Data, updated 4 September 2026
What 3D prints sell for on Etsy
This is a monthly study of the physical 3D prints on page one of Etsy for seven searches, comparing what they sell for against what they cost to make. This is the second sample, collected on 4 September; the August sample is archived at the bottom of the page.
Key finding this September: at the page-one median a vase returns $3.63 for every hour of printer time and a keychain loses $2.56, and that order held even though 59% of page one turned over in five days.
What September's numbers show
Three things, before the tables.
Printer time is where the answer is decided. The spread runs from $3.63 an hour of printing down to a loss of $2.56, and it does not follow price or margin. A dice tower carries a respectable 28% margin at its median and still returns $0.78 an hour.
| Product | Print time | Profit per sale at the median | Per hour of print time | August, per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vase | 5 h | $18.13 | $3.63 | $3.63 |
| Phone stand | 2.5 h | $9.01 | $3.60 | $2.40 |
| Dice tower | 12 h | $9.30 | $0.78 | $0.11 |
| Planter | 7 h | $3.55 | $0.51 | $0.62 |
| Articulated dragon | 9 h | $3.92 | $0.44 | $0.34 |
| Keychain | 30 min | -$1.28 | -$2.56 | -$0.51 |
A dice tower and a phone stand earned almost the same money this month. $9.30 against $9.01 at their page-one medians. The tower needs 12 hours of printer time and the stand needs 2.5. If you own one machine and have a queue, that comparison is the whole decision, and neither the margin percentage nor the median price shows it to you.
The order survived a page that turned over 59%. Vase first and keychain last in both samples, at $3.63 an hour and at a loss both times. Almost the entire set of listings changed between 30 August and 4 September and the overall median moved 35%, but what is worth printing did not move with it. The dice tower is the one row that climbed, from $0.11 an hour to $0.78, because heavier towers arrived on the page.
Keychains sit on most lists of things to print and sell. In both samples they are the only category that loses money at the page-one median, and the reason is in the table: 30 minutes of printing cannot carry six minutes of handling at $3.50 a sale.
The cost model behind these figures is the calculator's own, with hands-on time at $20 an hour. The full assumptions and the per-product cost table are further down.
TLDR
187 physical listings: 25th percentile $10.75, median $22.53, 75th percentile $39.21. The median is up 35% on August, and the listings that appeared in both samples moved 0.2%. Page one changed; the prices on it did not.
| Search | Physical listings | 10th pct | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct | 90th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Articulated dragon | 14 | $7.16 | $10.37 | $17.60 | $27.13 | $53.89 |
| Planter | 46 | $10.38 | $15.63 | $18.42 | $37.93 | $50.97 |
| Keychain | 12 | $2.64 | $2.78 | $3.50 | $4.95 | $12.73 |
| Vase | 32 | $18.02 | $26.73 | $30.16 | $53.25 | $78.63 |
| Dice tower | 34 | $17.50 | $25.50 | $33.81 | $39.34 | $52.37 |
| Phone stand | 23 | $7.52 | $8.91 | $17.65 | $26.66 | $51.31 |
| Custom print service | 26 | $1.04 | $1.96 | $11.42 | $27.78 | $59.20 |
Note: The dragon and keychain rows are 14 and 12 listings this month, down from 43 and 26 in August, because STL files took over those two result pages. Treat both medians as rough. The custom print service row is still mostly placeholder listings ("$1 per gram, message me"), so its median says more about how sellers structure quotes than what a job costs.
What changed since August
| Search | Median, 30 Aug | Median, 4 Sept | Change | Listings still on page one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Articulated dragon | $16.65 | $17.60 | +$0.95 (+6%) | 16% |
| Planter | $19.27 | $18.42 | -$0.85 (-4%) | 49% |
| Keychain | $4.63 | $3.50 | -$1.13 (-24%) | 36% |
| Vase | $30.17 | $30.16 | -$0.01 (0%) | 38% |
| Dice tower | $24.97 | $33.81 | +$8.85 (+35%) | 47% |
| Phone stand | $14.33 | $17.65 | +$3.32 (+23%) | 47% |
| Custom print service | $5.20 | $11.42 | +$6.22 (+120%) | 40% |
The overall median went from $16.65 to $22.53 in five days. That is not sellers repricing. Only 41% of the listings on page one on 4 September were there on 30 August, and among the 58 physical listings in both samples, 33 kept their price within 1%, 8 went up more than 5% and 8 went down. The median change for the same listing was 0.2%.
