Running a made-to-order 3D printing shop

A small print farm lives or dies on two things: how often you change filament, and whether the right part ends up in the right box. This page is how a shop selling custom prints on Shopify and Etsy can handle both, with Bambu Lab, Prusa or any other printers.

What goes wrong in a print shop

• Filament changes all day. Printing orders in the order they arrived means black, then white, then black again.
• Whose part is this? A plate of six name tags from four orders looks identical once it comes off the bed.
• Multicolor jobs block the AMS. A four-color job ties up the AMS or tool changer, and single-color work piles up behind it.
• Long prints hold everything up. One 14-hour print shouldn't keep a plate of quick jobs waiting.

Batch by filament first

For FDM, the setup cost you feel most is the spool. Make it your batch key: same filament, same printer, one batch. If color matters to the buyer, put color in the material name (Galaxy Black PLA, not just PLA) so batches don't mix shades.

Pack plates, then label them

Pack plates with parts from several orders that share a filament. Before you slice, write down which part belongs to which order, or print a sheet per part and stack the sheets in plate order. When the plate comes off, match each part to its sheet before it moves on.

Keep multicolor jobs in their own batches

Group multicolor work by palette so the AMS loads once for the whole group. Run long prints alone overnight and keep daytime plates for quick jobs.

How CrossBatch fits a 3D printing shop

CrossBatch is a Shopify app that puts Shopify and Etsy orders on one production queue, one job per item.

• Printers and filaments: add your printers by name (X1C #1, MK4 #2), then start from the 3D printing starter set of materials and colors and adjust it.
• Product rules: each product or variant ("PETG Black", "Silk PLA Gold") sets the filament, printer and lead time, so orders arrive assigned. On install, CrossBatch reads your products' options and suggests the rules.
• Batches by material and machine: select the jobs that share a spool and printer, start the batch, and they all move to In production. Batches are on Starter ($19/month) and up.
• Job sheets: one per job with the buyer's text in large type, the product photo and a QR code back to the job.
• Promised dates: lead times count working days, and late or at-risk jobs are flagged.
• Etsy orders: forward Etsy's sale emails or upload Etsy's Order Items file. CrossBatch has no Etsy API connection, so tracking goes into Etsy by hand, with a one-click copy.

CrossBatch doesn't send files to printers or track spool weight. If you want an app that drives the printers themselves, see our comparison with Printago.

Not on Shopify? The free Etsy job sheet maker groups your Etsy orders by any option, like color.

Bambu Lab and Prusa are trademarks of their owners. CrossBatch is not affiliated with them or with Etsy, Inc.