On February 4th, Shapeways is going to be changing the way they do their pricing algorithms. As a result, prices are expected to increase. Because the pricing algorithm has been constantly changing during the test period, we haven't been able to finalize our prices.
For reference, they have changed the material names. In order of cheapest quality to highest quality:
1. Versatile Plastic is the same as the old Strong & Flexible Plastic, and is the cheapest material.
2. Professional Plastic is the same as the old Acrylic Plastic, which we stopped offering because it is inferior to the next grade but costs more.
3. Smooth Fine Detail is the same as the old Fine Ultra Detail, which is considered the "gold standard" for miniatures. It has great detail and the cost is right.
4. Smoothest Fine Detail is the same as the old Fine Extra Detail, which has the highest amount of detail but costs significantly more.
There are two major changes that are going to impact our pricing:
First, there will be a minimum price for models. That is $5 for Versatile Plastic and $7.50 for Smooth Fine Detail, with adjustments for polishing, color dyes, etc.
Second, they are now going to be charging the "per piece" charge for each independent piece in a multi-piece model file. So our three ship datagroups of disconnected ships in the same file will cost the same as buying three separate ships.
As a result, we are working on building new files with a sprue between each of the ships. However, the Versatile Plastic (and especially the polished Versatile Plastics) break too easily and cause too many failures, so we are probably only going to be able to offer the datagroups for Smooth Fine Detail and Smoothest Fine Detail.
On Feb 3rd we will be hiding all of our existing datagroups and converting the prices for our single miniatures. We are going to be more uniform pricing model so that prices are more easily to predict. As we are able to update the datagroups with sprues, we will be adding them to the shop.
And to kick it off, we have new ships! We will be releasing the new ships on Feb 4th.
And just in case you want to catch some of the miniatures at the existing prices, here is the link to our shop: https://www.shapeways.com/shops/starfire