So the number moved because Etsy showed a different set of listings, and the new set skews dearer. The dragon page went from 43 physical prints to 14 as STL files filled the slots, and the ones left are bigger. The dice tower page picked up heavier towers. The keychain page shed its mid-priced listings and the median fell 24% on 12 items.
If you price against page one, you are pricing against a page that is 59% different a week later. The floor you compute from your own costs is the only anchor that stays put, which is the point of the calculator.
What those prints cost to make
Every listing shows a price and none of them shows grams or print hours, so the cost side has to be modelled. We used the same assumptions as August for all six product rows and ran them through the calculator:
- PLA at $20 per kilogram
- 150 W printer at $0.17 per kWh
- A $500 printer written off over 2,000 hours
- 5% failure rate
- $20 per hour for the time you actually touch the job, not the time it prints
- $1.50 packaging
- Etsy fees: 6.5% transaction, $0.20 listing, and 3% plus $0.25 payment processing, so 9.5% plus $0.45. The transaction and listing fees are Etsy's published rates (fees policy, last updated 13 February 2026). Payment processing is the US rate; Etsy varies it by the country your bank account is in, so sellers elsewhere should change it in the calculator.
- 30% target margin on the selling price
| Product | Grams | Print time | Hands-on time | Cost per unit | Breakeven on Etsy | Price at 30% margin | Page-one median | Margin at the median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Articulated dragon | 100 g | 9 h | 15 min | $11.56 | $13.27 | $19.85 | $17.60 | 22% |
| Planter | 180 g | 7 h | 15 min | $12.66 | $14.49 | $21.67 | $18.42 | 19% |
| Keychain | 8 g | 30 min | 6 min | $4.00 | $4.91 | $7.35 | $3.50 | -37% |
| Vase | 120 g | 5 h | 9 min | $8.71 | $10.13 | $15.15 | $30.16 | 60% |
| Dice tower | 250 g | 12 h | 30 min | $20.85 | $23.53 | $35.20 | $33.81 | 28% |
| Phone stand | 50 g | 2.5 h | 9 min | $6.51 | $7.70 | $11.51 | $17.65 | 51% |
"Cost per unit" already includes the failure allowance. "Breakeven" is the price where Etsy's fees are covered and you keep nothing.
Three things stand out.
Keychains are further below breakeven than in August. The median keychain now sells for $3.50 against a $4.91 breakeven, a 37% loss per sale once six minutes of handling are counted. Filament is 16 cents of the cost. The job is the labour: unloading, checking, bagging, printing a label. Whoever holds the median keychain slot this month is paying Etsy to work.
Dragons, planters and dice towers sit between breakeven and target. The dragon median at $17.60 returns a 22% margin, the planter 19%, the dice tower 28% now that heavier towers are on the page. None of these lose money per print, and none reach 30%. One failed 12-hour tower still wipes out the profit on the next several.
Vases and phone stands clear the target comfortably. The vase median of $30.16 is double its 30%-margin price, within a cent of August. Phone stands moved up to $17.65 against $11.51, a 51% margin.
The pattern from August holds: price follows what the buyer compares the object to, not what it cost. A vase competes with a $35 store vase. A keychain competes with a $3 keychain.
What the labour line does to the answer
The assumption doing the most work above is $20 an hour for hands-on time. Set it to zero and every product except the keychain clears 30% at its median price. The keychain gets to 24% (it made 40% at zero labour in August, before its median fell).
That is the number most sellers are quietly setting to zero. A print farm can't. A hobbyist clearing a backlog on a weekend can, for a while, and that is where the page-one prices come from.
If your bank account is not in the US
Etsy charges the same 6.5% transaction fee and $0.20 listing fee everywhere, and varies payment processing by the country your bank account is in. Its Payments Policy (last updated 31 July 2026) lists 64 locations across seven tiers. The 3% plus $0.25 used above is the cheapest of them, shared by the US and by domestic orders in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Thirty-three of the 64 pay 4%, and 13 pay 6.5%.
