How it works

MakerSouq reads the public prices of local 3D printing stores twice a day and puts them side by side. Here is what we check, how the numbers are worked out, and what happens when something looks wrong.

Which stores we check

We check 13 stores: 5 in United Arab Emirates and 8 in Saudi Arabia. Each one has a page showing what it lists.

United Arab Emirates

Saudi Arabia

Before a store is switched on, we read its terms. If they don't allow automated access, the store stays out until it agrees. We don't read Amazon, noon or other marketplaces; product pages link to a search there instead, with no price.

How often prices are checked

Twice a day, at 06:17 and 18:17 UAE time. Our bot identifies itself as makersouq-bot, follows each store's robots.txt, and sends at most one request every 2 seconds to any store. Every price on the site shows when its store was last checked.

It reads public product listings only: name, price, stock, weight, diameter and colour. It never copies descriptions or photos.

Prices and VAT

Prices are in the store's own currency (AED in the UAE, SAR in Saudi Arabia) with VAT included, as a buyer in that country pays. Some Saudi stores' systems leave VAT out for visitors outside Saudi Arabia; for those we add the 15% VAT the store charges. Delivery fees aren't included.

How price per kg is worked out

Price per kg is the listed price divided by the net filament weight in kilograms. A 750 g spool at AED 90 works out at AED 120 per kg, so spools of different sizes compare fairly. When a listing doesn't state a weight we can read, it gets no price per kg.

A product sold by several stores shows its lowest in-stock price per kg. The typical price for a material is the median across its in-stock products: half cost less, half cost more. Lists are sorted by price per kg; store lists are A to Z.

When something looks wrong

  • If one store fails, the others still update. A failed request is retried twice before we wait for the next check.
  • If a store suddenly returns fewer than 50% of the products it had last time, or none at all, we keep its last good data.
  • A price that moves more than 70% between two checks is held. The old price stays until the next check confirms the new one (within 2%).
  • When a store hasn't been checked successfully for 3 days, its prices are marked as out of date. After 7 days they're hidden.

Prices change between checks, so confirm the price on the store's site before you buy. If you spot a wrong price, let us know.

How stores join or leave

Listing is free. Stores don't pay to be listed, ranked or featured, and every store gets the same row and the same link. A store can ask to be added, block our bot in robots.txt, or ask to be removed; we remove a store within 48 hours of it asking. Details are on thepage for stores.