Everything you need to know about working with PrototyperLab. From your first idea to small batch production and beyond.
Section 01
How projects work from first contact to delivered prototype.
You share your product idea, requirements, and fill out our questionnaire. We review it and send you a detailed, itemized quote within 48 hours. Once you approve the quote and pay your deposit, we agree on a milestone plan and a confirmed list of features and specs. You approve each milestone before we move to the next stage.
We send you high-quality photos and videos of the prototype at each milestone. We schedule a call to walk through any changes or improvements together. We then build the next version based on your feedback, and the process continues until the prototype meets all agreed specs and you are ready to move to small batch production.
As many as the project requires. Prototyping is an iterative process by nature. Most projects go through multiple rounds of revisions and that is completely standard. We build, you review, we improve, and we repeat. The goal is a prototype you are fully satisfied with before moving to production.
If the change is due to something we missed or did not deliver to the agreed spec, there is no additional charge. If the prototype meets all agreed specs and you want changes beyond the original scope, we provide you with a cost for those changes before doing any additional work.
We continue to improve it until it is right. This is an iterative approach to product development. We refine based on your feedback at every stage, and once you are in the market we help you incorporate real customer feedback into future improvements as well.
Industrial design is the process of defining what a product looks like, how it is used, how it feels, and how it will be manufactured. Prototyping is the process of physically building that design. Industrial design comes first. It answers all the functional and aesthetic questions. Prototyping proves those answers work in the real world.
Because a prototype built without proper design is an expensive mistake. Industrial design ensures that the product is designed for manufacturing from day one, with correct tolerances, right materials, and appropriate geometry. This is what DFM (Design for Manufacturing) means. It is the difference between a prototype that leads cleanly to production and one that requires expensive rework.
Section 02
Transparent pricing, payment terms, and how to estimate your costs.
You submit your brief and answer our questionnaire. We review your requirements and send back an itemized quote within 48 hours. The quote covers design hours, materials, fabrication, electronics if applicable, and finishing. Every line item is visible before you commit to anything.
We require a 50% deposit to start work. The remaining 50% is due before we ship. For larger projects we can offer more flexible payment terms. Ask us when you request your quote and we will work something out.
We accept bank transfer (ACH or wire transfer), check, and other major payment methods.
If work has not started and no materials have been purchased, we provide a full refund of your deposit. If we have already incurred expenses, we refund the deposit minus those costs. We will always be transparent about what has been spent before issuing any refund.
Yes, within the terms above. If we have not started work, you get your deposit back in full. We are committed to being fair and transparent at every stage.
Work backward from the retail price you want to charge. For ecommerce products sold on Amazon or your own store, your total production cost including freight and tariffs should be around 1/4 to 1/5 of the retail price. That margin covers Amazon fees, warehousing, fulfillment, advertising, returns, and still leaves you with a profit. For products sold through physical retail stores, the production cost target is around 1/3 of retail.
For ecommerce, target a 4x to 5x markup on your total landed cost including freight and tariffs. This covers Amazon or marketplace fees, warehousing, fulfillment, advertising, and a return rate. Products with less than a 3x markup are very difficult to make profitable on Amazon once you factor in all the real costs of selling there.
Section 03
How we protect your idea, who owns the work, and what happens if things go wrong.
We have never failed to complete a prototype due to our own inability. If we provide you a quote, it means we are confident we can deliver. We do not accept a deposit until we are certain the project is within our capabilities. It is in our direct interest to complete every project because we only receive full payment upon delivery.
This has not happened. But if a situation arose where we genuinely could not complete the work, we would refund your deposit in full and be transparent about the reason.
Not for our clients. We handle all communication in English. You deal with one point of contact throughout the project. We use structured milestone approvals, written agreements, and video calls so you always know exactly where your project stands.
We handle outbound shipping of your finished prototype to your door. For clients who want to send physical references or samples to us, we guide you through the easiest and most cost-effective shipping method based on your location.
Protecting your proprietary designs is a fundamental part of how we operate. Before you share any CAD files, schematics, or sensitive product briefs with us, we establish a formal NDA. This ensures that your product ideas, custom blueprints, and brand assets remain entirely your exclusive property throughout our design, testing, iteration, and manufacturing phases.
Yes, always. We sign an NDA before you share any proprietary information. If you would like to review our standard NDA before starting a conversation, contact us and we will send it over.
You do. Any designs, CAD files, and documentation created for your project belong to you. We retain no ownership or licensing rights over your product. This is confirmed in writing in our project agreement before work begins.
Section 04
What we can build, what materials we work with, and how our processes work.
Plastic, silicone, fabric, steel, stainless steel, aluminum, copper, resin, wood, ceramic, natural weaving materials, and paper. If you are not sure whether we can work with your material, ask us.
Yes. We offer FDM printing in all common plastics including PLA, ABS, and PETG, as well as SLA resin printing for higher-detail parts.
Yes. We provide painting, sanding, and resin coating to achieve a smooth, high-quality finish that is approximately 95% close to an injection-molded product in look and feel.
Yes. The process works like this: we 3D print the master part, manually sand and finish it to improve the surface quality, then create a silicone mold from it. That silicone mold is used to cast resin or epoxy copies. This is ideal for small batch production of plastic parts without the cost of injection mold tooling.
Yes. We offer small batch and large batch injection molding. We make aluminum molds for lower-cost shorter-run tooling and steel molds for higher-volume production. Small products can also be run on a desktop injection molding machine with an aluminum mold, which significantly lowers the entry cost for small batch runs.
