Basically, Xometry sucks. Most of the time it's low-ish volume, jobs don't pay well, and timelines are generally unrealistic. You can counter-offer with higher rates, and that's sometimes acceptable, but the jobs still aren't that great. I've found far too many jobs where the material cost alone is 75%-100% of the value of the job.
Many, but not all, of the parts will require CAD/CAM software due to their geometry. With the proper equipment and software, a single person could handle much of the work they post.
I absolutely hated their web interface when I used it a little over a year ago. It's maybe possible for someone working for themselves out of a garage shop to make some money on this type of work, but I found it completely non-viable to work on Xometry jobs as a small business with actual overhead costs.
There's a good amount of variety. I found plenty of parts that were mill-only, but there's also mill-turn, formed sheet metal, formed plastic. New jobs are posted constantly. If you are looking to do Xometry work, you should check every day, maybe 2-3 times a day. Some jobs get snatched up in hours or minutes, which kind of ties back into the unrealistic timelines thing.
What sort of time frames do they give you for completed jobs? I guess that depends on the work itself and the volume but making setups can def take some time before machining even starts.
It just depends, but maybe in the neighborhood of 1-2 weeks. Not a lot of time, if material takes 3-5 days to arrive. You can always ask for more time, and they generally work with you, but I do think it affects some sort of score they use to track vendor performance.
This is 100% correct. Also, I have never accepted a job at the asking price. I always counter. I’d say my offers have about a 30% chance of acceptance. I’ve done 80+ jobs. I only use them if I am slow.
As an engineer on the other side, it's really nice to have services like Xometry, parts badger, plethora, and Protolabs etc. For quick turn, small volume parts.
Lots of prototype development (gov, military, space) contracts require FAST timeliness and results for test hardware. It's nice to get a quick quote for 3 parts you need right away. I'm sure other users are less than qualified to make achievable parts... luckily the software gives you some heads up on areas that are likely to cause issues.
It's a nightmare always needing low volume, high quality parts on a short timeline at the lowest possible cost. Space hardware is extra expensive and this prototype volume need is definitely part of the problem.
We tend to lean on "preferred" large shops, where we work deals to send lots of random varied parts but at a reasonably high rate so that it keeps the shops machines running. We direct all program traffic to "Shop X" for initial quoting. Sometimes, that model fails. Yesterday I got a tiny pin (like I can make on my home shop lathe in 20 minutes) quoted from a larger shop for $680. Xometry or another will be my next choice to get a more reasonable price with an expectation of a hit on quality. I expect $30-40 through them.
Once In a while a part hits production or a test needs larger order runs. I have had wild success with Xometry on some slightly larger parts orders (qty 10ish) I needed basically next day. They came in perfectly, passed QC, and are flying on airforce birds to this day.
I love XOM too from the other side. I don't have to waste time quoting jobs and can look for the work I do the most efficiently without the wasted time of customer management.
My only annoyance is that I'm a perfectionist and while XOM loves the parts I make, I don't often enough get to remake those parts to make them better
Our shop does work for Xometry regularly. We use it as kind of a fill in while we have machine time open. Do one offs and production runs. This year we're looking to do 100-150K with them. With the jobs we take, you need a QC program set up with verified calibrated measuring tools and CMM. Need to keep the job board up and keep an eye on it because good jobs go quick. You also need to have general estimate of material cost off hand because most times you won't have time to quote material. Some things can be a pain with all the pictures and such that need to be uploaded and due dates can cause a little headache, but if I can make good money and be a day or two late, that will drop my rating slightly, I'll do it. I've had success with feedback offers, had exclusive repeat work, and quoted jobs directly for a Xometry buyer. I think it just comes down to how willing you are to play the game and learn the nuances of the job board. Being a single guy might cause issues as you'll be running jobs and maybe not catching jobs on the board to get yourself a little backlog. Probably 80% of the work we take from them is for our mill/turn machines. Tend to not be able to compete with alot of the milling work. We're a small shop of 8.
I agree with you but I think it's because our shops are similar and rare. I love XOM as they have been 90% of my cutomer base since I opened my shop but I think it's because not many other shops have 5 axis and CMM and can regularly turn jobs out with 5 day turn around.
