I’m looking at an interesting new free service for 3D print parts ordering, AMSupplyCheck.
The idea is that it is time-consuming to fill out forms requesting print quotes for a large number of potential service providers. Instead, AMSupplyCheck accepts your information once, and then performs all the enquiries for you automatically.
This sort of thing has been around before, but AMSupplyCheck takes it to a new level, as they currently connect with no less than 97 different providers of all types of 3D print services.
You can see these participating services by scrolling around their fascinating global display, where you can zoom in on your region to see the local providers (see image at the top).
In other words, you can check the pricing for your job at almost one hundred providers with a single click.
Did I mention that it is a free service?
You can use the service by simply dropping in an STL file and setting the materials and quantities. The site then does all the work for you. Alternatively, you can use their map function to find close-by services that you might prefer to use.
It doesn’t take long to run, either. I tried a few queries to price out printing an adapter. The interesting part was the price difference between providers, as they were wildly diverging.
For example, one part I priced out had provider prices ranging from €27 to €1378! That’s not just variation between providers, it’s an astounding 51X difference!
This tells me that you absolutely should be checking your fees against other providers. You could easily be paying far too much, especially if you’ve been sticking with a particular vendor for a long time. New competitors have no doubt appeared, and could offer better options.
How can you do this checking? With AMSupplyCheck, of course.
Via AMSupplyCheck
