It is known that the open-source-driven 3D printing community is reluctant to pay for the STL files, but the models with the $1-2 price tag are doing quite well. Cults is the most convenient and straightforward platform to sell STL and other files for 3D printing. After a brief research, the pages may give a great insight into niches and demand in design for 3D printing. On a specific page, Cults list the designers who have a big number of followers, likes, sales, and downloads. Some designers have all of their designs animated with the GIFs. Such GIFs make the models, like Flexi articulated, for example, better presented. When browsing through Cults, you can find a lot of models displayed with the GIF animations. This gives hope to independent designers for 3D printing and encourages them not to be afraid to put a price tag on the models. A few talented designers managed to earn a substantial amount of money by selling their designs.

We labeled the website as “The Best for Designers” as we witnessed the real success stories taking place there. The high popularity of print in place articulated dragons pushed Cults to the first place in our ranking system. However, their vast collections contain a big amount of 3D printable files nevertheless. Such repositories as Sketchfab or CGTrader, for example, have a different focus. Not all file repositories were built in order to provide free or paid STLs for 3D printing in the first place. More Ways to Find Quality Files for 3D Printingįile Repositories – Free and Paid Files for 3D Printing.

Free 3d printing stl files