Thingiverse subscription: Ad-free experience + your ideas wanted

New Features Ideas
1

Hey everyone, Ece here from the Thingiverse team!

We’ve been working on something we wanted to share with you early, please keep in mind that this is still in development, and what we’re sharing today are concepts, not a live feature.

We’re introducing an optional subscription for Thingiverse. For those who want it, it’ll give you an ad-free experience and a way to directly support the platform and the community you’re part of. That’s the core of it for now.

A few things we want to be clear about:

  • Thingiverse stays free. That’s not changing. The subscription is entirely optional - for anyone who wants to support the site and get a cleaner experience in return.
  • This is just the beginning. Ad-free is the starting point, not the ceiling. We have more ideas for what a subscription could include, and we’d love for this community to help shape that.

Screenshot 2026-04-28 at 17.48.02
Screenshot 2026-04-28 at 17.48.02400×606 42.1 KB

Which brings us to why we’re posting this: what would you want to see? Are there features, perks, or tools that would make a subscription worthwhile to you? We’re all ears, drop your thoughts below!

Thanks for being part of this community. We’ll keep sharing updates as things develop.

-Ece

4 Likes
2

I don’t see what a paid subscription is worth when so many sites run for free.

Makerworld offers points for uploads and makes. You can “purchase” uses of specialized apps and customizers and export files for just participating on the site. It costs me nothing more than what I’m already doing - making things.

MyMiniFactory isn’t pay, but it’s so overrun with purchase options I avoid the site almost entirely. I fear Thingiverse is heading this way.

If the whole plan to takeover Thingiverse was to monetize it, most people will just leave. With all the discussions in the last couple weeks I’ve already posted most of my items elsewhere. I wasn’t planning on it, but it doesn’t look good from a contributor’s view.

You could save a vast amount of storage (cost) if you required proof of printability. There’s nothing worse (especially for newbies) when you discover the file on the site isn’t capable of being printed. It’s not manifold, has errors, or zero thickness surfaces. Give users six months to post a make for every model they’ve posted… if there are zero makes, then dump it.

I’m guilty of it too, I make things, upload them, and then never get around to taking the pictures.

My 2 cents.

2 Likes
3

Many of the models on Thingiverse are very niche and rarely receive makes. For example I’ve recently been working on printing out a diorama of the fight in Moria with the Balrog. LOTR figures aren’t even that niche, they’re fairly popular yet almost none of the thing that I have printed have makes yet are all amazing and wonderful models. For even more niche things this would make Thingiverse entirely unusable.

1 Like
4

It’s not the storage that makes Thingiverse expensive. Storage in the cloud is actually surprisingly cheap! It’s traffic and the actual servers / DB to handle the requests that cost orders of magnitude more.

That being said, I do agree with you that promoting showing how printable something is (and encouraging people to post makes) is something we should be doing better!

5

I post makes of most of my models. It would keep users honest and prevent them from just flooding the site with random stuff they made. It would also reduce theft of models or make it easier to prove a stolen model if they also steal the make images.

Niche or not, I’m typically making the thing by time I’m ready to publish it. No reason not to post the make just to prove it’s worth the effort to download.

1 Like
6

Hi @brimstone326, thanks for sharing your feedback.

We’re (re-)focusing Thingiverse on Opensource Hardware. Opensource content needs to be free: “free” as in “free beer” and as in “freedom to do what you want with it” (so download, edit, manipulate, distribute, etc.). We’re defining a roadmap for this community, and we’re building features, services and tools with this community in mind. As such, there’s also certain things that this focus on Opensource Hardware means that we will not be doing, including that we won’t be bringing a file store to Thingiverse or introducing a paywall (which would work against this idea of free/freedom).

You’re correct that MyMiniFactory has paid files, and it has worked very well for creators, but for a very different community, focused on digital artists and sculptors, creating premium models for tabletop and gaming. It’s a very different audience than the (mostly) engineering and design focused community on Thingiverse. We understand that: we’re not trying to copy-paste features that worked on MyMiniFactory onto Thingiverse. That would be an error. The Thingiverse community made that clear in February when we announced the acquisition.

Members will continue to enjoy content for free, like it’s always been on Thingiverse.

However, Opensource Hardware projects still have costs, still need to be sustainable, and most of the creators of OSH projects are not allergic to money, especially if money is a means to distribute their Projects into the real world. Most of them create ambitious projects and love to see them being used, having an impact. So while we keep content available to download for free, we will still be introducing monetization features for creators (Crowdfunding new feature, sponsoring, revisiting tipping, manufacturing licensing fees, etc.). I’d be happy to listen to other ideas (and the Thingiverse Forum is the place to jam about what that could look like).

