Success at Ponoko

It’s here! Our upgrade to the Prime service is available right now. Lock in fantastic making rates, free shipping, get priority making, sponsorship grants and use almost unlimited materials (and much MUCH more).

I am so ready for this
Get Value Prime at our special 7-day launch rate right now. And be one of the first 100 subscribers who get their first 30 days subscription for FREE.

Get it now!

Hey – back up a little!
Okay, let’s recap. What’s this Value Prime all about?

Well, you know the Ponoko story. We invented ‘make & sell online from scratch’. Since then, we got talked about in places like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, BBC News, Techcrunch, Boing Boing, MIT Technology Review, ICON Magazine, WIRED Magazine, Readymade Magazine, Core77, Designboom, Treehugger and so many more (puff puff!). And over 15,000 designers and makers like you have made hundreds of thousands worth of goods using Ponoko. But here’s the thing. They were using the old version.

Now Value Prime takes you to a new level!
Value Prime is an upgrade to our existing Prime subscription service that bundles together a heap of exclusive benefits.

The 5 new features are:

1. Make stuff for even less – If you’re just getting started or tracking along nicely, you can wave goodbye to the standard $2.00 per minute Designmake Free making rate and the $1.35 per minute Designmake Prime making rate and say hello to the Value Prime making rate of $0.87 per minute. That’s a 56.5% saving off the standard rate. All day, every day. And if you’re ready to go to the next level, then bulk pricing is for you. If your online order size is approaching a large number, you just contact us and we’ll sort you a new deal. It may be that you’ve outgrown laser cutting and need another type of making process!
    
2. Free delivery – We’re launching a brand spanking new shipping calculator! This means lower costs for everyone on Prime. And  you’ll pay ZERO delivery for all orders over $100 (making + materials) that are shipped from our USA node to any continental USA destination (excluding Alaska) or shipped from our NZ node to any NZ destination. And if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, you’ll now get stuff delivered faster and with a lower carbon footprint too (because we’re not shipping to you from the far end of the world any longer). Sweeeet!
    
3. Materials catalog delivered – Although a picture can tell a thousand words, you can’t beat holding the real thing in your hands to know what you’re really going to get. You’ll get all 48 materials (card, fabrics, plastics, timbers and metals), each with various depths of engraving so you can see and feel the difference. If you wanted to do this yourself, you could order a P1 size of each of these materials, and pay $398. Not very nice. So we’re making our full materials catalog swatch available to everyone for just $145. And as a Prime member you’ll get it for just $85.
    
4. Mix with fab people – Get together with like-minded people, bring your ideas, your projects, your questions, and fabricate your stuff live. Everyone can come party at meetups with us in San Francisco and Wellington. Stay tuned for dates. But just for Prime members, we’ll support you hosting your own meetups. You can host them at your place, at one of ours, or even at one of more than 100 maker spaces around the world (you’ll get to see the locations when you sign in). We’ll send you Ponoko name tags and other cool goodies, and promote your event to our community to help make it a big success. And when you’re done, you’ll also get to tell the whole story about your meetup on our blog!
    
5. Get a ‘make’ grant – We’ll sponsor you when you want to present your creations at events. Whether it be your regular local meet up or an international show, we’ll help you get there. You’ll get free making, materials and/or shipping, and we’ll help to promote you too. In return, you’ll display some Ponoko cards at your stand (and tell everyone we’re the best, of course!).

 

And here’s the full run down of all the other features that you’ll get with a Prime subscription:

• Unleash your unique creativity with designer materials – Make something that is really different and stands out from the crowd! With Prime you can use almost any material you request. So long as we can source it and make it, you can use it.

• Get in front of big name retailers – On-demand supply is THE way to go for retailers right now – they’re facing tough times so they want great products from great creators manufactured and delivered just in time. Prime can help you build a business AND get your designs really noticed by promoting them to over 200 US retail design stores.

• Jump the queue to speed things up – If you want things to go faster this is how you do it. As a Prime user, your orders will be sent to the top of our making queue and processed first.

