Case studies / SaaS platform
MakerFlow
From hobby printer to print shop, without the spreadsheets.
The problem
People selling 3D prints were quoting by eye, chasing payments through DMs, and paying a cut to platforms not built for them. The admin was eating the hobby.
Quoting is the hard part. The price of a print depends on the model: how much material it needs, how long it takes, how it sits on the bed.
What we built
The platform slices uploaded models with Cura on the server and turns the result into a quote using the maker's own rates. Customers see a price in seconds.
Payments run through Stripe, with Afterpay, Zip and Klarna. Each maker gets a branded storefront and revenue analytics.
Rates are set once. After that, quoting is automatic, which matters at fifty jobs a week.
The honest bit
Server-side slicing was a rabbit hole. Cura is built for desktops, and getting it to run reliably on uploads from strangers took time. Some models are broken in ways that crash a slicer, so we built cleanup and failure states around it. It is not a weekend project.
Where it landed
Makers quote in seconds, get paid up front, and keep the margin that used to go to platforms that didn't fit their work.