Top 5 alternative places to sell 3D models

Recently, in addition to the Top 5 places to sell 3D models, I’ve promised to tell you about the Top 5 alternative marketplaces for selling 3d models. And below I will share my experience of these alternative platforms.

First of all, I want to mention that most of these alternative platforms have a small database of 3D models, but this gives you some benefits: fewer competitors; if you upload a lot of items they can offer you a special proposition (to mention you in their blog, sale campaign, show on the top of results, etc) to promote your profile, etc.

3DExport

3DExport is quite an old provider of 3D content. They provide free tutorials about 3D, CAD, games, etc. Also, you can easily communicate with customers, cause 3DExport facilitates a more social environment than some others.

Pros:

• The platform supports a lot of languages. I haven’t seen such a variety of languages elsewhere.
• They have an automatic price calculator for regular and commercial licenses.
• 3DExport receives a lot of traffic.
• The platform has an affiliates program and you can get a 15% commission.
• The marketplace supports payments systems such as Payoneer, PayPal, Moneybookers, and Webmoney
• Also here you can sell different digital content such as animation, blueprints, magazines, eBooks, etc

Cons:

• They provide non-exclusive royalty 60% and exclusive royalty is up to 70%.

Cubebrush

This platform has a huge variety of products: video tutorials, Photoshop brushes, 3D models, textures, stock photos, art book PDFs, rigs, scripts, and even more.

Pros:

• The marketplace provides the possibility to schedule your sale for a selected period.
• Cubebrush has a hybrid revenue split: for sales Cubebrush generates on your behalf, you make 70% of profits on sales and when you share your URLs directly or via social networks, you make 95%.

Cons:

• They accept Paypal as a payment system and only for US residents — direct deposit.

Pinshape

Pinshape is still a growing 3D printing community and a marketplace full of 3D printable files.

Pros:

• They add 30.0% of the markup to the sale price for items.

Cons:

• The platform accepts only Paypal for sellers.

Threeding

This platform is a 3D printing marketplace. Threeding provides to sellers personal storefronts where you can list your 3D-printable models and make them available for others.

Pros:

• Their commission is 8.5% of each sale starting from $0.45 ($ or €).

Cons:

• From my perspective, the website design is not user-friendly.
• Your models should go through the moderation process before becoming public.
• Threeding accepts only Paypal and bank transfer as payment methods. Threeding will charge you an additional fee of USD 35.00/EUR 25.00 for every bank transfer.

ArtStation Marketplace

ArtStation is first of all the platform for artists to showcase their artwork. But they have a marketplace section with a focus on the games industry, film, and entertainment.

Pros:

• Artstation Marketplace has the best royalty rate — 95%.
• They accept payments through PayPal or credit cards.
• You can set up your discount % and they will use it for a sale campaign.
• They have releases for your products. It means if you want to change your product, instead of deleting existing files and uploading new you can just add a new release with needed files.
• Also, support different license types for Standard and Unlimited commercial use, where you can charge different pricing on the same product.

For now, I couldn’t mention any of the disadvantages, cause I’ve just started using this platform.

Additional marketplaces

Of course, it’s not a full list of alternative marketplaces where you can sell your 3D models. Because of some reasons, I couldn’t start work with some platforms. For instance,

• Flipped Normals: the consideration of my models took a lot of time and I removed the account.
• Sketchfab Store, Highend3d: I checked them out, but I realized that my models were not suitable for this website. It’s more for polygonal modeling, but I prefer CAD modeling.
• Hum3D: Unfortunately, it’s a private website. There is a team that consists of 50 specialists.
• Thingiverse: this is a free platform, but with the possibility of donation.
• Gambody: their focus is on 3d printing figurines. Also, the process of moderation was too long.
• Nikko Industries: I didn’t have time to check this out but already have heard a few times.

It doesn’t mean that I am trying to prevent you from checking them. On the contrary, I would recommend you to not miss them. Cause I have a specific niche in the 3D models' world. And your models can be more suitable for them. Besides, afterwhile they could change their focus and could be ready to support more items on their platform.

For the next time, I’d like to raise one of the crucial topics as How to increase your sales of 3d models on the marketplaces. Stay tuned.