Cost of Making Mechanical Keyboard

Considering how this is my second post on the topic, and the first one didn't go well. I will try to redeem myself by performing a small exploration into how much it costs to make a mechanical keyboard from zero. Now there are some limitations to this. Of course i don't have direct experience with keyboard parts i will describe here, so quality of components may vary. But despite that my intention is to cram as much information, as many choices of components as possible, so there is a different choice for everything.

Conclusion:

Conclusion is on the top so all this below is research that may not be interesting. Let's say the goal is to make the cheapest keyboard possible, without thinking of quality. Of course there is a correlation between quality and price, but in this case I'm pretending there is none.

The keyboard is 65% format.
Key switches: 68 * 0.08€ = 5.44€,
Keycaps: 8€,
PCB: 3€,
Electronics components: 5.55€,
Casing(3D print): 2.15€

In total, it's 24.14€ per keyboard.

In case multiple is ordered and assembled then the price will be better:
Key switches: 68 * 0.08€ = 5.44€,
Keycaps: 8€,
PCB: 2.3€,
Electronics components: 5.15€,
Casing(3D print): 2.15€

Total price: 23€.

Mind you in this price the shipping is not included. The price will go up by 300% i can imagine when shipping is included. So the bulk order is actually even more suitable when we count in the shipping.

Key Switches:

Head first into the hardest part. First destination for ordering key switches was AliExpress. Usually there is a cheaper alternative for almost everything, and i case of switches it absolutely is. Virtually any kind and type of keyboard switches, with most prominent Cherry MX type switches. Prices range from 0.2€ and upwards. Myself i bought two kinds of switches from Outemu store on AliExpress and both are good.

Next in line that is also known to me and is not a common place to buy switches is LCSC Electronics. It's an electronics component supplier that sells all kinds of components e.g. Resistors, capacitors, IC Chips... Amongst all of that there are a few kinds of mechanical keyboard switches. There is just a few Cherry MX types, but price is ridiculous.

About 0.08€ per key switch. It's a bit hard to find them, because they are described just with "Brown switch", "Red switch", "Black switch" labels. I ordered a couple just for fun, expecting nothing, but it turns out they are real and they work.

Moving on. Now we are entering in the trenches. From here on out i did not try any of the services, it's just that people on Reddit seem to recommend all of these distributors.

Akkogear.eu is a shop only with key switches. It has nice prices e.g. 0.18€ per switch, and upwards from there, depending on how fancy the switches are. There is a whole active subreddit dedicated to them r/akkogear.

Next is Milktooth.com. First impression is that they are a bit pricey, but with a bit of digging it turns out they have a big range of key switches. Some of them as low as 0.19€ per switch. On the internet it seems that they are regarded as a quality distributor, with quality service.

Next is Divinikey.com and they seem fancy. Why fancy? Because of prices. It seems that cheapest option is about 0.24€. Not groundbreaking expensive, but a bit higher than others. However, it seems that everyone on the forums likes them, and they are around for a few years now.

Gateron.com seems like a well known name in the community. Same as previous shop. It seems they aren't braking any records with low prices, and the cheapest switches i could find are 0.235€ a piece. However, people on Reddit all leave positive reviews.

Next is Gloriousgaming.com, and here is where things are becoming to be real. In a bad way. I don't know if it's my mistake or i couldn't find any key switch that's lower than 0.6€ per piece. However, it seems that GloriousGaming has a huge following, with its own subreddit r/Glorious.

It's hard not to sound stupid now, but it's a bit too fancy for me.

Next in line is Keychron.com, as the leader in this hobby. Probably the most followed brand here. Has its own subreddit r/Keychron with almost 50k members.

The cheapest key switches i could find are about 0.156€ per piece. Seems like Keychron has more than key switches. On their website they got displayed all kinds of keyboard and mice variations.

Last on the list is Monsgeek.eu. Another one with subreddit r/Monsgeek.

The cheapest switch i could find is 0.27€ a piece.

Keycaps:

Well considering how i just went through all of these shops, and a lot of them have keycaps for sale, i will just list some prices. Mind you, prices are for a whole set of keycaps.

AliExpress 8€ - 23€
Akkogear 12€ - 70€
Milktooth 33€ - 77€
Divinikey 50€-70€ (Price may vary, don't understand the pricing)
Keychron 15€ - 43€
Monsgeek 12€ - 48€

Seems like no one can beat AliExpress, but Akkogear and Monsgeek have competitive prices. Problem is i did not research shipping prices, i know that for 8€ on AliExpress keycaps the shipping is included in the price. Crazy.

PCB

Printing a PCB.The price of designing a PCB will not be included considering how i can design it. So the questions is how much would it cost to print those PCBs and how much would components cost. So far i have used two services for printing PCBs. First is JLCPCB, and second is PCBWay.

JLCPCB:

If 5 boards are ordered, the price per board is 3€. However, if 30 boards are ordered, the price is 2.3€. And for fun if 500 boards are ordered then it's 1.4€, however shipping is about 300€ then.

Which leads to the shipping cost. Shipping for 5 boards is 15.6€, for 30 boards it's 49€.

PCBWay is a bit more expensive, however i have ordered with them in the past and everything went well.

Price per PCB if 5 is ordered is 10€, if 30 then 4.2€. Shipping is virtually the same, because same standard shipping options are available.

Components

Components are tricky because I'm lazy. There are a lot of components, but it's possible to just not count those small ones. For example the cost of one resistor can be about 0.0001€. So i will just calculate the biggest component which is the main microcontroller, and on top of that will add 1€ that will cover all the small components.

In this case the microcontroller is Atmega32U4. The best place to buy it is Mouser, for the price of 4.55€, and if 25 pieces are ordered then it's 4.16€.

This is straight up the cheapest, but in case someone want's to explore more options i made a post called Where to buy electronic components? , and there i tried to find the cheapest microcontroller on the market. It's not Atmega32U4, but perhaps someone can do the steps i took there for this microcontroller.

As for component conclusion the price for all components is 5.55€ for individual board, and for bulk of 30 boards it's 5.16€. I forgot to add soldering paste. The soldering paste is used to solder components to the board, and it's not the cheapest, but for the sake of this exploration i will forget about it.

Casing

Keyboard casing will be 3D printed. It is lower quality, but it will work. There are services provided by PCBWay and JLCPCB for manufacturing a more serious casing e.g. By injection molding. But i have never done that and don't know how to calculate the price for that.

So for the price of 3D printing i will just explore how much 3D printer filament costs. In order to calculate how much 3D printing would cost i need to know how much filament will printer use for keyboard case. For that i found a nice keyboard casing on Thingiverse that will help.

For a whole casing it will take 255 grams of filament. While printing with on 3D printer, there are two main materials: PLA and PETG. Considering how usually PLA is euro or two cheaper than PETG, but PETG is more durable. On keyboard i believe PLA will work out just fine, so i will try to calculate the prices just for PLA material.

Elegoo.com sells PLA filaments for a price of 12.5€ per Kg.

So the cost of 3.2€ per keyboard.

Sunlu.com has a bit better prices with 11.2€ per Kg.

So the price will be 2.86€ per piece.

jayo3d.com has great prices for PLA.

With 9.5€ per Kg. Calculating the comes to 2.4€ per case.

Geeetech.com leads with 8.45€ per Kg.

So the case would cost 2.15€

Conclusion:

Conclusion is on the top.

That's all. Thank you for reading.