Press3D Paris

Press3D Paris prints the parts you send it as 3D files, on demand, in a workshop set up inside the swanbase venue in Paris 2e. You upload an STL, 3MF or OBJ file, and the site shows the price and the pickup date. You pay online, then follow the print until pickup or delivery, with no quote to request and no account to create. The site is in French.

The workshop runs four machines. Two Elegoo Saturn resin printers handle fine detail. On the filament side, a Geeetech A20T mixes three colours through a single nozzle, and a FLSUN QQ-S Pro delta printer reaches 360 mm in height.

How it works

1. Uploading the file

You drop your files on the home page: STL, 3MF or OBJ, up to 150 MB each, and up to 20 files at once to order a batch. The site recommends 3MF, which carries its unit of measurement and avoids parts that come out ten times too small. Native CAD files (STEP, SolidWorks) go through the contact form, and the workshop converts them on request.

2. Automatic analysis

The server reads the mesh and runs seven checks before showing a price. These checks cover watertightness, flipped normals, degenerate triangles, a scale that looks too small or too large, an average wall thickness under 1.2 mm and a volume above 200 cm³. You see the volume, the bounding box, a 3D preview and any warnings. A faulty file gets fixed at this stage, before any payment.

3. Configurator and price

You pick the technology (FDM filament or MSLA resin), the material, the colour, the layer quality, the quantity, the speed and the finishing options. The price updates with every change. The server estimates material and machine time from the part's geometry. In resin, print time depends mostly on height, because the machine cures a whole layer at once.

The pickup date comes from the same calculation: the server slots your part into the current queue of the four machines, adds a safety margin and shows the result. Machine status is public on the live workshop page.

4. Payment and tracking

The price shown before payment is firm. Production starts once payment clears. The tracking page shows your position in the queue, the assigned machine and the print progress. Until printing starts, you can cancel in one click for a full refund. A failed print is on the workshop, which reprints the part and lets you know.

5. Pickup or delivery

Pickup is free at the workshop in the 2nd arrondissement, Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 7 pm. The workshop emails you when the part is ready and keeps it for 60 days. Three shipping modes complement pickup: Mondial Relay parcel point, Colissimo home delivery, and same-day courier within Paris. The site issues an invoice automatically with every order.

Use cases for an early-stage startup

A hardware prototype in short iterations. You are testing a clip or a screw boss. The rapid prototyping guide prices a 90 × 60 × 25 mm PETG enclosure at €19.79 incl. VAT, pickup included. To cut the bill, print only the area under test and put your variants in the same order, since the workshop charges the order fee once.

A product mock-up for a trade show or an investor meeting. Resin gives a smooth surface with 0.05 mm layers. A 120 × 70 × 40 mm mock-up in standard resin costs €53.04 incl. VAT. You can add two options: sanding at €6.00 per part and grey primer at €9.00 per part. Order two copies so you keep a spare on the stand.

Before you show the mock-up in public, protect the design. The trade show mock-up guide covers the French INPI e-Soleau filing and the 12-month EU grace period for designs.

An enclosure for an electronics board. An ESP32 or Raspberry Pi board needs a case built to its dimensions. An 80 × 50 × 30 mm PLA enclosure costs €15.05 incl. VAT. If you are new to these boards, the article on building your first robot shows how to drive motors with an ESP32.

A pre-series before injection moulding. Once the geometry is frozen, quantity brings the unit price down. The discount is 5% from 3 copies of the same file, then 10% from 6, 15% from 11 and 20% from 26. Thirty 60 × 40 × 15 mm PETG covers come to €5.56 incl. VAT each. Above 50 parts, the workshop prepares a dedicated quote.

Point-of-sale displays or demo packaging. Counter displays, product stands, raised letters, seasonal props: the workshop prints them from 1 to 50 copies, with no mould. A 150 × 100 × 60 mm PLA display costs €26.26 incl. VAT.

The prices above come from the examples the site calculated on 2 October 2026, at standard speed with workshop pickup. These amounts follow the current price grid.

Pricing and access

The quote is free. The price grid is public and breaks down as follows (amounts excluding VAT, with 20% French VAT added to the total):

In FDM, the workshop bills material per gram used. In resin, it bills the part's volume and leaves supports out. Order fees disappear above €80.00 excl. VAT. The minimum order is €5.00 excl. VAT; on a very small part, the quote may show a "small order" surcharge line.

Speed changes the price: economy takes off 15%, express adds 45%. For shipping, workshop pickup is free, a parcel point costs €4.90 excl. VAT, Colissimo €6.90 excl. VAT and a courier within Paris €14.90 excl. VAT. You pay online.

Limits

• Formats. Automatic upload reads STL, 3MF and OBJ. A STEP or SolidWorks file goes through a manual request.
• File required. The workshop prints from a 3D file. For a part with no model, go first to a designer, an engineering firm or a free tool such as Tinkercad or FreeCAD.
• Build volumes. 255 × 255 × 255 mm in FDM, 360 mm in height on the delta (Ø 255 mm), 192 × 120 × 200 mm in resin. Larger parts get split into pieces to assemble. Resin is no longer offered below 10 mm on the longest side.
• Processes. No SLS sintering, no metal, no certified food-grade, medical or aerospace materials. The workshop does not paint parts.
• Use. The terms of sale classify parts as uncertified prototype objects. Stated tolerances are ± 0.5 mm (or ± 0.5%) in FDM and ± 0.2 mm in resin, so a tight fit may need adjustment.
• Volume. The unit price stops falling at the last discount tier. For several hundred parts, injection moulding becomes cheaper, and the workshop says so.
• Refusals. Weapons and their components, security bypass devices, obvious counterfeits. The file policy lists the cases where the workshop contacts you before printing.

Background

swanbase built Press3D Paris from a problem written down in the project's documentation. To get a single part printed, an individual or a small company could not see the price or the delivery date before starting the process. Large online services quoted 5 to 15 days of lead time with no pickup option. Local workshops answered by email with a quote within 48 hours. Buying a printer meant weeks of learning for one part.

The project therefore shows the itemised price before payment and makes public the queue that sets the lead time. The workshop runs inside the swanbase venue in the 2nd arrondissement. The site publishes 23 practical guides in French, each priced with the current grid.