can check all the terms and conditions of the Store.
You need to fill in information about yourself, you can add your own terms and conditions, and set up your Stripe payout details. Then you can activate your Store and upload your first Store model. If you already have a Printables Club, then setting up a store is really a matter of just a few clicks, as you have already entered all the needed information.
Uploading a store model
Uploading a store model is identical to uploading a free model, except that now you can set the price. Each model can be set both as a part of your Club and be in the Store at the same time, with different prices and with the option to set up different types of licenses. For the Store models, you can choose one of the three available model licenses:
- Standard Digital File license
- Allows personal use of the model and its physical prints
- Commercial use license
- Allow selling of physical prints of the model, including modified versions
- Commercial use – no derivative license
- Allow selling of physical prints of the model
Once you list a model for sale, you will see it in a special Club & Store tab in your profile.
Analytics
We have expanded analytics to clearly show you how many downloads and earnings your models have achieved, for both Club and Store ones, so you can clearly see which option is more beneficial for you, who bought your models and how.
Not mixing free and store models
In our previous article, we talked about how we hate browsing mixed free and paid content. You find exactly what you were looking for, only to realize it’s hidden behind a paywall. Even with the option to filter for free results, it’s still cumbersome to toggle the filter every time you forget to enable it. Our opinion on this matter has not changed. Everything you see when browsing the main database or when using the search function is downloadable without any paywalls, you don’t even have to be logged in.
You’ll find the Store in a completely separate tab in the top menu. If you are in the Store tab, it’s vice versa and you will only see Store models, plus optionally the models included in a club membership. Likewise, the search function will list the Store models first. This makes your search much more efficient. You can always switch the search function filter using the left menu, whether you want to look up collections, users, events, free vs store models, etc.
You can also filter Club/Store models in the creator profile. This can help you decide which approach you would like to use to support the creator.
Payments and fees
Payments are processed by Stripe. Users can pay using their credit/debit card, with Apple Pay, and Google Pay. The money goes directly from the supporter to the creator.
Opening a Store on Printables is completely free and there is no monthly fee for running it. The Printables fee is 20%, which will be used to help cover the costs of servers, maintenance, and development. The payment from the supporter to the creator is also subject to fees outside of our control, such as currency conversions or the Stripe payment fee based on Stripe rates.
We believe the new Printables Store will be a huge benefit for both creators and makers alike, and we can’t wait to see your models and makes! As always, we will be listening to your feedback and continually adding more features, from small quality-of-life improvements to big new additions.
Happy printing!
It's definitely weird to have a $5 model that can be accessed with a $3 subscription. Especially when the $5 license doesn't necessarily have commericial use and the $3 subscription gives access to multiple models simultaneously and I can cancel right away. But hey, I guess that's the author's choice.
On the one hand, I think because of that it would make sense to allow for $1 or $3 minimum model costs. On the other hand, I looked at the store, and those models are all HIGHLY detailed and/or multiple parts/colours. Which is WAY better than the flood of $1 models that can be made in a hour with basic CAD. So… you probably have the right balance.
My only complaint is that the "Discover Creators' Clubs" and "Featured Store Models" are on the home page. Especially because that is above the "Design Contests"/"All contests" list. Either change the order to make them appear lower, or remove them from the home page please, and I will then have no complaints.
I'm very happy to see this update. I use Clubs for seller licensing, but I'm far too inconsistently productive to be able to commit to actually releasing premium models on a monthly basis. Now that we have support for one-time purchases, I have much more motivation to make something worth the price of entry. 🙂
It makes me so happy to read your comment! Hearing that the Printables Store might be the deciding motivation for your to continue working on your models (I love your work!) is exactly what we hoped for when we decided to start working on it. 🙂
Ok, say I post my one allowed model. I want to make money. If it doesn't sell, can I take it down and replace it?
When I first came over to Printables I had high hopes that it would be the successor to the aging and poorly maintained Thingiverse. A free, and open repository for passionate creators to share their works with a wider community.
Instead you've remade Cults3D, and MMF. Soon the free models will be only the most low effort things, and everything worth printing will be locked behind a paywall.
I'm looking forward to paying people for their hard work and excited to see the new innovation this brings to the 3D community.
Thank you very much. It is nice to see when people recognize the works that goes into designing a good quality model.
My models on average take 2 months at least to develop.
Thank you for making this comment.
Merry Christmas!
