Custom 3D printed merch: keyrings, awards and corporate gifts
Keyrings, awards, stands and giveaways with your logo, printed in Barcelona. From one unit, personalised per person if needed, with no tooling and no minimum.
Traditional merch has one problem for a small company: minimum orders. You buy a thousand keyrings because that is the minimum, hand out a hundred and twenty at the fair, and the remaining eight hundred and eighty sit in a box under a desk for three years. Printing changes that arithmetic: the minimum is one.
What injection moulding cannot do
The real advantage is not price: it is that every unit can be different at no extra cost. A mould makes a thousand identical parts; a printer does not care in the slightest that each one carries a different name. Forty keyrings with each team member’s name cost the same as forty identical ones.
Where the crossover sits
| Quantity | What makes sense | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – 50 | Printing, without question | Nothing else serves this volume. And it can be personalised. |
| 50 – 200 | Printing | The volume discount is meaningful and there is still no tooling. |
| 200 – 500 | Depends on size | A small piece still pays; a large one starts not to. |
| Over 500 | Moulding or engraving | The tooling amortises. We will tell you rather than sell you printing. |
What works well as an object
- Small flat pieces: keyrings, bookmarks, pins, card holders. Cheap, fast and easy to hand out.
- Something used on a desk: phone stand, cable tidy, bookend. It stays in sight every day.
- Your product at scale. If you sell something physical, a miniature of the product itself beats any keyring as a memento.
- Awards and trophies. It is where custom shows most, and where a run of ten makes complete sense.
Colour and finish
Coloured filament comes in the range it comes in. If the brand colour has to be exact, print in white or grey and order the painted finish: paint is mixed to whatever you specify. And for a piece that will be handed around at a fair, the sanded finish is the difference between "this is 3D printed" and "this is an object".
What we need, and how much notice
- 1The logo as vector: SVG, AI or PDF with outlines converted. A JPG has to be re-vectorised, and that is separate modelling work.
- 2The list of names, if it is personalised, in a spreadsheet. One name per row and that is it.
- 3The date of the event, not the date you want it. We work backwards from there and tell you whether it makes it.
- 4Order one sample before the run. It costs little, and holding the keyring changes decisions that looked settled on screen.
What is the minimum quantity?
There is no minimum quantity, only a minimum order value. You can order ten keyrings or two hundred, and the volume discount applies automatically from three units, widening in bands to 20% past a hundred.
Can each piece be personalised with a different name?
Yes, and it is one of the things printing does that a mould cannot: every unit can carry different text with no added tooling cost. Send us the list of names and the base design. What does count is that each variant is a separate file for set-up purposes.
Can you print parts with my company logo?
Yes, where the brand is yours or you have authorisation. We need the logo as a vector — SVG, AI, EPS or a PDF with curves — to turn it into relief. What we do not do is reproduce a third party’s brand without it being clear you have permission.
Where it works well
- Keyrings, pins and tags with your logo, in your brand colour
- Awards and internal trophies, each with the winner’s name on it
- Phone stands, coasters and desk pieces for trade fairs
- Welcome packs personalised one by one for new starters
- A prototype of the merch before committing to five thousand from a supplier
- Scale models of your own product, as a gift to a client
Where it stops
- Large runs. Above roughly 500 identical units, injection moulding or laser engraving costs less, and we will say so.
- Anything touching food or drink: mugs, cups, coasters that get wet. Layer lines trap residue and none of our filament is food certified.
- Merch that is not plastic. No shirts, pens, notebooks or USB sticks: only the printed piece.
- Metal jewellery. We can print the master for casting, but we do not cast.
- Reproducing brands that are not yours. The logo has to be your company’s, or you need permission.
Recommended materials
Related guides
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