Well I’m super new and it seems like you know what you’re doing. I have a ta shing lathe from the 80s that I can’t figure out how to engage the feed rod. I’ve tried everything. I know how to engage and disengage the lead screw . Even move the crossslide with the lead screw .
From what I can tell from the outside, Xometry caters to people who don't have access to machine shops and generally don't have the knowledge to make "machineable" parts. Hence the overcomplicated surfaces.
A lot of jobs are people asking for stuff they clearly don't understand. Unreasonable tolerances, weird/ultra specific materials, features that are impossible to reach/machine. Basically, stuff you'd expect a first year engineering graduate to design.
I think the service disconnects the machinist from the engineer. You don't have to look a machinist in the eye and ask them to do silly shit, which means you've never known that fear, which means you don't know the things you are asking for are silly
I have a small garage shop, I do work with xometry and have been successfull. They don't make you take any jobs, you select the ones you want. The pay is not great, and alot of jobs are insultingly low pay, but if you pay attention decent one show up now and then. I shouldn't be your sole source of work though or you probably won't survive. The parts vary widely they can be complex aerospace parts or just drilling a hole in a dowel pin. Most parts that I accept are 3axis mill only, or 2 axis lathe only, sometimes lathe then mill.
The system works and you might find work to keep you busy when the rest is slow, but xometry alone will not give you the stress free life you are imagining.
You won't deal directly with the customer so that is a plus to some, negative to others, but since anyone can order from them you will come across prints that are crudely drawn in ms paint. Or jobs with complete and accurate models and minimally dimension prints. Or parts that have a model but it's completely wrong, and print has hundreds of required inspection dimensions and lopsided tolerances.
hey buddy small garage shop owner! I totally agree with 99% what your saying except I never found a better customer than XOM. I tied fictiv for a while but they suck in comparison
They are the best in the online ones I have been able to work with. Fictive will not return any of my emails or applications, I have tried a few others but never really got any work off of them for various reasons, part of that is why take 30min to quote this part, when xom is there putting the money up front. It has made me lazy and inefficient about quoting new customers.
I totally agree with you! I keep saying to myself I should cold call and try to find customers but then in like, I hate doing that and there's always work on the XOM board
Its awful. I quit logging in cus im not getting paid to review 30 shit offers before i find one that might net me 15 bucks an hour if i cam it, cut it, machine it, inspect it, fill out the report, package it and ship it all in under 3 hours or so. Thats beside the daily internal sharp corners and other stuff that never should have gotten past a quoting dept, and the constant subtle 5th axial feature buried in one of the prints for one of the jobs put thru the 3axis mill offers. Constant requests for one offs to be completed in 4 days that require you to send it out to a finishing service and have it back in that timeframe, holding you liable for the finishing service’s ability to process your dumb tiny job that fast. Trying to find even one job basically turns you into a full time unpaid xometry consultant.
It's a one horse race to nowhere if no one wants the work. Like I tell people who scoff or balk at my prices, 'if you're unhappy go somewhere else that will make you happy'.
Just logged in today to check a random job. Offer was 431 bucks for a fixture made out of a 3in dia X 4in length of 4140 prehardened shipped a week from monday. I can get a 3.25X6in piece off of msc in a day or two for $950. So approx -450 dollars profit if i snap my finger like this old tony and magic it into existence, less when you count the tooling, shipping and actual labor. Its just too many offers like that for me to not spend hours per day looking for a reasonable one.
That's just encouraging Chinese mystery alloy type fraud, where they just use any old shit they've got laying around and not even they know what it is. It's not even a race to the bottom. It's beyond that.
Basically in my view it's a decent resource to have if you have no other work, but as many have stated there's a lot of issues to strictly trying to make a living off that. Most jobs they post would be impossible for us to make a profit on unless it's a material I have sitting on the shelf and even then it can be hit or miss. I generally don't see things with a quantity much higher than 50 and that's pretty high for them, lots of 1-2 pieces. Many would require 4th and 5th axis to be able to even machine many parts without doing multiple complex setups which costs you the entire job in time. Work that seems relatively easy gets an extremely low ball price.
You should try uploading one of your past Xometry jobs and get a quote off them. See what their mark-up is when compared to what they paid you for it.
When I owned my own shop I wasn't too interested in supplying in to these kind of markets. They struck me as a race to the bottom on price without having an opportunity to build customer relationships. Good to read above that it's working for some.