Fulv 🙂
I'm looking forward to this idea being the death of 3D printing. I've already run into the issue where I had downloaded a model for free a few weeks ago and missed downloading one of the STL files. Now the scummy guy has taken down his normal page for the model and has it locked behind a paywall. It also used to allow remixes and there were several remixes of the model available, but the new license now says no remixes and the old remixes seem to have been taken down. Just cuz you change your license to prevent new people from creating remixes, doesn't make existing remixes created under a previous license a copyright infringement.
They really need to have a way to prevent people from removing previously free STLs so they can charge people for what used to be free.
Is this guy known for his Bambu storage solutions?
it's very encouraging to hear there are people like you still out there. As a disabled person who is unable to work, any income I get from selling my models is a massive help to me, but I think places like Thingiverse spoiled people for too long with masses of free stuff.
I do release some free models, but some I put so many hours of work in to them, I like to think my time and effort is worth something at least.
Some of the models I've made in the past could easily be worth $100-200 to someone who knows the industry and how much time it can take to make stuff. It's always disappointing when I decide to get myself a few measly $'s, and maybe even be extra nice and allow people to set their own price, with a minimum of $1, and then get 2 sales for $1 each because people see it costs $ and just back away 🙁
Agreed
This article explains in depth that this is exactly not what is happening and how much effort we're putting into a clear seperation between the main Printables database and the Store.
You've added a financial incentive, free models will become scarce and models that should be free will be sold for ridiculous prices. It happened with Thingiverse, it will happen here now.
Only if the price of the model will be justified by its quality. Hence the minimum price and the number of store slots limited by successful sales.
For example, the creators of the 3dLabPrint planes spend 500+ hours on a single model, including a lot of test prints, creating assembly manuals and list of suggested electronics. Such models would not exist and would never be on Printables without a way for the creator to justify spending that much time on it and making some money off it, even if it's a hobby the creator very much enjoys.
Very few people spend that much time modeling/designing… And those prints may not even be desirable. So that's quite a risk to take.
Far better to make a bunch of smaller easy models that should be free and slap a $5 tag on them…
I think you guys did a great job with encouraging quality over quantity. There are so many talented people who can't justify working for free and this will give them the opportunity to bring us some amazing prints!
It's a win/win
100% agree with you.
My models for example, on average take at least 2 months of hard + work and development prints + manuals and so on.
My latest model of the Christmas Castle took me 3 months to design and it even comes with animated online instructions!
Been able to charge some money on your site makes a huge difference in encouraging designers like my self to carry on making new models for everyone to print.
Thank you for doing so your support is very much appreciated.
Merry Christmas!
Fulv 🙂
We already see 'contest winners' pulled out of availability and made into pay prints.
One or the other, not both.
You want to compare? Then apples to apples.
I don't see this as a positive thing. There are lots of places to buy prints and I do spend money there. I over spent for two printers here to support the research. I hoped that bought some goodwill
Can you give an example. I’ve browsed some contests but havent’t encountered any winning prints that are now paid models.
"Soon the free models will be only the most low effort things, and everything worth printing will be locked behind a paywall."
You couldn't be more wrong.
I have some high-quality, high-effort models here for free. I intend to continue uploading such models. But there are some with commercial potential that I'm holding back, and I have no intention of ever publishing for free. The only people who get these models are selected clients. Because I am not interested in maintaining yet another account on Cults The Printables Store would allow these models to see the light of day.
Furthermore, the mechanism by which non-free models can be submitted is restrictive enough to prevent "everything worth printing [to] be locked behind a paywall." You get to upload one non-free model. If it doesn't sell beyond a certain threshold, you don't get another opportunity to upload another non-free model.
@Crixiss brings up some good points. Despite some efforts at regulation, it's hard to imagine this won't push printables the same direction other sites that include a pay tier have gone. It tends to have a negative impact on the free / open-source atmosphere that printables has maintained. I would just suggest keeping a finger on the pulse of what this change is doing to the printables community and maintaining a willingness to pull the plug on the store if it is having a negative impact before it is too late. Since it's already begun, I wish the project luck, but I remain skeptical about this.
Is there an option for the author of the model to sell the printed version rather than just the digital file?
maravilloso!!!!!!!!
I think your store concept is well designed and nearly balanced.
I really appreciate that you keep the original "free" printables database completely nag-free.
THANK YOU!!! 👍
Glad you like it!
