Interactive version
10 Industries That Paid Us
The same printer, the same filament, the same skill. Sold to industry number one it is worth roughly fifty times what it is worth sold to industry number ten.
Who you sell to matters more than what you make.
Tell it what you have got, and it highlights the industries within your reach. About 3 minutes.
How to use this: tick what you own, read the cards, shortlist one industry, go at it properly.
Where these numbers come from
This is one print farm over eleven months. No metal capability, no special tooling, nothing you could not buy yourself.
In plain English: the big numbers are real, but they are the exceptions. Most weeks look like the £200 to £800 band, and where a number is thin we say so.
What have you got?
Tick what you own and can do. Leave a group blank if you are not sure; it will not count against you.
Do not scatter-shot: pick the industry closest to your existing skills or local network.
Every card maps to real clients.
The same skill, FDM printing plus post-processing plus paint, sells for roughly fifty times more in industry one than industry ten. Not because the work is harder, but because the buyer has a different budget anchor.
This is what worked for us. Which of these works for you depends on which one sits closest to the skills and contacts you already have.
Eight more we have worked with
Lower client counts or smaller average tickets kept these out of the top ten. Every one is backed by at least one real client, so test any that match your network.
| Industry | Clients | Typical value |
|---|
The industries we deliberately avoid
Every one of these looks tempting and costs more than it pays.
In short: saying no to the wrong work is most of how the good work gets time.
Words we used that might need explaining
Complicated things, explained for people who are not obsessed with this. Including us, most days.
// Where this goes next
Three ways to use this
The industries are the map. Turning a name on a list into a paying client is the work, so pick your route.
Build it yourself with Claude
Everything you need to brief it is in this guide: your shortlisted industry, its sub-niches, what they buy and what to pitch. Copy the summary below, hand it to Claude, and work up your own prospect list and first message from there.
Do it fully manually
The full guide has all ten cards, the eight more and the avoid list. Pick one industry, search its sub-niches yourself, and go at it properly. It just takes longer.
Want it done for you?
The outreach and sales material we use ourselves, from the first message through to the way the quote is structured so the upsell reads as helpful rather than pushy, lives inside the paid courses at 3D Printing University.
Go to 3D Printing UniversityThe community itself is free. Ask which industry suits what you already own, get a second opinion on a quote before you send it, or find out whether somebody has already tried the approach you are about to.
Keep this
Your filter, the cards within reach and your shortlist, in one page.