Last spring, our engineering manager stopped by my desk and asked, 'Can all 3d printers print metal?'
I'm not an engineer. I'm an office administrator who manages purchasing for a 70-person product development company. I process somewhere around 70 orders a year across 15 or so vendors. When I took over purchasing in 2020, I learned one thing quickly: the lowest quote is rarely the lowest total cost.
That morning, though, I wasn't thinking about total cost. I was thinking, 'I don't know the first thing about metal 3D printing.'
The Question That Started It
Our team was tired of sending prototypes to an outside shop. Every design revision cost money and burned days. The engineering manager thought we could bring some of that work in-house with the right 3D printer.
'Start with an Ultimaker,' he said. 'But first find out what we actually need.'
I did what I normally do when a purchase feels outside my lane: I searched. By day two, my history included 'ultimaker,' '3d printers ultimaker,' and then the phrase 'ultimaker s5 3d printer review' more times than I want to admit.
That week was also noisy in a normal procurement way. Our production supervisor asked for a quote on a diamond press brake for a sheet-metal project. An engineer copied me on a Reddit thread and said, 'Search co2 laser reddit before and after. Look what this can do to acrylic.' I searched. The laser-cut results looked beautiful. The press brake specs were impressive too.
But none of those tools solved our actual problem, which was making reliable plastic prototypes in a regular office. I kept reminding myself: different machines solve different problems.
My Initial Misjudgment
When I first started researching desktop 3D printers, I assumed the machine with the best consumer reviews and the lowest price would be the smart purchase. That was wrong. I wasn't buying a gadget for a hobby corner. I was buying a tool that engineers would use every day, sometimes for multiple builds at once.
The cheapest machine looked fine on paper. It had a similar build volume to the Ultimaker S5. People online printed successful parts with it. But the more I looked at what it would take to run it in our workplace, the more the cost climbed.
Then I compared two real quotes side by side, and the difference clicked for me.
What the Quotes Taught Me About Transparency
One distributor gave me an aggressive price for a different printer. The number at the top was about 20% below the Ultimaker S5. I almost stopped there. Then I asked the question I've learned to ask with every supplier: 'What's not included?'
The list was long. Required print cores. A support plan that matched our uptime expectations. A starter filament pack. A calibration service. Shipping and packaging for an industrial return if the unit failed. After I added the items we genuinely needed, the total was roughly 40% higher than the advertised price. It wasn't a dishonest quote. It was incomplete.
The Ultimaker reseller took a different approach. Their first page had the complete system cost: the Ultimaker S5 unit, a set of print cores, a starter filament kit, a training call, one year of warranty, and shipping. It also said what was not included, like an optional floor stand and on-site installation. No hidden setup fee. No surprise 'software activation' charge.
I know the phrase 'transparent pricing' sounds like marketing. But to me, it meant something practical: I could plan the budget without waiting for an invoice shock. I could explain the cost to finance without a spreadsheet full of asterisks.
I also looked at advertising claims through an FTC lens. Per FTC guidelines, product claims must be truthful, not misleading, and backed by evidence. I used that as a mental checklist. If a vendor said their printer was 'production ready,' I asked for the definition of production. If they said it could print certain materials, I checked the material compatibility list. Ultimaker's published specs matched what reviewers and customers described. That gave me confidence.
The Short Answer on Metal
So, can all 3D printers print metal? No.
Most desktop 3D printers, including the Ultimaker S5, are FDM printers. They melt plastic filament and lay it down layer by layer. Some industrial machines print metal using powder bed fusion or binder jetting, but those are a different category entirely. They need different facilities, safety systems, and budgets.
I told our engineering manager that honestly. He laughed and said he already knew. The question was actually for me. He wanted to make sure I understood the difference before I started comparing prices.
That lesson echoed with the other equipment requests too. A diamond press brake is the right tool if you bend sheet metal all day. A CO2 laser is great if you cut acrylic or wood. And the Ultimaker S5 is one of the best choices if you need consistent polymer parts for product development.
Six Months With the Ultimaker S5
We bought the S5 in the summer. It has been running in our prototype area for about six months now.
I'm not the person who slices the files or chooses materials. Our engineers handle that. But I can tell you what I see from a procurement and operations perspective:
- Setup was smooth. The training call was practical, not a sales pitch.
- Cura is real software, not an afterthought. The engineers were already familiar with it, which cut the learning curve.
- The build volume is useful. At 330 x 240 x 300 mm, it fits our prototypes without making us send oversized parts out.
- Digital Factory gives me visibility. I can see print status from my office without walking over and interrupting anyone.
- Support has been responsive. When we had a feeding issue, the reseller walked us through it the same day.
The S5 isn't cheap. If you compare sticker prices to a hobby machine, it loses. But if you compare total cost over two years, including support, software, and reliability, it starts to look reasonable. For us, the choice was never about impressing anyone with new hardware. It was about buying a tool that wouldn't make me look bad when the team depended on it.
What I'd Tell Another Buyer
If you're an administrator or a non-engineer researching 3D printers, here is what I learned:
Ask what's not included before you ask for the final price. A vendor who explains exclusions respectfully is usually the one who delivers a clean invoice. The lowball quote can work if you have a dedicated engineer who loves tinkering. But in a busy product development environment, you're not buying a printer. You're buying workflow, support, and repeatable results.
And don't let impressive Reddit posts push you off course. The laser results in that co2 laser reddit before and after thread were real, but they didn't solve our problem. Same with metal 3D printing. It's a powerful technology. It wasn't the tool we needed.
Our Ultimaker S5 was the right tool for our team. If you need reliable FDM printing and you value a supplier that doesn't hide costs, it deserves a spot on your shortlist. Just make sure the total cost fits your real requirements. That's where procurement decisions either get made or get repeated.
