Many people struggle with finding profitable 3D prints to sell, so I decided to write an article going through profitable 3D prints that you can create, list, and sell.

Having an idea of a 3D print to sell is a step in the right direction, but how do you know it will even sell? You can take the guessing game out of it by using existing listings that are selling right now as inspiration.

I found a strategy to see what 3D prints are selling on Etsy and usually have little competition. Here’s the first batch in a new series of profitable 3D prints from Etsy.

I always recommend using this as an example rather than doing the exact same thing. Find a way to come up with your own listing using the same principles.

Here’s a cool 3D print listing I found on Etsy.

3dprintsbyMattCarle

Customizable 3D Printed Solar System Planet Lamps – 16 Color Changing RGB Night Light with Stand

This listing is a really cool 3D printed solar system which has RGB lights + remote and options to pick a list of all the planets, even the sun.

The 3D printed planet comes with an elegant wooden stand to hold the planet up in a nice way.

We know this listing is making sales based on Etsy’s sales section.

Here’s a picture showing all the variations:

The listing images are really professional and clean, a key factor in making online sales. It’s dispatched from the United States and takes 5-7 business days. Some stores will only ship nationally so if you are in another country, you may not directly be competing.

What I like about this listing is how it’s a well-made product which requires some real care and quality to put together. Some real thought has been put into it.

The price of £34 or around $40 is reasonable and will chase some pretty good profit margins.

The listing dimensions says 5 inches for both width and length. It looks to be pretty hollow to let light through so probably only uses around 50g of filament.

While writing this, I went and found a listing on Makerworld for Solar System Lithophane Planet Lamps and found an actual model. I checked out how much material it takes for 5 x 5 inches and it’s 66g, not a bad guess!

Let’s assume $15/KG, so that’s 15 * 0.066 = $0.99

And it takes around 9 hours to print.

Here are the dimensions, 124mm x 124mm which is about 5 x 5 inches.

Do keep model licenses in mind for what you want to use, either use a model that’s commercial free, ask for permission from the original designer, or make your own variation.

You can get some basic RGB lights from Temu for a few bucks each.

The wooden stand you could buy some pretty cheap ones from Ali Express or Temu. Here are some I found on Temu.

Wooden Display Stand with Metallic Accents

Display Stand Wooden Mineral Base

Or you could 3D print your own basic stand, but the wood does give it a nice touch.

So if we put all of that together we have:

• 66g of filament – $0.99
• Wooden Stand – $2.00
• RGB Lights – $2.00

Cost = $4.99

There shouldn’t be much labor involved with this product, maybe 5-10 minutes to set up the print, remove it, apply the lights, and package up the pieces in a box (once you get a system going).

If we assume a $20/hr labor cost, that’s around $3.33. There are a few options for shipping costs. You can do free shipping and increase the price of the product slightly or have customers pay for shipping.

The good thing about products with low competition, the price isn’t as sensitive since there aren’t many alternatives. An extra $5 on a product like this isn’t going to completely tank sales, compared to $5 on articulated dragons.

If we add our $3.33 labor cost to the unit cost of $4.99, we get $8.32 total cost of fulfillment to customer. We can generally add about 10% to account for machine depreciation, electricity etc., so we’ll call it $9.15.

The product is being sold at £33.98 or $44.

That gives a profit margin of $44 – $9.15 = $34.85 per sale.

With profit margins like that, it allows you to spend a good amount of money on ads & marketing while still making good returns.

You can run standard Etsy ads, Facebook ads, TikTok ads, you can think outside the box and look at email newsletters of astronomy or NASA for example.

What do you think? Are the numbers and estimates accurate to you? Do you think this is a good profitable 3D print idea?

If you have any profitable listings you want analyzed, let me know and I’ll see what I can do!