This is a tough post to write. In fact, we've been putting off writing this post for quite a while; putting it off for longer than we should have to be honest.
We are raising our prices. There, we said it.
Material costs have been steadily on the rise over the last 4 years. Even with all of our manufacturing work being done domestically, the cost of raw materials has been going up. A portion of the increase is competition for materials in a good economy and part of it (a growing part) is tariff-related. Parts that we source from foreign vendors (because they have no domestic alternative) have been hit by tariffs in a big way. The result has been a cost increase on nearly every part of our machines, whether we source it or make it ourselves.
We have been combating these cost increases through a variety of tactics. Mainly, due to our growth, we have been able to increase our order volumes, gaining enough discounts to help offset the cost increases. That growth in order size, in addition to running a very lean organization, has helped us keep retail prices flat.
Note we said 'offset' and not 'eliminate'. The fact is that we have been absorbing all the costs that we couldn't mitigate, and those costs continue to grow.
We simply can't continue to absorb cost increases at the rate we have been. From the beginning, we've tried to build an honest, sustainable company that will be around for the long haul. In order to do that, without compromising our services and products, prices have to go up.
We have done a LOT of data crunching and this is what we've come up with:
| Machine | Old Price | New Price | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shapeoko 3 | $1099 | $1170 | $70 |
| Shapeok XL | $1499 | $1600 | $100 |
| Shapeoko XXL | $1699 | $1820 | $120 |
This price increase is 6-7%, depending on the model, and that does not cover the cost increases we've seen. We are committed to offering a great value so this is the smallest increase that we felt comfortable with. (Competitors who do not manufacture domestically have announced increases of about 15%.)
We know this price change will be a disappointment to some people who've been on the fence for a while so we're going to offer free shipping in the US to offset part of the price increase. Shipping rates are the one thing we've been able to consistently and significantly reduce over the past few years and we're betting that our growth will make this trend continue.
In short, we can't promise that free shipping will stick around forever, but for the time being, we're going to run with it.
If you would like to read the specifics of the free US shipping offer, please head over to our docs page for all the details: https://docs.carbide3d.com/how-does-free-shipping-work/
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email to discuss this further.
PS- With that unpleasantness out of the way, expect some big announcements soon.