"The money goes directly from the supporter to the creator." seems to me to imply *all* the money. You take a 20% cut as explained in the next paragraph. So this sentence could be a lot clearer say by starting " Most of the money …"
I understood it as Printables not acting as an intermediary withholding the payments.
I don't believe this will be good for 3d printing, people won't bother with small prints anymore and will just opt to sell in the store. Holding anything "worthy" of selling back, until they make enough money off the released print.
I really see the logic behind it, more people making prints more people printing more people buying printers.
Your competitions were incentives for makers/creators and you could have easily added a few more incentives to winners and most downloads etc.
Make a print for prusameters or make a print for money … no brainer
Just another quick comment,:
The proof will be in the pudding from how many makes and comments their are.
Will you be able to see the amount of downloads it has .
As a designer and creator I think that Printable's providing multiple reward options for us designers to improve and provide better creations for people is a good thing.
My only gripe is that you have us all locked into the Stripe ecosphere which takes about 20%, and if you use the newly developed Printable's store then there is a further 20% take on top of that. So at the end of the day the designer only takes home about 50-60% after all taxes, fees and all processing fees.
There needs to be more payment options that benefit the creator and end user alike. Like PayPal for instance, there fees are about half of what Stripe's are.
I agreed with you mate. People are forgetting that Stripe processing fee is way too high. There should be more option for payments as this will also deter buyers and seller. Also agreed on PayPal at another alternative payment processor.
Yes more payment options would be great. Even an option to turn 100% into Prusa store vouchers – win for Prusa as they would get more than 20%, win for creator if you need printer things.
Yeah it would be great to have other payment methods. I just had someone message me saying they can buy my model because "Stripe doesn't currently support application fees for platforms in CZ with connected accounts in TH"
I think this is a great idea because it puts everything in one place.
I saw a premium model I was interested in and wanted to ask a question via the comments but unfortunately it seems comments are disabled on paid models? I think it would make sense to give us a simple way to ask questions to the author via the comments.
+1 for comments available on store
Yeah I would like to see this too.
I welcome these changes since I'm still a bit hesitant to join clubs in the first place. It just doesn't scale very well for me, as I'd continuously have to cancel and re-subscribe subscriptions to support all the creators I would want to support – without going broke myself.
I'd love to see a Twitch/YouTube-like approach where I'm paying a fixed monthly fee and printables distributes the money among the creators I download models from.
Nice idea to consider!
Well Done, it opens another opportunity to a lot of makers.
Personally, as a hobbyist maker the club was not good for me, but here definitely I would consider to jump in to the Store once I will see a model I design deserves it.
It will be nice for the ones that are registered users in Printables Store, to have in their "free models" (that the user may post in the free part of Printables) to have a button suggesting a donation (like in the past the buy me a coffee), this donation can be routed to the user in the same manner as selling a product, (The visitor can decide on the amount, and Printables can/sould get the same commission as in the store, because it provides the service / bandwidth…).. This will give another incentive to still have free models for some of us.
Greetings from the Galilee.
Is there a minimum procent of free models needed to be allowed to upload a paid model?
This right here. I think it is a great idea to submit models first to the community and then submit the complex models for sale. Require submission to the free community first. This benefits the community and the creator. I have no problem sharing the some hundreds of designs i have created and tested. Some would be great to recoup something for all the time spent. I can post some of my easy to intermediate files to the community, the advanced and complex models to the store. I get recognized for my submissions to the community which creates leads to the submissions within the store.
Another suggestion is maybe licenses. If posting for sale, fully open license to those who purchase it. If posted for free, then you can lock down the license.
We will now see a movement of free from the free database to the store. The free will shrink. Already several models have done so. Can I assume that Prusa will be taking a portion of subscriptions and sales? Profit motive. I get profit sure. But this isnt in line with what printables initally set out to do. Or maybe it was.
No, but you only get the one Store slot until you make a few sales. Which is simple, but effective safeguard for the site. Creators should be free to decide what they want to publish and how, forcing them to publish 5 free cube models would before posting another Store one would just spam the main database.
Requiring a certain number of downloads/makes on 'regular' projects before posting paid models would do the job, no? No incentive to post 5 cubes if you need to actually get people to download it. It could also go the other way by having free downloads act as an alternative way to access more shop slots.
If the model won’t sale over time, are we able to replace it in that first slot?