• Get designer grade support – We’ll give you all the help you need with ideas of what to make, how best to make it and how best to market it. Talk or chat to us on Skype whenever you need help to work something out. The great thing is we talk your creative design language, not technical engineering language (but we have that too if you need it).

• Get it right, before you order it – You’ll get one-on-one support before you order to make sure your design is good to go. We’ll take away any worries about submitting something that won’t work by putting your design files through a 6-point check before you push go. It means you won’t spend a cent until it’s right.

• Earn buyer trust – Get the badge of credibility. Potential customers are more likely to buy from you with confidence when you display our ‘Certified Shop’ badge in your showroom. The ‘Certified Shop’ program is only available to Prime users.

• Generate business leads to create new things – Ponoko ID makes it possible for anyone to get their idea custom made by a pro designer. As a Prime user, you’ll get 1-week priority access to bid on these product requests before they’re released to everyone else.

• Save lots of money when you make things – Drop making costs from $2.00 to $0.87 per minute. (Remember this is a special launch offer – it goes up to $1.35 per minute after 7 days). This is perfect if you:
  • Aspire to make more stuff than you do right now, but are stopped by cost or complexity, or
  • Crave the very best shipping deal (including for free), or
  • Want to make one single order at any time that totals about $50 - $70 or more, or
  • Make something every 6 weeks or so, or
  • Want to lock in the super low cost for bigger jobs every few months, or
  • Wish to sell your creations at the best price or the very best profit margin, or
  • Want to make a lot more stuff than you’re making now, or
  • Want to get sponsored to show your stuff live.

What Prime can do for you … in your own words
Here’s what our community has said about Prime.

I’ll be able to:

• “… offer more affordable prices to my customers”
• “… try different materials at affordable costs“
• “… grow my hand-made goods business faster … by introducing some mechanization and greater precision into what I make“
• “… save a bit of money on prototypes [which] will make “getting it right” so much easier!“
• “… earn a living and be able to live anywhere I want“

And there are many more!

Prime comes with all the benefits you expect from Ponoko
Designmake Prime offers all the benefits you get with our original service, Designmake Free:

• One place to do it all – Make and market your product ideas to the world in the least time with the least cost and the most payback available – anywhere! Save 90% of the time and 50% of the cost of anywhere else to make and market your product ideas.

• Instant products – Get your idea manufactured with zero setup fees and no minimum orders. (One off and small orders welcome here!) Make things to fit your own very specific needs – even make gifts for your friends or sell to the world.

• Instant online store – Promote unlimited designs and products and collect money online with zero per item listing fees and zero sales success fees.

• Instant sales – Chris Jackson went from idea to first sale in just 16 days! And Alan Chao did it in just 24 days! We get you from idea to prototype to product to first customers to retailers to mass market – one end to the next.

“I will use Prime to make my ideas come to life. And to squeal with delight at the steady stream of Ponoko packages at my door. It’s totally like Christmas.”

How much will this cost me?
Here’s the pricing for Designmake Free and our new upgraded Designmake Prime.

You’ll see two options for Prime. That’s because, for the next 7 days only, we’re offering you a special deal. After 7 days, Prime pricing will switch to the standard rate. The special launch rate will never be offered again.

	Designmake Free	Designmake Prime
		Standard rates	Special launch offer
Monthly cost	$0	$39	$27
Making cost (per minute)	$2.00	$1.35	$0.87
Packaging cost (per shipment)	$10.00	$5	$3
Delivery cost (from)	$1.00	FREE	FREE

 

“Prime will make a huge difference to me. I’ll be prototyping the hundreds of ideas I already have that I’d put on hold due to cost.”

Get your first 30 days of Prime for FREE
Here’s one more reason to say yes to Prime today. The first 100 people who sign up will get a 30-day free trial. It’s a no-charge, no risk opportunity to test it out to make sure it’s right for you. For 30 days, you can request materials, get low rates, get in front of design stores – and if it’s not for you into the future – just hit the one-click cancel button in your account and you won’t be charged a thing in subscription fees.

This means you have absolutely NOTHING to lose by signing up to Prime right now right now!

“No one else is offering this type of service with so many options at a low price. I’ve looked.” 

Go for it! Have fun.