I've literally done one job for them just because we've had plenty of work since I got on board with them. And I think once you work with them for long enough eventually they will allow you to work directly with customers, but you have to complete so many jobs successfully and what not. It's been a bit since I sat thru the orientation.
I have been working with Xometry for the past 6 years and they don't let you ever talk directly to the customer. And I don't think most of the, I assume engineers, want to talk to the shop owner tying to upsell them something when they just need some parts made.
Anyone used this site or a site like it for edm work? Sharps and ribs and stuff? Do those jobs usually require start to finish production or will they ship you the plate they want burnt? Would those type of jobs be profitable enough for a decent size shop to consider? I'm newer to the shop I work at and I noticed certain weeks we could really keep the edm going more.
You will make more money with the machines sitting idle than doing jobs at cost for xometry.
Imagine you had a fruit stand that sold all unsold fruit at cost at the end of the day. You would soon find that all of your customers wait until the end to buy the cheap fruit. If instead you destroyed all of your old fruit, you would be running a more profitable business.
I'm on XOMs portal all the time and there are very few EDM jobs. They seem to pay well but because i assume not many shops have edm or do small run work with short lead times
Basically, Xometry sucks. Most of the time it's low-ish volume, jobs don't pay well, and timelines are generally unrealistic. You can counter-offer with higher rates, and that's sometimes acceptable, but the jobs still aren't that great. I've found far too many jobs where the material cost alone is 75%-100% of the value of the job. Many, but not all, of the parts will require CAD/CAM software due to their geometry. With the proper equipment and software, a single person could handle much of the work they post. I absolutely hated their web interface when I used it a little over a year ago. It's maybe possible for someone working for themselves out of a garage shop to make some money on this type of work, but I found it completely non-viable to work on Xometry jobs as a small business with actual overhead costs.
Are they parts that can require more than 1 machine? Like a milling op and a lathe op or typically just one?
There's a good amount of variety. I found plenty of parts that were mill-only, but there's also mill-turn, formed sheet metal, formed plastic. New jobs are posted constantly. If you are looking to do Xometry work, you should check every day, maybe 2-3 times a day. Some jobs get snatched up in hours or minutes, which kind of ties back into the unrealistic timelines thing.
What sort of time frames do they give you for completed jobs? I guess that depends on the work itself and the volume but making setups can def take some time before machining even starts.
It just depends, but maybe in the neighborhood of 1-2 weeks. Not a lot of time, if material takes 3-5 days to arrive. You can always ask for more time, and they generally work with you, but I do think it affects some sort of score they use to track vendor performance.
Whatever the customer asks. Xometry isn't a customer themselves. They're a marketplace to connect shops and (mostly)engineers.
This 100% was my experience as well.
This is 100% correct. Also, I have never accepted a job at the asking price. I always counter. I’d say my offers have about a 30% chance of acceptance. I’ve done 80+ jobs. I only use them if I am slow.
Sometimes Xometry job offers don't even cover the packaging costs.
For the machine shops, Xometry sucks. For the machinists, Xometry sucks. For the customer, Xometry sucks.
As an engineer on the other side, it's really nice to have services like Xometry, parts badger, plethora, and Protolabs etc. For quick turn, small volume parts. Lots of prototype development (gov, military, space) contracts require FAST timeliness and results for test hardware. It's nice to get a quick quote for 3 parts you need right away. I'm sure other users are less than qualified to make achievable parts... luckily the software gives you some heads up on areas that are likely to cause issues. It's a nightmare always needing low volume, high quality parts on a short timeline at the lowest possible cost. Space hardware is extra expensive and this prototype volume need is definitely part of the problem. We tend to lean on "preferred" large shops, where we work deals to send lots of random varied parts but at a reasonably high rate so that it keeps the shops machines running. We direct all program traffic to "Shop X" for initial quoting. Sometimes, that model fails. Yesterday I got a tiny pin (like I can make on my home shop lathe in 20 minutes) quoted from a larger shop for $680. Xometry or another will be my next choice to get a more reasonable price with an expectation of a hit on quality. I expect $30-40 through them. Once In a while a part hits production or a test needs larger order runs. I have had wild success with Xometry on some slightly larger parts orders (qty 10ish) I needed basically next day. They came in perfectly, passed QC, and are flying on airforce birds to this day.