Wooden products, wood with embedded electronics, resin casting, steel, ceramics, clay, and any product using CNC machining, 3D printing, silicone mold casting, lost-wax casting, or investment casting. Injection-molded products can also be made in small batches using a desktop injection molding machine with an aluminum mold.
We design and test all PCBs locally in our Vietnam facility before sending anything to factories for mass production. This means we catch schematic errors, firmware issues, and component problems at the prototype stage where they are cheap to fix. For complex boards we sometimes design a larger test version first with additional test points, then shrink it down to final production size once everything is validated.
Section 05
When to build, when to wait, and how to know if your idea is worth pursuing.
The most important thing you can do before spending any money on prototyping is talk directly to potential customers. Find where they hang out online and in person. Ask them about the problem your product solves. Try to get one person to commit to paying for it before you build anything. If you can find one paying customer, you can find more. Real customer conversations will tell you more than any market research report, and they cost nothing but time.
Yes, always. The most common and expensive mistake we see from founders is building a prototype before they have spoken to a single customer. Set up a simple landing page with a pre-order button. Post about it on social media or relevant communities. Run a small amount of paid ads to see if people click. Talk to ten people in your target market. If you cannot get anyone interested before the prototype exists, a prototype will not change that. Once you have some signal that people want to pay for it, then building the prototype makes sense.
The risk is real but usually overstated. Competitors typically only copy a product after they see it has validated sales, not before. The benefits of sharing your idea publicly almost always outweigh the risk at the early stage. You get a head start on SEO and content marketing, you get real feedback that improves the product, and you build an audience that makes your eventual launch much easier. Ship fast, build in public, and let the market data guide your decisions.
No, and waiting for a patent before selling is one of the most common ways founders lose momentum. A utility patent in the US gives you 18 months of provisional protection while your full application is pending. More importantly, a patent protects something nobody wants yet. The most valuable thing you can do is validate that customers will pay for your product and start selling as quickly as possible. By the time competitors notice and try to copy you, you should already have a head start and market presence.
Yes, and this varies by product category. Baby and toddler products require CPSC testing and certification. Medical devices require FDA clearance or approval. Electronics sold in the US require FCC certification. Products sold in Europe require CE marking. If your product falls into any of these categories, factor the certification cost and timeline into your product development plan from the start. We flag these requirements during the DFM phase so you can plan accordingly.
The main tools available to you are trademark registration, Amazon Brand Registry, and utility patents for genuinely novel features. A trademark gives you access to Amazon Brand Registry, which lets you report and remove counterfeit listings directly through Amazon’s platform. The most practical protection is to move fast, build a strong brand with real reviews, and stay several product generations ahead of anyone trying to copy you.
Section 06
What to do with your first batch, how to sell it, and how to protect quality.
For hardware startups launching their first small batch, we strongly recommend Amazon FBA as the starting point. A common concern from founders is whether their product will survive a standard warehouse environment. The answer is straightforward: if your product survived ocean freight on a cargo ship, it will easily survive a standard fulfillment warehouse. For a new brand with limited capital and no fulfillment infrastructure, nobody can handle ecommerce fulfillment cheaper, faster, or more reliably than Amazon’s native network. Start there and optimize later.
Moving to a dedicated 3PL makes the most sense once your brand is moving high volumes of bulky or heavy inventory. For large physical products at scale, a traditional 3PL lets you negotiate custom volume-based pallet storage and freight rates that can significantly undercut Amazon’s standard storage fees. Until you reach that scale, the operational simplicity and customer reach of FBA almost always outweigh the cost difference.
Yes. If your product is classified as a medical device, health tool, or tightly regulated electronic item, you cannot simply create a listing and ship inventory to Amazon. You must upload and clear the appropriate regulatory certifications with Amazon before they will allow you to store, fulfill, or sell the product on their platform. We flag these requirements during the design phase so you have time to prepare the right documentation.
Quality control is not something you can skip when manufacturing overseas. Our approach is to start every new product with a small batch, inspect it thoroughly, and only ramp volume once quality is consistently meeting spec. We build penalty clauses into our supplier contracts for delays and quality failures below a defined threshold. The right amount of budget spent on QC at the start saves multiples of that cost in returns, refunds, and brand damage later.
Section 07
Realistic timelines and cost ranges for every stage of the product development journey.
Every product is different, but here is a realistic guide. Brief and quote: 1 to 2 days to submit, 48 hours to receive your itemized quote. Design and CAD: 2 to 6 weeks depending on complexity. First prototype: 2 to 5 weeks after design approval. Revision rounds: 1 to 3 weeks per cycle, with most products going through 2 to 4 rounds. Small batch production: 3 to 8 weeks for a 20 to 100 unit run. Total from first contact to approved prototype: 8 to 16 weeks for most products. Adding small batch brings the full journey to 12 to 24 weeks depending on complexity.
A simple single-feature product with one material and basic geometry: prototype from $2,500, small batch of 20 units from $500, total journey from $3,000 to $5,000. A mid-complexity product with multiple parts and no electronics: prototype from $3,500 to $6,000, small batch from $500, total from $4,000 to $8,500. An electronics-integrated product with PCB, firmware, and custom enclosure: prototype from $4,000 to $11,000, small batch from $500, total from $4,500 to $11,500. All costs are itemized in your quote before you commit.
Our minimum is 20 units. Most small batch runs fall between 20 and 100 units. This range is designed for market validation, pre-orders, and early retail runs where you need enough units to test demand without committing to mass production volumes.
Send us your idea and we will have a detailed quote back to you within 48 hours. No commitment required.