Running the whole cost table at each tier, margin at the September medians:
| Processing tier | Locations | Vase | Phone stand | Dice tower | Dragon | Planter | Keychain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3% + $0.25 (US, and domestic CA, AU, NZ) | 4 | 60% | 51% | 28% | 22% | 19% | -37% |
| 4% + EUR0.30 (most of Europe) | 33 | 59% | 50% | 26% | 21% | 18% | -39% |
| 6.5% + $0.30 (the highest tier) | 13 | 56% | 47% | 24% | 18% | 16% | -42% |
The ordering holds in every tier. A keychain loses money in all three and a vase clears 30% in all three. Worth setting correctly in your own quote, and it is not the thing that decides which product to run.
Sale prices and ads
33% of the physical listings were on sale when collected, at a median discount of 30% (August: 38% on sale at 25% off). The prices above are the sale price where one was showing, because that is what the buyer pays.
19% of the 469 listings were ads, down from 27% in August. We left them in, since a buyer sees them.
How the data was collected
- The same seven searches on etsy.com, run on 4 September 2026: "3d printed dragon", "3d printed planter" (two pages), "3d printed keychain", "3d printed vase", "3d printed dice tower", "3d printed phone stand", "custom 3d printing service".
- Every listing card on each results page: 469 rows, 450 unique listings, 306 shops.
- Listings with STL, digital, download, file or bundle in the title were treated as digital files and excluded from the price table, the same rule as August. That removed 282 rows, up from 214. Etsy's cards now carry a "Digital download" label, and it agreed with the title rule on 447 of the 469 rows. Most of the disagreements are custom print services that mention STL in the title, which both months exclude.
- Etsy showed prices in shekels because of where the browser was; they were converted at 3.03 ILS to the dollar, the published rate for 3 September. August used 2.99. Etsy's own conversion is a little different, so treat every figure as give or take 2%.
- "Still on page one" is the share of listing IDs on a results page this month that were on the same results page in August. Same-listing price change compares the physical listings present in both samples by ID.
- Every figure on this page, including the cost table, is computed by a script from the two dataset files. The cost model is the calculator's own code, not a separate spreadsheet.
- The grams, hours and hands-on minutes in the cost table are our estimates for a typical print in each category, not measurements of the listed items. Change them in the calculator to match your own.
Download the raw data: etsy-listings-2026-09-04.json and etsy-listings-2026-08-30.json (listing ID, shop ID, search, page, price in ILS, list price if on sale, ad flag, digital flag, title; the September file also has the digital badge).
August 2026 sample
Collected 30 August 2026: 444 rows, 428 unique listings, 330 shops, 230 physical after the digital filter. All physical listings: 25th percentile $8.53, median $16.65, 75th percentile $31.11. 38% on sale at a median 25% off; 27% ads.
| Search | Physical listings | 10th pct | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct | 90th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Articulated dragon | 43 | $4.01 | $7.60 | $16.65 | $38.51 | $96.21 |
| Planter | 42 | $10.42 | $13.33 | $19.27 | $36.62 | $43.71 |
| Keychain | 26 | $2.21 | $3.10 | $4.63 | $8.22 | $11.83 |
| Vase | 30 | $10.51 | $16.86 | $30.17 | $44.97 | $57.41 |
| Dice tower | 33 | $9.34 | $19.26 | $24.97 | $35.79 | $53.16 |
| Phone stand | 29 | $8.34 | $10.74 | $14.33 | $20.82 | $41.83 |
| Custom print service | 27 | $1.04 | $3.38 | $5.20 | $18.19 | $108.25 |
Margins at the August medians, same cost model: dragon 18%, planter 22%, keychain -6%, vase 60%, dice tower 5%, phone stand 42%.
If you sell prints
Work out your own breakeven before you look at page one. The calculatortakes the grams and hours from your slicer, your spool price, your failure rate and Etsy's fee schedule, and gives you the price that hits your margin. Then decide, on purpose, whether to match the median or price above it, knowing the median will be a different set of listings next month.