Print profiles and downloads on MakerWorld

A print profile is the ready-to-print file on MakerWorld: the model already sliced, with its plates, filament and settings, one click from the printer. Between 88% and 92% of the MakerWorld models we studied have at least one.

The ones that do have more downloads, by a wide margin. Set against the same creator's models of similar age with no profile, models with one are linked to 384% more downloads.

We studied 1,004,137 public models from MakerWorld and Printables, two of the biggest sites for sharing 3D printing files: 327,759 from MakerWorld and 676,378 from Printables. Every number here describes those models, not every model ever posted.

Profiles next to other listing features

That comparison puts each creator's own models side by side at similar ages, so a big creator's followers don't make their habits look better than they are. It covers 181,250 models from 23,750 creators with at least three models in our sample. It's a link. It doesn't show that the profile brought the downloads.

Why a range? 13,542 models show logged prints but no profile on the site today, 33.8% of the models without one. A print can only be logged against a profile, so theirs were removed or hidden. The comparison above leaves those 13,542 models out and counts only models with no profile and no prints as models without one.

Next on the list is being a remix, at 72%, then being exclusive to MakerWorld at 54%. Four or more photos in the design gallery are linked to 30% more. The rest of what we checked lands between 13% and 27%.

In our sample, no other listing feature goes with as big a download gap as a print profile.

How often profiles get printed

Having a profile isn't the same as having one people print. Our sample has 381,449 profiles with 31,467,702 logged prints between them. 17.3% have never been printed, and the median profile has 8 prints.

The prints pile up on a few. The top 1% of profiles hold 42.6% of all logged prints, and only 1.3% of profiles have reached a thousand.

Who makes them

Mostly the designer, and on day one. 92.6% of designer profiles go up the same day as the model. Profiles made by other users are 6.0% of the total and hold 11.4% of logged prints.

Look only at the 9,347 models that have both kinds and the gap gets sharper. Other users made 48.5% of those profiles but they hold just 15.7% of the prints. The designer's profile has a median of 148 prints there, another user's 32. Only 4.7% of those models have someone else's profile as the most printed one.

Those extra profiles sit on the most downloaded models. Among models six months to two years old, 87.6% of those with 10,000+ downloads have a profile from another user, against 0.5% of models under 10. And they come later, a median of 20 days after the model goes up.

So don't wait for the community to slice your model. On the models we studied, other people's profiles sit mostly on models that are already popular, they arrive a few weeks after the designer's, and people still print the designer's version more.