MakerOS Now Offers Public Beta Launch of Cloud Business Services for 3D Printing Businesses & Makers

September 11, 2015 by Bridget O'Neal 3D Printing 3D Software Business

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Artists and designers, as well as many of those in the creative realm, are known for their bravery in innovation–but they often are not singled out as business people. While the creative mind and a good business sense, as well as aptitude, do often walk hand in hand, the actual day-to-day managing of money and details can elude many who are busy following their passion. While examining nearly every exciting aspect of the 3D printing industry, the topic of business tools just isn’t one that pops up too often. One, because there simply aren’t many–and two, because people don’t find the topic all that interesting in general.

What is actually interesting, however–and much-needed–is the platform being offered by MakerOS, a company that we’ve followed since the inception of their product which has been in development for beta release up until now. CEO and founder Mike Moceri began brainstorming on how to create such a platform due to his own needs a maker and businessman. He wanted to be able to run his business from say, the beach. Many want the same thing–and actually do. Upon founding his business in Detroit in 2014, his challenge initially was how to achieve such a thing, and still have maximum performance. What better way to do all of this than from the cloud?

What has evolved is a contemporary tool that affords makers greater convenience as well as the opportunity to exercise business savvy in a competitive, busy like a roller coaster, kind of world. Referred to as “the industry’s first standard business operating system for managing business activities in the cloud,” Moceri’s service is now available for public beta testing and allows makers to manage their businesses, offer streamlined quotes, consolidate and manage projects–and most of all, provide customer service and take payments.

The service is targeted at those engaged in both front and backend business management for 3D printing services, as well as contract manufacturers, and engineering/design firms.

Just announced today, MakerOS will go from private beta testing to public beta, with a long list of new features, delivering on the promise they made to thousands of makers in business back in April. Now, all those who signed up for MakerOS Beta in the summer will be activated, with new signups rolling into the ‘full public’ launch later this fall.

Those who have been in private beta testing report highly favorable marks for MakerOs. Thingsmiths, of Michigan, has been one of the first users–this past summer.

“There are systems where you fire your project off into the ether and it either comes back to you as expected or it ends up being a mess; we find that with the MakerOS process we avoid that problem,” said CEO and Founder of Thingsmiths Owen Tien. “At the end of the day, MakerOS is about serving its customers, where the customers are the businesses that use it.”

For Thingsmiths, both customer intake increased and productivity were heightened, with positive results on the bottom line.

“This is the core purpose of MakerOS,” says Moceri. “It’s time to address the biggest problem that 3D printing service providers face–scalability. By enabling businesses to drastically reduce overhead while increasing revenue is the inherent nature of MakerOS. We do this with our strong feature-set that creates the essential front and backend business processes necessary for growth.”

Free-tier features for MakerOS, included on every account, are as follows:

Project management system
Custom invoicing and billing
Unlimited users and user management
3D file viewer (by Sketchfab )
3D file repair
Mobile and multi-platform compatible
White-label (customized to your specific company brands)
Secure cloud storage
3% + credit card processing per transaction

Premium subscriptions are available either separately or as one bundle, with introductory discounts offered for this month. Details are as follows:

VoIP Phone System: $20/month

Buy a phone number and route it to your existing landline or cell phone. This system is perfect for managing leads and makes contacting your customers more efficient.

Automatic Quoting: $60/month

Create custom automatic quoting parameters for any material and any 3D printing process. This feature allows customers to quote a 3D file for production without any intervention from the service bureau.

Bundle: $400/month

Includes the phone system, automatic quoting module, other soon to be announced premium features, and eliminates the 3% MakerOS fee. This bundle is especially useful for any business expecting to generate $5,000+ USD of revenue per month.

Cloud storage integrations allow service providers and their customers to link their favorite third party storage solution through the MakerOS upload interface. Features are: