MikkelF said:
I don't think that's a fair comparison. If you calculate the initial investment then you need to include the time someone spend on creating this piece, the expected volume of sales vs. investment cost. For example:
That $5 estimate included the total print cost, material, printer, space, electrictity etc.
The material costs from it are in the $1 range, rest being labor to operate the printer. Design is included in that as normally you do not stand in front of the printers just looking at them but actually do something useful, like design our next part..
Now, if you believe that it is OK to charge $100/hour for a simple work any 15 year old can do, then great for your suppliers.
A sallaried IT engineer costs us about as much - with a degree and several years of experience. In the UK. For a freelancer though that is even better. Goes out to $100k after taxes etc. For essentially unskilled work here.
I do not see the folk who offer that is doing something bad. It is a normal business and if people pay, why not.
But it is put up at 2x what should be. Even if UK-made. That price would be OK for single-piece print-to-order where customer provide the 3D model and someone slices it, tunes it and then prints it for them. Not for something printed in advance and then sold on.
Many people still think that you need a senior CAD engineer with a degree and a $5000 Ultimaker to be able to offer 3D print services.
While, in reality, today you need a $100 Raspberry Pi, a $100 screen, some mouse, keyboard, a $400 Prusa Mini, FreeCad, PrusaSlicer a $20 digital caliper and off you go. Beyond it, just get more printers to scale and up to 10 or so no special farm tooling is neeeded.
2m2 of a dorm room gives you a worstation plus 2-4 printers to be in business. Yes, I have seen that.
EDIT:
For a bigger business, the actual per-item costs stays similar as other costs start popping up and what one saves here, one spends there.