I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the initiative taken in implementing the new system besides "my club." It's truly commendable to see efforts being made to continue enhance the overall experience for creators and consumers
The recognition that certain projects can be exceptionally intricate, and that the existing system may sometimes be unfair to creators, is a crucial step forward. The ability to now segment more complex projects is a game-changer.
Once again, thank you for your dedication to innovation. Prusa continues to lead the way, setting the standard for others in the race.
What a backward message to send from a company who started out as being proud to be open source. The tables have turned. Instead of finding ways to further 3d printing by making it more accessible for new users you are furthering yourself from them. Not all designers are entitled. Some still understand what it is to be open source. It seems that you will leave that maket to bambu labs as well?
The employees at Prusa are not slave labor. They deserve to be paid.
Did you even read my comment before replying? My qualm is the entitled users and prusas recent activity to support paid 3d files especially since they grew from open source. Even bambu which is not open source isn't pushing for paid models. They are driving to make 3d printing for everyone.
Is it "entitled" to ever charge for a 3D model? One that you put hours, maybe tens or *hundreds* of hours of time and effort into designing?
Open source is great and I'm very happy that people come together and collaborate for everyone's mutual benefit. But it's silly to say that everything one ever makes should be released for free – especially works of art or design. If I want to see a movie, I pay for a ticket. If I download a video game, I don't expect to get the source code for free with it.
I don't think giving people the opportunity to make some money in exchange for their hard work goes against the concept of open source. My printer is open source but I still paid for it.
You know what I think is "entitled?" Expecting to get everyone else's work for free.
I am not saying dont charge for prints. There are lots of sites people go to for buying prints. I just wish that Prusa wasn't selling out. Printables was a special place when I first joined, full of hobbiests who just wanted to make a difference in the community. People looking to see thier prints in the wild. There are some designers out there that this is more than a hobby, if they want to sell thier stuff, there are sites out there to do that already. I see two problems with selling prints on printables:
1. If it is a option to charge for a beta test printed projects who isn't going to charge? This means that the market will have untested prints (with the exception of the creator) now being sold. I dont know about you but it would only take a couple of roughly drafted good ideas prints that look good on paper but don't work well to make me loose interest.
2. And this one is a selfish one. Now that printables is allowing everyone to charge for prints where do the hobbyists go? I am not looking to make money, just to collaborate on my designs and other people's. I have spent 20 plus hours on designs and I know others have as well that are posted for free because we are hobbyists.
One of the comments above mine said the same thing in fewer words. We are losing 3d printing to monetization. Everyone is choosing the quick buck over making the hobby great.
Printables cost's Prusa lot's of money to develop and maintain. They need to have a way to monetize / Profit share with creators or it will stagnate and disappear.
There is a massive barrier to entry for creating complex, well crafted prints. The people who have a problem with paying probably have no concept of how many hours of R&D goes into crafting something novel or special.
It may not disappear with people charging for prints but that isn't the only way for a site to continue. Thingiverse doesn't have paid models. Printables is great because it was open-source modled. It attracted people that wanted to collaborate. Now it will just be another paid to print service. There is no way that it can compete with stlflix and the like who hire actual designers.
If I was to set up a club, therefore keeping my designs behind a paywall, am I still able to share some of my models for free or is kind of an all or nothing setup?
It's entirely up to you. You can share models for free. You can have a club. And you can have a Store. All at once, or just whatever you prefer.
The only thing is that with the store, you only get the one store slot untill you make a few sales.
If the model won’t sale over time, are we able to use that slot for another one replacing the previous?
Just starting out, I have one slot. Say I upload a model, and it doesn't do very well. Can I unpublish it and upload a different model in that slot? Would my sales then be cumulative?
It feels like that first model is such a gamble if you're stuck with whatever you put in that slot. Do you go for something complex and more expensive/fancy? Or do you do something smaller, cheaper, but maybe more common?
I think that this is great!
What would *really* help me would be the ability to also connect people to a service to print a model that I put in the store.
I have one or two models that I give as gifts that people have asked the recipients "where can I get that?" But they don't want an STL, they want a physicals copy.
Shapeways is prohibitively expensive, treatstock seems to be dead (models stay in the "pending moderation" state forever) and I don't know of any other options.
Sadly they don’t promote it and also I don’t know if it still exists as I never got any reply. But check out the Prusa Map, every profile can checkmark if he also prints for others etc. . Maybe craftcloud would also help to find a option.
