Hi there! I'm one of the creators of Crazy Circuits. Price is always a big issue for us as a company and I'm always happy to explain things for people.
First off the PCBs are not at all expensive to get in bulk. But then there's the pick and place cost, parts cost, shipping from China (we used to do it in the US, but that got really expensive), and now tariffs. We also can't use the cheapest PCB producers as we have LEGO tolerances to deal with. Keep in mind that buying in bulk also means a large, up front cost as well. Or original kickstarter brought in over $50,000... but we spent over $80,000 doing our first batch of parts and supplies.
The big issue is overhead and resellers. We have employees to pay, rent to cover, and events to go to. Those add up. While we really strive to make our kits as affordable as possible we need money to grow and provide support. Graphic Designer, Curriculum writer, warehouse workers, customer support, PCB designers. A lot of different employees and outside contractors helped launch Crazy Circuits, and most of them are still working on new projects.
We also have to price things accordingly in order to sell through resellers. Teaching and library catalogues, Amazon, STEM supply websites. They all need to take their cut. Again, if we want to scale we need to get our products out there and in front of a lot of eyes. Figure that on average these places need a 40-50% discount off retail pricing. Then we still need to make money somewhere. This makes for some thin margins on a few kits.
We do a very bare minimum mark up on our parts and kits. If you compare our $100 or $200 kits to similarly priced STEM products we tend to give a lot more parts per dollar (Or compare our $1,000 Maker Space Kit to something like Littlebits or Circuit Scribe, and you'll see how fast educational products get expensive). Yes, you could just buy raw parts and throw them on a breadboard for $20, but that ignores what makes our kits fun.
We're trying to be a nice middle ground between a standard breadboard and something like snap circuits or (god forbid) Littlebits. Something that both beginner kids and adults can have fun with as either an electronics kit or a LEGO kit.
I hope I was able to answer a few questions for everyone about how pricing works. It's been a major thorn in our side since we started this business, but we do what we can to keep prices down.
First off the PCBs are not at all expensive to get in bulk. But then there's the pick and place cost, parts cost, shipping from China (we used to do it in the US, but that got really expensive), and now tariffs. We also can't use the cheapest PCB producers as we have LEGO tolerances to deal with. Keep in mind that buying in bulk also means a large, up front cost as well. Or original kickstarter brought in over $50,000... but we spent over $80,000 doing our first batch of parts and supplies.
The big issue is overhead and resellers. We have employees to pay, rent to cover, and events to go to. Those add up. While we really strive to make our kits as affordable as possible we need money to grow and provide support. Graphic Designer, Curriculum writer, warehouse workers, customer support, PCB designers. A lot of different employees and outside contractors helped launch Crazy Circuits, and most of them are still working on new projects.
We also have to price things accordingly in order to sell through resellers. Teaching and library catalogues, Amazon, STEM supply websites. They all need to take their cut. Again, if we want to scale we need to get our products out there and in front of a lot of eyes. Figure that on average these places need a 40-50% discount off retail pricing. Then we still need to make money somewhere. This makes for some thin margins on a few kits.
We do a very bare minimum mark up on our parts and kits. If you compare our $100 or $200 kits to similarly priced STEM products we tend to give a lot more parts per dollar (Or compare our $1,000 Maker Space Kit to something like Littlebits or Circuit Scribe, and you'll see how fast educational products get expensive). Yes, you could just buy raw parts and throw them on a breadboard for $20, but that ignores what makes our kits fun.
We're trying to be a nice middle ground between a standard breadboard and something like snap circuits or (god forbid) Littlebits. Something that both beginner kids and adults can have fun with as either an electronics kit or a LEGO kit.
I hope I was able to answer a few questions for everyone about how pricing works. It's been a major thorn in our side since we started this business, but we do what we can to keep prices down.