Snapmaker Space: Our First Month & Beyond in Open Beta ... and What's Next!

Six weeks of models, real prints, and community feedback, and a closer look at the kind of creativity we hope to make possible.

On September 21, Snapmaker Space opened its public beta. We set out to make it easier to discover, share, and print multicolor and multimaterial models - and to give creators more room to explore what toolchanging makes possible.

It's been just over six weeks since launch. Space is still new and parts of the experience need work. Thank you to everyone who has uploaded a model, tried a print profile, posted photos, helped another maker, or pointed out something we need to fix. All of it is helping Space take shape.

Our First 6 Weeks By The Numbers

We're encouraged by the early activity. But model counts are only a starting point. What matters is whether people can find something worth making, prepare it with confidence, and enjoy the result. That's the kind of growth we want to build on.

What Our Community Is Creating

More Freedom to Design, Fewer Unnecessary Plates

If you've printed multicolor models, you may know the routine: print different colors as separate parts, then assemble them afterward. Sometimes that's the right approach - separate parts can make a design easier to repair or more practical to print. Other times, creators split models mainly to avoid the extra printing time and filament waste that frequent color changes can bring.

With the U1's four-tool toolchanger, creators have more freedom to integrate colors directly into their designs and print them on a single plate, where the geometry allows. That can mean fewer separate print jobs, less assembly, and less filament wasted on color changes.

We don't think every model should be one piece. We simply want creators to have the freedom to choose, rather than having to split a design just to work around color-changing limitations.

We welcome great single-color and multipart designs, too. At the same time, through featured model selections and community activities, we hope to encourage more thoughtful one-piece multicolor and multi-material creations.

The Prints and Conversations Matter Just as Much

One of our favorite parts of Space has been looking through the photos people leave after printing. Some comments are a quick “great print.” Others bring a material tip or a suggestion for the next version. We appreciate both. A model becomes more useful when people print it, share their experience, and help one another get better results.

We Listened: Improvements and Lessons

Open beta also means hearing what's frustrating. You've raised questions about creator rewards, rating restrictions, discovery, and publishing workflows. Here is where we are focusing our efforts.

Better Recognition for Repeat Prints

Our creator rewards system was designed to recognize models people actually print. The current rule counts only the first qualifying print by a given user for a given print profile. That can overlook something important: a useful tool, toy, or gift design may be printed by the same person many times.

We agree that repeat use can be a meaningful sign of a creator's contribution. So we're developing an update:

We're working on expanding the limit from the first qualifying print to the first 50 qualifying prints, per user and per print profile, with a target release in about one month.

The new rule will also apply retroactively to all eligible printing activity from both our internal beta and public beta periods. This means qualifying print time from the first 50 prints will be counted, including prints made before the update takes effect. Once the new rule is live, we'll recalculate and verify the historical rewards, then issue any additional points earned by creators.

The other conditions for qualifying printing activity will remain unchanged. This change won't multiply everyone's points by 50 - the actual difference will depend on eligible prints. We'll update the official rules when the change is released.

One thing worth noting: prints started in LAN mode or from a USB drive or the printer’s internal storage don't count toward creator points. That's because we respect your privacy and don't collect print data from these methods, as outlined in our Privacy Policy.

And we're not stopping at this rule update. We're also planning more creator reward programs to give great models and thoughtfully designed print profiles more opportunities to earn points. We want the creativity makers put into their work to be recognized and rewarded.

Fairer, More Useful Print-Profile Ratings

We originally limited higher ratings to verified completed prints, aiming to give makers more reliable guidance. But a print may be stopped for reasons unrelated to the model or the profile. We understand why users find the current restriction frustrating, and why it can be unfair to creators.

Improving the rating experience is part of our November work. We want ratings to reflect useful real-world feedback without making the creator responsible for interrupted prints. The revised behavior is not final yet; we'll explain the actual change when it's ready.

Less Friction in Finding Models

We're also working on improvements such as model-ID and more flexible search, clearer attribution for model authors and print-profile contributors, and other fixes. These items are expected to be available soon.

What's Next

We'll keep improving the path from finding a model to printing it, supporting creators, and bringing makers together through more community challenges. We'll also share more work from creators exploring toolchanging.

There's one more project we're excited to share a little about: Snapmaker Lab.

We're planning to release its first tool in a few days, with more tools to follow over time. The idea is to make everyday customization more approachable. We hope these tools will give more people a way to experiment and make something personal, without needing advanced 3D modeling skills.

We'll show you what each tool can do as it becomes available.

Help Shape What Comes Next

If you've tried Snapmaker Space, we'd love to see what you've printed - even when it didn't go to plan. Tell us what was confusing or took too much work.

If you're new here, including if you use another printer brand, you're welcome to look around and discover what people are making, download the models and print.

Explore Snapmaker Space: https://space.snapmaker.com/

Share feedback: info@snapmaker.com

Community: Join us on Discord

Space is still in beta, and there's plenty of room to improve. Thanks for being part of it and helping us make it better.

The Snapmaker Team

Make Something Wonderful