Depending on the number of models you sell, I am sure some people here would play print on demand services for a small price. Heck, I would do it just to give my Prusa or Bambu something to do while the other is busy.
The Addition of the store seems very thoughtful and I like the idea. It pushes my imagination, maybe I will add an payed model in the next weeks!
Nice seeing a shop at Printables.
Can you add the possibility to uploud a MAKE without purchasing the model? I have purchased a few 3dlabprint models at their own website and could show some support by uploading the results on their product at printables.
Thank you
I see this as PRUSA’s confirmation of defeat, extended from the product front to its essential sharing culture.
The glow of open source, the culture of sharing, and evangelizing 3D printing through education and collaboration is fast receding.
At times when PRUSA is embattled by well-executing commercial ventures that bring to the table superior products and aggressive marketing, like Bambu Labs, I think PRUSA is not stepping up to the challenge, by defending its business model using its strengths, of which the user community is possibly the strongest.
Instead, they are looking for scraps, coins left at the table. “Let’s hurry up, pick the user content scraps up before they also go away, as the printer revenue is doing! Perhaps we can become a content company, with the hardware sales just a loss leader”.
Further commercializing its customers’ innovation, instead of their own, is the ultimate example of what Doctorov brilliantly calls “shittification”: when easy profit coming from disrupting markets stops growing, turn around and milk the customer relationship.
In this case, the trend may be ultimately defeatist, because it weakens many sympathy arguments, used to favor (defend?) PRUSA when evaluated against BL and others for new purchases (“Yeah, it’s faster and better, but I like PRUSA’s OS and open approach”).
What comes across is the belief that the open source king is dying, long live the $ king.
Unfortunately for PRUSA, this is a very easy to reproduce move for Bambu Lab et.al., so it may “shittify” the community without producing much impact to the bottom line.
I'm having trouble posting a paid model, do I have to be a club owner in order to make it paid?
I have the same problem. There isn't an obvious option to make an uploaded model a "Store" model instead of a free model.
Ok I figured it out. Apparently I didn't read the whole article in depth. See the following:
How to set up the Store?
As we said, all Printables users can start publishing models in the store. In the top menu bar, click on the “Settings” item below your avatar, and then select “Store & Sales”. Here you can check all the terms and conditions of the Store.
You need to fill in information about yourself, you can add your own terms and conditions, and set up your Stripe payout details. Then you can activate your Store and upload your first Store model. If you already have a Printables Club, then setting up a store is really a matter of just a few clicks, as you have already entered all the needed information.
I would like to see the ability to filter by license type. Personally when I am paying, knowing if I am buying just the design or actually the rights to the file is different in terms of how much I am willing to spend.
That is perfect, I was waiting for this! The store opened, and the first design was uploaded. THX
Hello, I want to enter my information for the store, but why is Türkiye not among the countries?
I see a couple of items in the store which are only represented with screenshot/renders.
I think you should require proof of printability and perhaps have some requirements for documentation. This is the same principle as you have a minimum price of $5. If people want to offer something for sale, at least they should take some time and care and provide real photos and documentation of print, post processing and assembly – and perhaps what tools and other materials are required. Otherwise the store will be flooded with knights of fortune using their one slot for whatever they once designed hoping to monetize it no matter the quality.
Very positive news. Thanks PRUSA!
For those complaining, that it will end free models and everything will be on store side in future: why everyone is not in cult3d then? Selling their models. There will be free models here also. And if someone tries to sell their crapy model for big money? So what. Do not by it. Design better one yourself. And sell it or give away freely. If it is good model, then someone worked on it and deserve reward.
To blame PRUSA for ending "free" and "open source" is just stupid. It is great opportunity for creators to get paid.
Only problem is, that we can't accept € and will lose many for conversion fees 🙁
What a great surprise 🙂 Just a mention: to maintain freshness and encourage creators to bring really meaningful creations on-site there must be an expiration period for non-selling models…and have the option to migrate to free…. (not sure if this is already stated…)
Another 2c….Something that maybe can energize the world of 3d prints: the link between the ones who create and the ones who invest in print farms. Some people would like to have physical 3D-printed objects in their hands but to have this they must buy a model (or create one) and contact a print farm since they are not professionals in 3d printing but gravitate around the world of printables. On the other hand, the ones with the print farms search relentlessly to find free objects to sell (on Etsy). How would be that each 3D creator have the option to allow for a fixed or negotiated (through the platform) amount to let the print farms use its creation (of course the print farm must be authenticated and sel under the platform license…), a creation which in fact is ordered by the customer…which also choose which print farm and price suits him best…even the number of printed objects can be monitored and the share amount negotiated can be automatically fed to creator account… etc… this can end the 3d printing autism and bring quality objects and personalization and cocreation services to ordinary customers or professionals who don't 3d print 🙂 …again…just my2 cents… don't shoot!