Also, any of these Creators wanting to upload to Thingiverse needs to be convinced that Thingiverse is a platform that will be here in the long term. If you invest your time and resources in creating Projects, you at least what to make sure that the platform that hosts them will be around. That’s why Thingiverse needs a business model, sustainable, independent from 3D printer sales (I’m not here to comment on what other platforms are choosing to do or might have done, but I’ve been in 3D printing long enough to know that the graveyard is full of 3D printing content platforms that once belonged to 3D printer manufacturers).

Currently, the business model of Thingverse is advertising. It’s been the business model of Thingiverse for some years, and at the same time, I hear the complaints about ads. That’s why in February we put out the idea of an optional ad-free subscription for members who would like to enjoy Thingiverse without the ads. Ece shared above a screenshot of the first version that we’re working on. Yes, we will be marketing this feature. Yes, it will be a focus. And it will also shift our mindset as a team to figure out what other premium features would make sense for power users, creators, brands, etc. I’d love your feedback to know if maybe there are extra features that might make it a no brainer for you to subscribe to some premium version of Thingiverse?

Regarding your comment about dumping Things, we won’t be going that way. We’re an open platform, so there’s niche content, or maybe the designer didn’t have time to print it or simply didn’t get round to uploading a picture. I don’t want to discourage these designers, some of them newbies. For the Thingiverse community, the more people participate, the merrier.

I agree that we can do a better job of increasing the quality of the content. Maybe you could share some ideas that would make you trust that a Thing is definitely printable?

1 Like
7

People are very willing to steal make images, I’ve seen it many times.

8

I honestly don’t know how to respond to all of that. I’m not trying to be negative about it, the logic just doesn’t follow. You want people to come to the site and stay here. You want to entice people to pay for some undefined premium service. The average user will not likely pay for a subscription. Most users don’t even post makes of the files they download. I tried to look up the most downloaded thing I’ve posted to show a comparison for makes, but analytics won’t load back a decade’s worth of information. So for argument’s sake, let’s consider the Benchy. Over four and a half million downloads of the main file. Makes only lists 4k, so for fairness let’s round it down to an even 4 mil. You are getting 0.1% engagement of users who post a make. 99.9% download and leave.

Open Hardware is great for those who do that, I’m just not that person and I imagine the vast majority of users are not. It is a platform to build revenue on, so that may work for you and those select creators. Good luck on that road, but again, what percentage of users are you catering to?

I create because I like to challenge myself. I don’t do it for profitability or to be featured. I share my designs freely because I have taken freely other’s work. This doesn’t solves your problems, I get that. I don’t have a solution. I just keep seeing all these promises and I see MyMiniFactory.

MyMiniFactory focuses on artists. It didn’t always do that.

Thingiverse is going to focus on Open Hardware. I guess we’ll see in a few years how similar the sites are then.

1 Like
9

This may be what you’re talking about and I’ve just misunderstood the wording, but I think for what you’re talking about, it might be better to just require a real photo of a print for a thumbnail. However, for people that might not have the ability to actually print their models off, it might be better to have a report system (if there isn’t one already) to report unprintable models, and if accounts get enough verified reports of uploading models that are supposed to be printable but aren’t, then consequences follow

1 Like
10

I think printability should be a consideration. It’ fair to say that not every student who designs a thing would have access to print everything they make. My original suggestion was to remove non-printable items, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern regarding the new path for Thingiverse.

Maybe the answer is to incentivize being the first to make a thing. Or maybe a button on the upload to ask for a volunteer to print it.

Either way, it doesn’t solve the profitability of the site. I can just wait and see what happens.

1 Like
11

Twitch, Amazon’s livestreaming platform, does a thing where if you have a premium membership, you get a ticket you can use to donate real money to a creator each month. I wonder if a similar idea might be worth it here for paid subscribers?

1 Like
12

Nice idea, like a tip included with your premium membership

13

Yeah, I figure it would be an easy way to encourage users to support creators without much added pressure at all; premium users will feel like they may as well help out people they like, and creators will get more compensation for their hard work

2 Likes
14

I understand that creators want to be paid for their hard work. Makes total sense to me. The only problem I have with this is that it is yet another subscription, I don’t have the budget for yet another subscription, it all adds up very quickly. This, if it happens, would make me focus on just one site I feel and maybe cancel my subscriptions elsewhere. I just feel this subscription thing is all getting out of hand and I’m not just talking about 3D Printing but as a whole.