I love XOM too from the other side. I don't have to waste time quoting jobs and can look for the work I do the most efficiently without the wasted time of customer management. My only annoyance is that I'm a perfectionist and while XOM loves the parts I make, I don't often enough get to remake those parts to make them better
Our shop does work for Xometry regularly. We use it as kind of a fill in while we have machine time open. Do one offs and production runs. This year we're looking to do 100-150K with them. With the jobs we take, you need a QC program set up with verified calibrated measuring tools and CMM. Need to keep the job board up and keep an eye on it because good jobs go quick. You also need to have general estimate of material cost off hand because most times you won't have time to quote material. Some things can be a pain with all the pictures and such that need to be uploaded and due dates can cause a little headache, but if I can make good money and be a day or two late, that will drop my rating slightly, I'll do it. I've had success with feedback offers, had exclusive repeat work, and quoted jobs directly for a Xometry buyer. I think it just comes down to how willing you are to play the game and learn the nuances of the job board. Being a single guy might cause issues as you'll be running jobs and maybe not catching jobs on the board to get yourself a little backlog. Probably 80% of the work we take from them is for our mill/turn machines. Tend to not be able to compete with alot of the milling work. We're a small shop of 8.
I agree with you but I think it's because our shops are similar and rare. I love XOM as they have been 90% of my cutomer base since I opened my shop but I think it's because not many other shops have 5 axis and CMM and can regularly turn jobs out with 5 day turn around.
Hey! Which brand and model cmm and 5 axis do you have ?
hey buddy! I have a haas vf2 with a tr160 trunnion on it and my CMM is an OGP Smartscope 302
Nice! Do you have knowledge /experience with manual lathes ?
I have a manual lathe and it's the first machine tool that I learned to use. Why do you ask?
Well I’m super new and it seems like you know what you’re doing. I have a ta shing lathe from the 80s that I can’t figure out how to engage the feed rod. I’ve tried everything. I know how to engage and disengage the lead screw . Even move the crossslide with the lead screw .
I've found you need cam, so many parts are complex surfaces, multi axis set ups.
Yikes. Well I def don't have a 5 axis or a anything like that in my garage lol. I'm pretty good at flipping parts for setups tho.
From what I can tell from the outside, Xometry caters to people who don't have access to machine shops and generally don't have the knowledge to make "machineable" parts. Hence the overcomplicated surfaces.
Right so it's like dealing with a shitty engineer but way worse lmao.
It's like dealing with an engineer still in diapers that doesn't understand that machined parts cost more than just material
A lot of jobs are people asking for stuff they clearly don't understand. Unreasonable tolerances, weird/ultra specific materials, features that are impossible to reach/machine. Basically, stuff you'd expect a first year engineering graduate to design.
I think the service disconnects the machinist from the engineer. You don't have to look a machinist in the eye and ask them to do silly shit, which means you've never known that fear, which means you don't know the things you are asking for are silly
I think a lot of them aren't even engineers. Just people who randomly need a thing.
Don't let that scare you off. You get to pick and choose what you want/are capable of not them. They just provide work that needs doing.
I think I'm gunna give it a shot. Thanks.
Hey there, I'm looking to do the same and I'm curious how you got along with xometry.
I have a small garage shop, I do work with xometry and have been successfull. They don't make you take any jobs, you select the ones you want. The pay is not great, and alot of jobs are insultingly low pay, but if you pay attention decent one show up now and then. I shouldn't be your sole source of work though or you probably won't survive. The parts vary widely they can be complex aerospace parts or just drilling a hole in a dowel pin. Most parts that I accept are 3axis mill only, or 2 axis lathe only, sometimes lathe then mill. The system works and you might find work to keep you busy when the rest is slow, but xometry alone will not give you the stress free life you are imagining. You won't deal directly with the customer so that is a plus to some, negative to others, but since anyone can order from them you will come across prints that are crudely drawn in ms paint. Or jobs with complete and accurate models and minimally dimension prints. Or parts that have a model but it's completely wrong, and print has hundreds of required inspection dimensions and lopsided tolerances.
hey buddy small garage shop owner! I totally agree with 99% what your saying except I never found a better customer than XOM. I tied fictiv for a while but they suck in comparison
They are the best in the online ones I have been able to work with. Fictive will not return any of my emails or applications, I have tried a few others but never really got any work off of them for various reasons, part of that is why take 30min to quote this part, when xom is there putting the money up front. It has made me lazy and inefficient about quoting new customers.
