Do I have to upload my model to see a price?

No. The measurement and slicing happen in your browser, and a price appears from that. Uploading is what you do when you have decided to order.

Which file should I send for a machined part?

STEP or STP. It carries the real surfaces rather than a triangulated approximation of them. A binary STL is accepted too, but STEP is the better input.

Is the estimate the price I pay?

Not until a shop confirms it. The estimate is generated from the shop’s own rate card and standard settings; the shop reviews your file and confirms the final price before any work starts. Prices exclude GST, which is added at checkout.

Can I compare shops without sending the file to each one?

Yes. One file is priced against every matching workshop’s own rate card at once, from the same in-browser measurement.

Design and mechanical engineers

See the price while the design is still open

The quote you sent on Tuesday that you are still refreshing your inbox for on Friday.

Your file is measured and sliced in your own browser, so a price appears before anything is uploaded.

Price my part See how it works

What makes this slow today

A price takes days to arrive, so you cannot compare two design options while the design is still open
Every shop wants the file before it will say a number, which means sending proprietary geometry to get a quote you may not accept
The number that comes back is one number, with nothing in it you can argue with

What you get instead

Every line below is something you can check by using the product, rather than something you have to take our word for.

A price appears before the file is uploaded

Your model is measured and sliced in your own browser. The geometry never leaves your machine to produce the estimate, so you can price a part you have not decided to send anyone.

You can see what the price is made of

The estimate breaks into material, machine time and setup. Machine time is derived from the shop’s own electricity tariff, the machine’s depreciation over its working life and its repair rate — not a flat hourly figure.

Quantity changes the per-unit price, and you can watch it happen

Setup is amortised across the order, so the per-unit price falls as quantity rises. Change the quantity and the number moves in front of you.

CNC reads STEP, and the 2D processes read DXF

You do not have to export a mesh for a machined part. STEP and STP go straight in for CNC; laser, waterjet, drag knife and wire EDM take DXF. Everything else takes binary STL.

The shop confirms before anything is cut

A CNC estimate is worked out from a toolpath using each shop’s standard settings and a billet sized automatically around your part. It is an estimate, and it is labelled as one — the shop reviews the file and confirms the final price before work starts.

The processes this usually means

All eight are quoted through the same surface, so none of these is a separate supplier relationship.

Compare all eight processes

Questions we get asked

Drop in your file and see the number

Your file is measured and sliced in your own browser, so a price appears before anything is uploaded.

Price my part