We’ve launched our cost estimation engine

For ten years we've been answering the same question over the phone. Someone calls with a part, describes it as best they can, and wants to know one thing before anything else: how much is it going to cost.

Until now, providing a good answer took an engineer between two and three hours. This involved orienting the part, mentally placing it on the build plate, estimating the laser hours layer by layer, and adding up the cost of powder, gas, energy, amortization, and post-processing. That's why almost no one in the industry does it, and why the usual market response is "request a quote."

We have decided to stop answering by hand.

What is SamyQuote

An estimation engine that does that calculation in less than a minute. You upload the geometry, choose the alloy and finish, and it gives you back the build time by phase, how many parts fit in the build plate of an ALBA 300 and an ALBA 500, the actual powder consumption, and a line-by-line cost breakdown.

It's not a simple proportion based on volume. It uses the same process parameters we use in manufacturing, which is the advantage of having developed the machine, electronics, firmware, and slicer ourselves.

Why is it a subscription service?

Because every estimate requires actual calculation—orienting, nesting, and estimating laser time layer by layer isn't a simple formula—and especially because the parameters must be kept calibrated. A powder batch changes, a processing window changes, a new alloy appears, and measurements must be taken again.

A tool that doesn't matter if it's accurate can be given away. But one that a client will use to quote their client, cannot.

So SamyQuote was born as a SaaS, with four levels:

Registration isn't a toll: it's what gives each estimate its own data sheet, its underlying assumptions, and someone to discuss it with. A random estimate circulating without the assumptions that support it doesn't help anyone—and an anonymous price quote will be devoured by bots before the first engineer finds it.

Where did the idea come from?

From the business and web developer who's been helping us with this transformation. He started with the website, to learn about it and get up to speed with what we do. By the second day, we weren't talking about the website anymore.

Their approach wasn't "let's make a calculator," but something much more uncomfortable and much more useful: that the web should stop talking about us and become a tool that people use to work, and that this use should be sustained only as a subscription service instead of as a marketing expense.

In the same conversation, he outlined the complete model of AdditiveDelivery, the on-demand manufacturing service. The two are essentially the same ladder: first you know the cost, then you decide whether you manufacture it yourself or we manufacture it for you.

Prices and formulas are pending engineering validation before opening. When we open, we will also publish the measured margin of error for each alloy, because an estimate without its margin is worthless.

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Where do the items that the engine adds up come from, in how much does a metal-printed part really cost. And what needs to be prepared for the estimate to be reliable, in preparing the file: STL, 3MF and the mesh.