I have been looking (and drooling) at the Shapeoko 5 for several years and have not had the cash. I have the cash but, worry about selling enough to pay for it and provide a little money in my retirement. I am not trying to get rich but don’t want to just let the machine set and only make family gifts Doe anyone have stories on how fast they were able to make sales?
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There are a lot of people that make money with a CNC machine. There are also a lot of people that lose money making stuff to sell. I am retired and people are always telling me I should make stuff to sell. Frankly I am retired and enjoying it and do not want to have to make X number of widgets a week to keep up with demand.
I have been woodworking for 55+ years with a mix of power and hand tools. 6 years ago I bought an SO3 and incorporated it into my woodworking. It has been a great addition and I use a hybrid approach to making things. A mix of traditional and using the CNC. We have new people that have not been woodworkers buy a CNC and try to do everything with their CNC. It is possible but some things are just better and/or easier the more traditional ways.
A few years ago I was going to local gun shows and there was a man always there selling pens he made. I talked to him because I also make pens. He had retired from Honeywell. He was about to give up the gun show circuit and really retire because it became a grind. Every week or two he had to travel out of town, rent a motel room, rent a booth and sit there for 2-3 days selling pens. Then travel home and start making pens to replenish his stock. He was tired of the repetition. He indicated he made good money but was just tired of the grind.
Many people retire and have nothing to do. If you have hobbies to pursue it will make your retirement adjustment easier. If you retire and sit around and watch TV your mind will turn to mush. So a man needs a purpose. When working your purpose was to make money to feed yourself and your family and prepare for retirements. Well when retirement comes many people are clueless about what to do.
You can make money but you have to have a product people want. Figuring that out is a big job and even the biggest corporations in the world have trouble figuring that out. Trends come and go. Etsy is a way to sell but they get a cut of your profit. There are other online methods but they all take their cut. Selling directly is most profitable but like the Honeywell retiree it can become a grind. There are local farmers markets, craft fairs, and the like where you can do your market research and figure out what to sell.
For me retirement is about doing what I want, when I want to do it. I made my living and planned for retirement and now I am enjoying the fruits of my labor. I dont want to back to work or have a self employment job. There is money to be made from crafting things but it is a JOB so if you want a JOB after retirement go for it. But you have to treat it as a business and have that work ethic and the drive to make it a success. If you are going to put in all that effort in retirement just keep working and saving.
I have been retired 11 years. I have friends and relatives that have retired the biggest shock is all your money is going out very little coming in. If old enough you get your Social Security and money from pensions or from your IRA. But it is a shock to the system when those weekly pay checks quit coming and all your bank statement has is outgoing distributions. Dont panic just remember you hopefully planned for retirement and dont go crazy spending. Some people dream of a world cruise and other expensive trips and purchases. Make those purchases before you retire but you will find that after a long trip you are just glad to be back home. Home where all the things you love are. Just try to enjoy retirement for a while and if you find yourself bored then try making money.
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I will note that we have enough folks asking after making money that we made:
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If you are retired. Don’t buy it to make money. Buy it for yourself.
If you have no experience with one you’re going to spend a lot of time learning.
Making money isn’t going to happen quickly in most cases.
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Thank you for the link!
- It will take time to learn (as others noted)
- CNC will not be the only cost (wood, bits, clamps, designs, electrical work, etc)
- Mistakes while learning can be costly
That said, if you can stick with it and ride out the above there isn’t any reason you can’t make back the cost. Eventually even make some money on it. But you need to be realistic…you won’t make it back in the first month. You’d need to spend a lot of time on it daily to make money worth discussing.
Now, if making money isn’t ALL you care about…its a very fun hobby that can eventually cover its costs.
I’ve had mine for 6 months. I’ve made enough to pay for about half the machine. I have a day job so I’m not “dedicated” to the cause really.
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I’m sure it you are right. I sometimes have the tendency to think it looks easy and then find out I still have a lot to learn.
Thank you!
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I like your perspective! I am looking at it to keep myself busy during retirement. Making any money would be the icing on the cake!
Thank you for the advice!
I am retired and do not plan to make money. I end up making enough to cover most cost.
I am saving a BOATLOAD of money because this is an awesome time consumption device, and I make stuff along the way as I am learning.
Be careful of mental squirrel actions and rabbit holes. That can be fun, but maybe expensive.
Buy enough gear to support your initial efforts, do not buy too much. I have a few tools that I bought early and never used.
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You make some great points! Thank you for your advice! Also best of luck on your CNC journey!
I was fortunate enough to have a good portion of my big shop tools given to me by someone that was liquidating a shop. The CNC will be the last major tool that I will need.
Thank you for the advice!
All I can say is…THIS!!
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Guy Donham kinda nailed it, so as someone who has a SO4 and does make money with it, I thought I’d try to add a few little things which might help:
Get the Shapeoko last. For a lot of people, buying the sexy toy is exciting. If you really want it, do all the hard-grind first. And that means everything from building the bench for it and the auxiliary tools you’ll need to make the pieces of wood you put in bite-sized, to teaching yourself how to do 3D modeling so you can actually design the things you’ll want to machine.
Try setting up a web store and some mild social media presence. A lot of places these days let you set up a website for free, charge you for sales, and will let you switch over to a subscription service later. Try setting a dummy one up along with all the necessary bells and whistles for accounting/shipping/etc. And these days a lot of people find stuff through social media, so set one of those up too. (unless you want to spend your retirement sitting in a booth/shop/etc trying to hock stuff in person, but honestly your market is larger and value proposition more compelling online and its a lot less work)
Practice taking and editing photos. These days almost everything is communicated visually and online, which means people who take better pictures tend to win the day.