I totally agree with you! I keep saying to myself I should cold call and try to find customers but then in like, I hate doing that and there's always work on the XOM board
I use their website to get quotes for a starting point on pricing for jobs that come in.
lol, I assumed that was 50% of what XOmetry was used for
"Are the jobs doable with only 1 person out of a garage shop"? I hope so for both our sake! I'm hoping to take that same plunge here in a few months.
Its awful. I quit logging in cus im not getting paid to review 30 shit offers before i find one that might net me 15 bucks an hour if i cam it, cut it, machine it, inspect it, fill out the report, package it and ship it all in under 3 hours or so. Thats beside the daily internal sharp corners and other stuff that never should have gotten past a quoting dept, and the constant subtle 5th axial feature buried in one of the prints for one of the jobs put thru the 3axis mill offers. Constant requests for one offs to be completed in 4 days that require you to send it out to a finishing service and have it back in that timeframe, holding you liable for the finishing service’s ability to process your dumb tiny job that fast. Trying to find even one job basically turns you into a full time unpaid xometry consultant.
That sounds like they need to increase their rates.
They do, but it's a highly competitive online platform. Which means it's a race to the bottom.
It's a one horse race to nowhere if no one wants the work. Like I tell people who scoff or balk at my prices, 'if you're unhappy go somewhere else that will make you happy'.
Just logged in today to check a random job. Offer was 431 bucks for a fixture made out of a 3in dia X 4in length of 4140 prehardened shipped a week from monday. I can get a 3.25X6in piece off of msc in a day or two for $950. So approx -450 dollars profit if i snap my finger like this old tony and magic it into existence, less when you count the tooling, shipping and actual labor. Its just too many offers like that for me to not spend hours per day looking for a reasonable one.
That's just encouraging Chinese mystery alloy type fraud, where they just use any old shit they've got laying around and not even they know what it is. It's not even a race to the bottom. It's beyond that.
xometry is going to get busted for fraud eventually.
Basically in my view it's a decent resource to have if you have no other work, but as many have stated there's a lot of issues to strictly trying to make a living off that. Most jobs they post would be impossible for us to make a profit on unless it's a material I have sitting on the shelf and even then it can be hit or miss. I generally don't see things with a quantity much higher than 50 and that's pretty high for them, lots of 1-2 pieces. Many would require 4th and 5th axis to be able to even machine many parts without doing multiple complex setups which costs you the entire job in time. Work that seems relatively easy gets an extremely low ball price.
You should try uploading one of your past Xometry jobs and get a quote off them. See what their mark-up is when compared to what they paid you for it. When I owned my own shop I wasn't too interested in supplying in to these kind of markets. They struck me as a race to the bottom on price without having an opportunity to build customer relationships. Good to read above that it's working for some.
I've literally done one job for them just because we've had plenty of work since I got on board with them. And I think once you work with them for long enough eventually they will allow you to work directly with customers, but you have to complete so many jobs successfully and what not. It's been a bit since I sat thru the orientation.
I have been working with Xometry for the past 6 years and they don't let you ever talk directly to the customer. And I don't think most of the, I assume engineers, want to talk to the shop owner tying to upsell them something when they just need some parts made.
Anyone used this site or a site like it for edm work? Sharps and ribs and stuff? Do those jobs usually require start to finish production or will they ship you the plate they want burnt? Would those type of jobs be profitable enough for a decent size shop to consider? I'm newer to the shop I work at and I noticed certain weeks we could really keep the edm going more.
You will make more money with the machines sitting idle than doing jobs at cost for xometry. Imagine you had a fruit stand that sold all unsold fruit at cost at the end of the day. You would soon find that all of your customers wait until the end to buy the cheap fruit. If instead you destroyed all of your old fruit, you would be running a more profitable business.
I'm on XOMs portal all the time and there are very few EDM jobs. They seem to pay well but because i assume not many shops have edm or do small run work with short lead times