I'm mainly pubish things that are very niche, and would have very low number of downloads (even when free). The files I'm doing are to provide repairs and solution to run RC cars from eighties. After 2 years of providing free files, I can say that they serve a purpose, and I can see my parts used to repair cars that are sold later on ebay or other places with a high markup on selling prices… But on the other side, not much thanks, and even less small contribution. The fact Printables offers more prusameters for makes was somehow bothering me. At the end All my recent publications are paid files on Cults3D, and there is some sales. I see this move being quite welcome on my side.
However, while I understand the principles of avoiding the store being flooded by paid models, I also see that some of us may have many paid models already on Cults3D. Due to the principle applied, I'm not sure those who have paid models somewhere else will bring them into Printables. And I'm certainly not going to move mine, because I want all of them in a central place : there is no way I bring one without bringing the others in my mind, And bringing one, wait sales to bring next is not going to happen.
For me that's an issue. And discussing with some of my friends also working on the same niche topic, I guess they would be in the same spirit…
In anycase, thanks for what you are doing, but it may be a bit too late too little…
I was excited by the option until I realized that Stripe works in limited number of countries. Many people are unable to use it.
Interesting note for you guys, I created an account for the store and less than half an hour later someone tried to hack my google account. Could be a coincidence, or it could be that someone is harvesting the info you're sharing publicly.
good idea Prusa Team. The restrictions seem like a good idea as well. I personally appreciate your observations of the want to keep the site from being filled with a billion models being sold. This is a good idea for sure. cant wait to see how it develops moving forward.
Fantastic to see the store go live. Awesome work Prusa Team!
"great examples of high-quallity" that's a non-quality typo 😉
Well what i've seen so far isn't that great. It is either the same kind of stuff we see on Cults3D. As in 3D Models quickly turned into STLs to make a quick buck. Or really simple stuff like even hooks made out of primitives being turned into 6-10$ cash grabs. Along with a few cases of free models getting suddenly turned into paid for models. There is still some ways to go before a proper baseline has manifested.
The restriction keeps it from getting out of hand just yet. Though it is vulnerable to getting gamed through self-buying with sockpuppets and i think i've seen a few just straight-up creating duplicate accounts to get ahead faster.
I'm not against the idea of a store. Just PLEASE don't expect it to be a fire and forget utopia. You created a juvenile storefront and you will need to keep on it to make sure it doesn't become yet another Cults3D where the "free" on the front-page is a technicality at best…
This store shit ruined printables.
I think this is a brilliant idea!
However, I think the download requirement is too low for the step up in model slots. I would say 10 instead of 5 for the first slot to 5 slots. A slightly higher barrier to entry will only help protect the quality of the store, and also protect the free side of the Printables database.
As someone else suggested, having a minimum amount of open-source models per personal profile could also help protect the free side of the database. Maybe 1:5 ratio of open-source to paid models would provide an incentive for models to still be on the free database, so existing members don't entirely remove their profiles of free models and go entirely paid. This will also help advertise the paid side of people's profiles – you might find a high quality free printable, and then go to the person's page and see they also have really good paid models as well. It would help give back to the community.
Of course, this could possibly be abused by people uploading the lowest quality free models to fill the quota if there is a ratio system.
I am sure this store system will develop over time, I hope Prusa3D is ready to work for the benefit of the open-source community. The reason Prusa Printing re-branded as Printables in the first place was to make it a standalone 3D printing database of quality models as an alternative to Thingaverse etc. Hopefully that continues to be the case.
Just another example of Prusa going downhill, publishing half-baked ideas, taking money from their customers without delivering.
Prusa is a garbage place these days.
Store publishing is only possible for companies? Not private persons, like cults3d or cgtrader does?
Hi, I started a store and stared selling a model, someone just messaged me saying they tried to buy the model but could not. They got this error:
Stripe doesn't currently support application fees for platforms in CZ with connected accounts in TH
Is there anything we can do to fix this issue? If people can purchase the model because of fees that does not seem like a good solution?
Thanks