If by the time you’ve done all these things you still want the Shapeoko, you’ll have earned it and can be pretty confident you’ll use it and be successful with it. If looking at that list of tasks seems daunting, I don’t mean to be discouraging but I genuinely believe that taking on learning to use a CNC for some mild profit is probably not going to end up being your cup of tea. Like many things, there is a lot of perspiration and perseverance necessary.
I hope that helps. 
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I bought my S5P 4x4 in September having no experience using one or software or design. It’s 8 months later and it’s essentially paid for itself already I don’t just use it for sellable items, but also for saving shop time (such as flattening slabs) so it can do work for me as I do other things).
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That is good your machine has paid for itself in the time you have had it. Not many people have made their money back on investment in that time.
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Alot of it is business motivation, you have to decide if you want a fun hobby or if you want a bigger machine and need some profits to justify it. Are you interested in the business aspect of things? It’s not usually just as easy as list it on etsy or facebook marketplace, there’s advertising, amazon, inventory, stock level management, PR etc involved.
Can you make money on a S5P? Yes probably faster than the other Shapeokos, are rack and pinion machines faster and still accurate enough to do great work? Yes.
The biggest thing is do you require higher levels of accuracy and can you live with very slow feeds and speeds in the grand scheme as well as on average smaller tooling and less rigidity?
It’s all a compromise and for the price it’s a great machine. Especially if you’re new as can be and have a few months off work to invest in learning everything about CNC to decide if it’s a side hustle, hobby or a career for you.
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My machine hasn’t become a career for me at this point. I realize that a local presents is not as good and big as it used to be, especially when some stores offer things at such a cheap price that someone like me can’t compete with them. There is absolutely no way I can put in 4 hours of work into a project, if that is what I can shrink the project to getting it done, and still sell the item for $20 to $40. Things sourced out of China with a sell price of $15, $20, or even up to the $40, there is no way to compete with them when I would have to sell the item for $80 to $120 to make my money back on a little profit just to keep myself afloat in the market. Then there are the consumers that compare everything to Walmart prices as well.
I built a coffee table back years ago and it was a custom, one of a kind table, because of the slab of wood I used would never be replicated by nature again. I had it posted for $1,200 and eventually brought it down to $800. Had a few people look at it and their comments back to me where, “Why is it so high? I can buy a good coffee table from Walmart for $45 and it would do the job just fine.” In which case, I told them to then go to Walmart and buy the cheap coffee table and stop wasting my time.
I’m not being discouraged, just know that the market for smaller items is tough and in order to make something profitable and to be able to compete in the market with these giant companies who buy their items for pennies on the dollar and still can sell them for $20 to $40 and make a profit is a market I can’t compete in. I don’t want to go to a ton of fairs and spend so much on all the necessary things in order to have a presents there, and then off to the next place. Been there and done that and even lost my tail end on some, where I spent more money on the booth and other expenses, then what I made from the fair. Don’t want to do any flea markets because people go to flea markets looking for really good deals on things, not regular priced items.
Maybe I need to step back and rethink things and figure out what will work for me better, or step away from the machining of things and get back into construction/home remodeling and repairs and make my living there. I reread this and it has some negative undertones. Hmmm.
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I don’t think it’s negative to weight and understand your options. If you can save 6000ish$ and make use of some of the tools you obtain on the way. Elseway it is probably worthwhile to get it. That said I did just finish complaining about the controllers passive heat dissipation on the S5Pro. It’s a bit of a toss up at the end of the day. For me I liked it because it was a foot in the door to several different occupations and understanding of the machining setups, processes, manufacturing, improving toolpaths etc.
It was also easy to get into but if one spent say 6 months learning everything there is about CNC G-code, linear bearings, steppers, spindles, toolpaths, optimizations, tooling. The works, you could very easily step into a bigger machine at a marginally higher pricepoint with far more customization.
Can it save you a tonne of finishing work if you setup right with the right tooling and learn the right feeds and speeds? Absolutely, if you already do cabinetry etc this is a solid choice to start off with. The biggest learning experience with it will probably be accurate flips, joinery etc. Joinery is a bit of a pain in the arse as it lowers your workspace from 48 x 48 without some table customization, I ended up just learning joints from some austrian arts college specifically designed for no flip one setup CNC cutting. But I think I’ve made all of very few dollars with the machine because you do have to get used to wading through a pool of uneducated folk that think it’s a press one button and receive your object machine. That said my wall art situation give me infinite dopamine so, for me it’s still a win.
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Unfortunately, that is a question that’s dependent on your own knowledge.
Are you a CNC type now, CAD/CAM, woodworker, business owner, graphic designer, computer/IT, technical type of anything; just as a start.
I’ve said it before on here. Under just an umbrella of the subject of “CNCing”. There’s the subject mentioned above, now toss in: learning the software, bit selection, feed & speeds, work holding, tool pathing, pricing, workflow, time management and the list can go on and on and …,
Each and every topic is the equivalent of learning a foreign language. All at the same time till you can get “somewhat” proficient at them.
Now I know this comes across as a disrespectful, know-it-all, disingenuous, you can’t learn, etc. I’m not in the least.
Myself and everyone else on this forum learned how to do all of the above. We have everyone from the complete novice to PhDs here; go take a scan at the project gallery to see some amazing works.
If you want to learn, you will learn it. If you what to earn some income, you can.
The whole key is when you get over the hump and you realize that you can pretty much make anything you can think about!
That’s when the rabbit holes start appearing and the real fun/learning begins.
My very long 2 cents, go for it. It’s a blast!
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I find the marketing way more challenging than the woodworking or software, but I am geared that way. I also don’t want to crank out repetitive projects just to make money, I would way rather work on custom pieces which makes finding the customers difficult.
If you are good at marketing then you would have a leg up in that regard.
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