Etsy Is Clamping Down on 3D Printed Products. Here’s How It Could Affect You

He has the impression that everyone needs a side jostling these days. If your hobby can help you make an additional income, it seems to be obvious to at least try to do so. 3D printing,, laser engraving And the use of vinyl cutters like the famous Cricut machine gives you a chance to do something beautiful, unique and harmful. Etsy has been the showcase of choice for almost 20 years, and despite the other options available, it still has 8.13 million active sellers in 2025, according to a recent Contimod report.

Recently, the company has clarified its policies surrounding the category “Made by a Vender”, specifically concerning the “elements produced using computerized tools”. Updates are subtle but could fundamentally change the way many small businesses work in the future.

If you have already looked for 3D printed dragons on Etsy, you will probably have seen a screen like the one above. Although each dragon is very similar – they are all articulated with little or no paint – not two are exactly the same. Almost all the dragons you will see have been manufactured by a small group of designers who allow their digital models to the Seller Etsy, who use small printed farms, or even unique 3D printers, to print the physical model for sale. Etsy’s latest update on the policy of his company around computerized tools has deleted a key component that has enabled this type of license, leaving many confused sellers about their position.

Product items using computerized tools: physical items that a seller produced in his personal or home shop, using computerized tools such as a laser printer, a 3D, CNC or Cricut Machine printer. These items must be produced according to a Original design of the seller And are often personalized or personalized depending on the specifications of a buyer.

A spokesperson for Etsy told me that the above policy had always been the standard position of Etsy on the products manufactured by the sellers. The area to which I added is the part that has been modified. Originally, the Etsy guidelines included expression “… or the use of a design or model design …” which seemed to allow the use of 3D modeling designs. By deleting this section and keeping the part on the original design, it seems to say that each seller must design the digital file itself, as well as print it, post-processing and ship it.

Etsy said that this update in politics was to clarify its position, rather than modify it. According to the Creative guidelinesAn element that does not qualify is “a basic element available in trade with superficial alteration, such as adding a vation to simple and mass observation”. The collage point seems to be the “available” part “available” part, because many 3D printed sellers on Etsy use a commercial license for 3D modeler as a source to create physical models.

3D printing activity

3D modelers who sell commercial licenses via sites such as Patreon,, ThangsAnd Printable have emerged in recent years, for a lot of success and distinctions in the 3D printing space. Christian, or Craftykid3d, as he is known Patreon And social networksCreated 3D models based on books and readings, including beautiful dragon livres and carriers to help you open your pocket books. Its patarian has a commercial license level which allows you to sell physical copies of its digital models online or in craft fairs and producer markets. He currently has 860 Patreon subscribers, whose subscriptions of $ 10 per month are a large part of his income.

Etsy’s update policy is likely to considerably reduce the ability of Christian subscribers to use the models he publishes on this platform, causing the ability of his subscribers and his subscribers to support each other. Worse, because politics is vague, Etsy sellers could find themselves in violation by not knowing where the line is drawn. Even Etsy’s own customer service seems confused, offering contradictory answers to the questions asked by the sellers.

My colleague and 3D printing comrade, Russell Holly, said the vagueness could be the phrasing point. “I suspect that current advice is vague for the purpose of discouraging these mass production groups to make a little change and move on, but this reality is inevitable.” My question in response is: where is the line to make small changes, and who else affects?

These two impressions are clearly the same model, but each of us used a different colored material and a different level of effort to paint the model in the slicing software. Digital files can be “painted” in the software to assign different colors to certain printing areas. My copy (on the left) is a bicolor change fairly easy to give me a brown front of the house surrounded by green, but Russell (right) uses different colors and had more time spent delimiting which areas which colors are. This is a digital process to be sure, and not as manual as, let’s say, weeding a vinyl scricut and tighting it on a Stanley cup, but it always takes time and efforts and changes appearance and feeling in a material way. The question then becomes, what is enough for a change to constitute an original piece? It will be up to Etsy to decide on a case by case, which itself offers many problems.

The police of a site as large as Ettsy is incredibly difficult and relies strongly on the IP offenses indicated by the holders of this IP. It is not the same scenario that the creators of the 3D models actively approve of the people who use them to produce physical copies, so that they do not report the use to Etsy. This means that Ettsy will have to spend resources to control these models themselves. It has been said that Etsy uses reports from other sellers to eliminate IP violations, but in his manual He indicates that it is not “… Accept the violation reports by anyone – only from the owner of the intellectual property or the authorized agent of the owner …” It is therefore unlikely to take this path, but they will have to do something if they want something to really change.

In conversation with me and other members of the Craftykid3d Patreon community – I am a member and I use his models to test the best 3D printers – Christian expressed his concern that Ettsy would find it difficult to apply this change of policy. “Etsy has always been poor in moderation. It is companies like Universal, Sony, Disney, who will contact Etsy to eliminate copyright products. But even Etsy cannot keep this under control.” He continued saying: “Unless they have new technology, I strongly doubt that they can apply this ….”

What does this policy mean for you as a seller?

If you use Etsy to sell your 3D printed products, you will need to think about the products you make and the quantity of arrangement to modify them. One of the largest profit considerations is the duration of the duration for post-prolasois a 3D printed model. The most profit always comes from something that can be sold with basic cleaning and not much else, so if you have to spend time and materials to considerably modify an impression, your beneficiary margin decreases.

Holly said: “If you have printed a cosplay helmet designed by someone else, but you then crossed the sanding and painting work and all this is no longer the same thing that it was when it came out of the printer and would not be subject to this policy.” I agree with him that this use case would be almost certainly authorized by Etsy, but we do not have a clear idea if it is true. In this image, you can see two Mandalorian helmets that I printed. The one on the left is the original file without modifications except that I printed it in a soft plain Thus, my daughter could wear it without fear of breaking it if she dropped him. It took me a little time to remove the supports and clean it, but I could have sold it for a good profit because it is a different way of printing helmets.

The one on the right has taken a long time. The steps I had to follow were:

• Remove 3D printed media
• Pandes all the helmet until smooth consistency
• Fill all the layers left from the first sanding
• Sand the dried filling so that everything is smooth and even
• Spray the filling / primer on the helmet to create a uniform layer
• Spray the helmet with a black shine underlay
• Spray the helmet with a silver paint
• Glue the separate ear parts on
• Spray with a transparent shiny to protect silver paint

Now I can sell this second helmet on Etsy. I am sure that the policy will cover this type of adjustment, and I could even make a decent profit, but it would be much less than the profit of the first helmet, even if I could invoice much more for that. However, I do not think that the first helmet would be considered my original design.

If your business is based on the files of others, be it articulated dragons of Cinderwing or reserve corners of Craftykid3dYou probably already sell them in other windows such as Facebook Marketplace or on the Amazon site, as well as in physical locations. If you don’t do it, it may be worth diversifying where you sell. There are so many things that we do not know about how Etsy will control her modified policy that having other income ways is a good idea.

It will be interesting to see how far this change will go. Should the cripples manufacturers design their own decals instead of buying commercially available SVGs? Should the manufacturers of laser engravings do the same? The entire community of manufacturers uses this type of service, and it has enabled a huge commercial sector that has transformed the hobby into a legitimate way of making an income. According to Contimod34% of all sellers on Etsy cite it as their only source of income, so the potential loss is considerable. Etsy is not the only showcase, but it is one of the biggest, and its decisions here could have a lasting impact in this sector.