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Xometry-Who is doing it?

sknies

Plastic
Joined
Apr 11, 2018
Wanting to know who is working regulary with xometry, and how they like it. Both good and bad experiences and are you spinning wheels or making a little money? I know this has been brought up, just want a little more recent reviews.

Thanks,
SK
 
Something's wrong with the edit function... Have at it, if you enjoy working for $30/hr. I signed up but never did a job. To be fair, we are set up more for production and the quantities they wanted us to quote was 1-10 or so. We suck at those.
 
Also curious about peoples experience with this. It looked decent for keeping extra spindles spinning.
 
I never signed up with them, but someone there sent me a few jobs to quote.

Never heard back on any of them, but the jobs weren’t a good fit for us anyway.
 
I've done a few jobs, but nothing recently as nearly everything seems to be priced too low to be worth even messing with.
 
I have done a handful of jobs through them. I really dont like it. You have to talk to them then they have to talk to the customer if there is a problem. Big delays. You have to write down and record all your measurement on there form. Then once completed you need to take photos of the part and submit them to there site before you can ship them. For all the work you have to do and the very very short lead time and the very very low rate not worth the time, effort, or the headache. So as someone has used it. I will never accept a job from there again......

Thats my $.02
 
When will people realize all these places do is drive shop rates down?

Maybe in the Machining world but in the Fab world they are our fastest growing customer. We only take the jobs that meet our vetting process...the margin contribution has to be there or we will not take it.
 
I have done a couple smaller jobs but the pay is very low. If you have stock avail and idle machines you might be ok but if you have to buy stock you are in trouble. They did pay on time.
 
Maybe in the Machining world but in the Fab world they are our fastest growing customer. We only take the jobs that meet our vetting process...the margin contribution has to be there or we will not take it.

I think how they price things is much more accurate for fab work, because I've done both fab and machining for them and found their prices on something lasered or waterjet to be about right (which makes sense, because in my opinion, it's way, way easier stuff to quote, especially if you take the time to set up your program and keep it up to date.)

I've done quite a few jobs for them on the CNC side as well, and eventually realized that after all the additional work they require (pictures, detailed inspection reports for parts that don't have prints, stringent packaging requirements, all the invoicing and the non-stop emails) that it wasn't worth doing for what I was making. I also got a couple of parts kicked back due to "surface finish issues" which were milled surfaces better than their spec calls out. One of their random inspectors didn't like the tool marks apparently, despite Xometry saying all surfaces can be left as machined unless otherwise specified.

As far as the race to the bottom: Xometry just bought MakeTime, which I thought was a much better alternative and paid way better for shops. They're just rolling all the customers and suppliers into the Xometry platform, which should drive prices even lower for shops. Hooray.
 
We did the sample part and got all signed up. It's at the point where I am about to unsubscribe. I looked over everything that came in for the first couple months and couldn't believe the bs prices. Half of the jobs you can barely purchase the material for what they want to pay for the final product. I guess at least you don't have to waste your time quoting to not get the job.
 
I think how they price things is much more accurate for fab work, because I've done both fab and machining for them and found their prices on something lasered or waterjet to be about right (which makes sense, because in my opinion, it's way, way easier stuff to quote, especially if you take the time to set up your program and keep it up to date.)

I've done quite a few jobs for them on the CNC side as well, and eventually realized that after all the additional work they require (pictures, detailed inspection reports for parts that don't have prints, stringent packaging requirements, all the invoicing and the non-stop emails) that it wasn't worth doing for what I was making. I also got a couple of parts kicked back due to "surface finish issues" which were milled surfaces better than their spec calls out. One of their random inspectors didn't like the tool marks apparently, despite Xometry saying all surfaces can be left as machined unless otherwise specified.

As far as the race to the bottom: Xometry just bought MakeTime, which I thought was a much better alternative and paid way better for shops. They're just rolling all the customers and suppliers into the Xometry platform, which should drive prices even lower for shops. Hooray.


We did the sample part and got all signed up. It's at the point where I am about to unsubscribe. I looked over everything that came in for the first couple months and couldn't believe the bs prices. Half of the jobs you can barely purchase the material for what they want to pay for the final product. I guess at least you don't have to waste your time quoting to not get the job.

Like I stated above, we only accept an order if it meets our vetting criteria. If we cannot make the expected margin contribution on the job we don't go after it. Just like when we bid an order. I only get the PO if the customer decides to pay us what we are asking.

Seems to be working. We are targeting 7% growth this year and 13% next year. We are tracking +/-1% each month for our target numbers.
 
It looks like they merged with Make Time, I just got a P.O. from them on a repeat of a Make Time job I did. As for the rates on the jobs, you can always refuse. Better to work for $30-$40 an hour than not work at all if things are slow. On the other hand I do not hunt or fish and a fused spine forced me to give up golf.
 
I haven't used it and I'm not so sure I want to. Years ago I signed up for MFG and it was a nightmare. I couldn't buy material for what they wanted to pay for the job. I quit and got my work using shoe leather and business cards.
 
unfortunately our sales guy keeps taking jobs from these people even though you can't make money from the rates they are willing to pay. However we have gone back to them on a couple of jobs that were priced so low you couldn't get the materials for what they wanted to pay and they came back with a better offer. So they are willing to negotiate some. You can bet they are making a pretty penny off of you though when you take those jobs. they only keep and do jobs in house that they can make easy money on. never had a problem with not getting paid quickly which is a good thing it's just by the time you figure in overhead you can pretty much bet you will lose money. another problem is getting real drawings some parts have them but most are just a 3d file. sorry I like to work from prints especially if I have to frill out inspection sheets. Kinda hard to inspect without proper drawings. I would say they are a good place to get jobs if you are working out of your garage and don't have to worry to much about overhead or paying employees, but if you do I would steer clear.
 
Only good thing about signing up is 20% off Online Metals, which I find useful a couple times a year, maybe. It saves me typing in codes when checking out to see if anything works.
 
So, a guy I know (over the internet, common interest) was having vendor issues on some machined aluminum components.
He asked me if I could help. I sure wanted to (common interest thing again). But, he had a hard date there was just no way I could get even close to.
I just told him flat out "your needed lead-time is ludicrous". (which it really is for what he needs done)

He messaged me today and said he has parts on order through Xometry. I am curious to see how this goes!
I predict one of two scenarios:
a) he doesn't get his parts on time.
b) the parts don't bolt together.

There could also be finish/quality issues (highly visible "showy" parts.

I hope it goes well for him! I really do.
 
If shops keep turning down their machining work, they should eventually get the hint, and hopefully raies their rates. After all, they are a middle guy that still needs to get parts to their customers.
 








 
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