How does Printlooper work for suppliers?

What is the supplier role on Printlooper?

Suppliers are production partners who receive print jobs from the Printlooper network, manufacture on demand, and ship directly to end customers. You configure your printer fleet, materials, pricing, capacity, and lead times; the routing engine assigns orders that match your capabilities. You never compete for random downloads, you receive paid jobs with file access scoped to each order.

Suppliers can also list their own storefront products on Printlooper. For designer-sourced marketplace jobs, fulfillment follows the standard routed workflow with PSL-governed file access.

How do I onboard and set pricing?

Onboarding covers business profile, ship-from address, default lead time, printer fleet and bed dimensions, material catalog, and Stripe Connect payout setup. Pricing is typically per gram with optional minimum job price, failure rate buffer, setup fee, and post-processing fee so small parts still clear a floor while large or finishing-heavy jobs scale fairly.

You can set a manual daily order cap, and the platform suggests capacity from your fleet size and bed dimensions. Mark yourself at capacity when overloaded to stop new assignments and let routing send work elsewhere.

What do I receive for each job?

Assigned orders include the 3D file via a signed URL, selected material and color, seller notes, shipping address, and any insert requirements. Links expire after 14 days and are revoked when you mark the order shipped. You generate shipping labels through Shippo inside the job flow, using estimated parcel weight from file metadata.

Declines require a reason code, no capacity, material unavailable, equipment issue, or cannot meet deadline, and trigger automatic reroute to the next eligible supplier. Operational declines are expected; repeated late declines can affect SLA scoring.

How are ratings and routing priority determined?

Supplier ranking blends customer feedback with operational reliability. The platform uses a blended score built from a Bayesian customer rating plus an SLA component, with SLA breaches weighted by severity. That keeps one-off reviews from dominating while still rewarding shops that ship on time with good quality.

Routing weighs material compatibility, build volume, capacity, geographic proximity, SLA score, and overall rating, not just the lowest price. Strong operational performance earns more consistent job flow over time.

When do I get paid?

Supplier payouts run through Stripe Connect after orders are marked shipped. Free pays every 2 weeks, Basic pays weekly, and Pro pays within 48 hours. Transfers cover production cost plus shipping reimbursement; holds may apply during dispute or refund review.

You focus on production and on-time shipment, the platform handles seller billing, designer royalties, and tracking sync back to merchant storefronts.

Listing limits follow the same tier pattern as other roles, 10 storefront products on Free, 50 on Basic, and 100 on Pro, so you can merchandise your own catalog alongside routed marketplace jobs when that fits your business.