The prices are what they are due to the cost Shapeways charges for 3D modeling. Shapeways provides a print on demand service, which means that there is no incremental cost savings – Shapeways charges the same for the 50th Fredericksburg print as it does of the first. Our own profit margin is somewhere on the order of $1 USD-2 per ship, which will not increase with more sales. This margin, we feel, is more than fair to compensate for the literally hundreds of hours put into researching and modeling these.
Although wargamers have been trained to think that "plastics" should generally be cheaper than "metals," that is not always necessarily the case. Large companies can produce plastic models for low prices, for example, because the incremental cost of each model is low once the huge upfront cost of the mold has been put forth. As such it's not economical for a small business to put out plastic models the way, say, Warlord Games does, absent a successful Kickstarter.
3d printed plastics, however, are rather different, and materials are not as cheap. So that's the short version of the answer.
However, I'd also like to add that these prices are comparable to others out there, and we believe they are equal in quality to some available products as well. Moreover, we have focused thus far on ships that aren't available from any of the other manufacturers – including some experimental and "concept" ships that were planned but not built. So, some of them can only be bought from us right now, and you only need one of each! :)
Also, 3D printed plastics do have some advantages over metals, for the producer and the customer. We've found they store and transport more easily, as they're less likely to bang against each other and chip paint in a storage tray. Also, if you cast up a run of metal models, and there's something wrong – a detail is missing or the wrong shape – the sculptor can do little about it, having invested heavily in the first piece. With 3D modeling, though, fixes can be made in a matter of minutes, and are effective immediately! Which is a pretty neat feature of the 3D process.
Anyway, I hope this answers your question & I'm happy to discuss further!
- Mina