Just my thoughts

2 Likes
15

Given that this is just a subscription to remove ads from the site, you wouldn’t have to buy into it, right? Like in theory you won’t lose any functionality of the site if you don’t pay; it’s just an extra bonus to remove annoying ads for people that use the site frequently enough to warrant spending money on it.

1 Like
16

When I first started printing I came to Thingiverse looking for anything I could find to print. That was a long time ago now, so I have a warm fuzzy feeling towards Thingiverse. I still visit regally. Many of the applications I use(d) had a “upload to Thingiverse” button. Students use this site all the time to download and upload their work.

Sure I could point my addblocker this way and block those adds. Problem solved for now. Before long when the ad revenue starts to fall content will retreat behind that subscription. Thats the business model of today, start slowly, get them addicted, keep them here. Then before you know it its costing more and more every month.

With every repository on the internet now asking for money to access features, wouldn’t it be nice to see a platform like this take a stand and turn the other way?

17

Really appreciate the depth of feedback here. Few things worth saying out loud: all content stays free to download, forever. That’s non-negotiable. The subscription is about removing ads and adding quality-of-life features, not gating content. The tipping idea is interesting and something we’re considering. We want creators to benefit from the platform, not just host files on it. Keep the ideas coming, this is exactly why we built this forum.

18

FYI, we soft-launched the ad free subscription. You can find the subscription button in the top header. Let us know if you have any early feedback.

19

Perhaps consider working with – and perhaps paying – content creators to create more engaging content. Tutorials on design and videos showing makes that really make the projects and techniques interesting might attract more users to the site.

You also need to improve the featured items - they are often nothing special at all or minimal printing projects to enclose some purchased device. I do not mean to criticize the designer, but right now there is a featured item that is really nothing more than a project box for an electronics project that you buy from the designer. I’m kind of tempted to create a small project box or printed logo and advertise it as a FULL SCALE WORKING AIRBUS A320!!!11!! - and then note in the description that you will need to buy an Airbus A320 separately to complete the project. Will bet you ten bucks that would make it as a featured item.

I worry for the future of the site as it seems that you are coming to the realization that you don’t really have a product or service to sell.

1 Like
20

Have been thinking about this a bit more in light of my closing comment above – I worry for the future of the site as it seems that you are coming to the realization that you don’t really have a product or service to sell.

The site needs to add some sort of value beyond being just an object repository.

Value for downloaders might include better curation of objects to ensure quality. Consider this example, which appeared on the site just today –

In case it disappears, it’s a cross made up of the words of the Our Father prayer. The problem is that the artistic rendering does not at all match the STL file. The rendering suggests stand-alone text without a background. The STL file is completely different – text on a background plate, a different style of text, spelling errors, and the wrong words. In short, the rendering and the STL are two completely different things. It would add value if Thingiverse could somehow, programmatically, spot and flag such mismatches. Otherwise, Thingiverse starts to get the reputation of being a dumping ground for spam and junk designs. Not sure how you would do programmatic/automatic recognition between renderings and photos and the actual files, or what that might cost, but flagging or blocking things like that would be a real service to downloaders.

Value for downloaders might also include validation that an object can be produced using the specs provided by the designer. Others have mentioned this and I comment on this in the thread about Thingiverse possibly providing a list of fabrication shops capable of printing, machining, or milling parts. Again, no idea how you programmatically/automatically verify that parts can be produced as specified. But if downloaders had some indication that objects are indeed printable and could filter searches by confirmed printable objects, that would be of real value.

Value for creators might be to enhance the engagement mechanisms on the site. We can currently send and reply to messages, but I am thinking of something like the ability to post messages to followers, such as updates and other communications. Maybe provide survey and poll capabilities, where a designer can ask followers what they would like to see next. For example, I make 1:87 scale models of buildings – I find a building that looks interesting to me and make a model of it in a popular model train scale. I’ve often thought that it might be helpful to poll my followers to see what sort of building they might like to see next. Whatever the mechanism is, it would add value to for creators to have greater engagement tools right on the site without having to, say, set up such tools on another service, such as Discord.

Value for both creators and downloaders might be to create an achievement ranking system, similar to what Printables does with its badges. The badges act as incentives and encouragement and perhaps provide more detailed information than that provided by the current statistics.

Might update this list as more comes to mind.

1 Like