Questions

Every project is quoted individually. We slice your actual file before quoting, so the price reflects the real build rather than a guess from the file size.

Submit through the portal and you will have a quote back with a price, a production time and a delivery date. There is no charge for quoting, and no obligation to proceed.

Two models with the same dimensions can differ several times over in cost, depending on geometry, wall thickness, support requirements, infill, colour changes and quality level. A per-hour or per-gram list would either overcharge simple models or undercharge complex ones.

Quoting from the sliced file is slower for us and more accurate for you.

• Machine time — the largest factor by far. Driven by volume, height, layer height and quality level.
• Quality level — Premium runs slower settings and takes more inspection time than Standard.
• Supports — both the material used and the labour to remove them cleanly.
• Colour changes — multi-material builds spend time swapping filament at every layer that needs it.
• Splitting and joining — more finishing work, though it can shorten lead time.
• File repair — if we have to fix geometry you could have fixed in CAD, that is chargeable time.

The cheapest lever available to you is scale. Cost scales with volume, so reducing a model's linear dimensions by a fifth removes roughly half the material and time.

Yes, two of them. Student and individual projects start at $35. Professional projects for firms and businesses start at $90, which reflects the delivery-grade finishing, packing and documentation firm work carries by default.

The minimum covers setup, slicing, plate preparation, inspection and packing regardless of how small the part is.

If you have several small pieces, submit them together rather than separately — one project with five components is cheaper than five projects with one each.

No. Quoting and printability review are free, including telling you that a file has problems and what to change.

Your quote includes a specific date rather than a general range, because lead time is calculated against the actual production queue at the time of quoting — machine availability, estimated print time, post-processing, and anything ahead of you.

Estimated lead time begins once payment is received. A quote approved on Monday and paid on Thursday moves the delivery date by three days.

Often, depending on current queue load. Rush production adds 40% to the quoted price, because it displaces other work. Tell us your real deadline in the project notes when you submit and we will say what is possible before you commit to anything.

If a deadline is genuinely tight, submitting a clean file matters more than paying for rush — a file that goes into manual review can lose more time than rush handling saves.

We will tell you that up front rather than accepting the project and missing it. Where we can, we will propose alternatives — a smaller scale, a faster quality level, splitting the model across machines, or reducing detail that will not read at your scale.

Interac e-transfer to print.by.layr@gmail.com.

Include your order number in the e-transfer message — it looks like PBL-2026-1047 and is on your quote. Payments are matched to orders automatically by that reference, so a transfer sent without one waits for a manual match and delays your start date.

After you approve the quote and before production begins. Nothing enters the print queue until payment is confirmed, which is also why the quoted lead time starts from that point rather than from submission.

Yes. Invoices carry your name, firm or organisation, project name and order number, and are issued by Layr Studio. Ask at submission if your firm needs a specific reference or purchase order number on the invoice.

Before production starts, a project can be cancelled and payment returned. Once a model is on a machine, material and time have been committed, so cancellation is handled case by case — contact us as soon as you know.

.stl, .3mf and .obj go straight to slicing. .step, .3dm and .skp are accepted but need conversion first, which adds a manual review step. Maximum size 200 MB.

Full detail is on the guidelines page.

The portal checks your model in the browser as soon as you select it and shows you the bounding box, whether it fits our machines, and likely geometry issues before anything uploads.

After submission each file is checked again properly. If something is wrong we tell you what it is and what to change, and hold the project rather than printing something that will fail. Small repairs we can make ourselves; larger problems need a revised file from you.

No. Larger models are split into sections, printed in parallel across several machines, and joined. This is standard practice and often finishes faster than a single continuous build. Submit the file as it is and we will propose a split with the quote.

Yes. Leave the model at 1:1 and put the target scale or the target overall dimension in the project notes — say which, since "1:200" and "must fit a 300 mm base" are different instructions.

You do. Files are used only to produce your models. We do not share, publish or reuse client geometry, and we will not post photographs of your work publicly without your agreement.

You are notified at each stage change. The sequence is:

• Submitted — received, validation started
• Quote ready — price, lead time and payment instructions sent
• Awaiting payment — quote approved, transfer not yet matched
• Payment received — confirmed and released
• Queued — scheduled onto a machine
• Printing — in production
• Post-processing — supports removed, finished, inspected
• Ready — complete, pickup or delivery arranged

If something goes wrong at any point you hear about it from us first, not after the deadline.

Pickup or delivery within Toronto, arranged when the model is complete. Delivery is $15 flat, and free on professional projects over $250. Firms can have models delivered to the office, and courier can be arranged for larger projects. Delivery details are confirmed with you before anything moves.

Failures are our cost, not yours. If a build fails for a production reason we reprint it and keep you informed about the effect on your date. If a model fails because of a geometry problem in the file that we flagged and you asked us to proceed anyway, we discuss it before spending your money twice.

Tell us. If we produced something other than what was quoted, we make it right. If the geometry printed exactly as supplied but the design has changed, that is a new project — though repeat work on a model we have already sliced is quicker and easier to schedule.

Yes, and always have. Students and firms use the same portal and the same machines — the intake adapts to who you are, and deadline-driven studio work is well understood here. Select Student as your client type when you submit.