SpoolPilot · Comparison
Built by an Etsy seller with 3,000+ sales
Spoolman vs SpoolPilot: two different questions
Spoolman asks how much plastic is left on each spool. SpoolPilot asks how much money the shop made. If you sell what you print, you might genuinely want both — but you should know which is which.
Spoolman, respectfully
Spoolman is excellent at what it does: a free, open-source, self-hosted filament database with native Klipper support, so your printer itself logs consumption per print. For a tinkerer running Klipper who wants gram-accurate remaining weight on every spool, it's the community's gold standard — and being MIT-licensed and self-hosted, it's fully yours.
The cost is ceremony. You run a server (Docker, usually), then build your database by hand: manufacturers, then filament types, then each physical spool. Weights stay accurate only when prints flow through the integrations. And it stops at plastic — no sales, no fees, no profit, because that was never its job.
What sellers need that grams can't answer
A shop owner's daily questions are different: what did that $28 order actually net after Etsy's four separate fees? Which product is quietly unprofitable? How many sealed spools are on the shelf, and how many weeks will they last at the current sales pace? What should I print next?
Those are money-and-time questions, and they need sales data — not a scale. SpoolPilot connects to your Etsy shop, imports your whole sales history, reads the exact fees Etsy charged on each order, and treats filament the way a busy shop actually does: count sealed spools by scanning the barcode, let sales infer the rest.
Side by side
| Spoolman | SpoolPilot | |
|---|---|---|
| Core question | Grams remaining per spool | Net profit per sale |
| Runs on | Your own server (Docker) | Your iPhone |
| Setup | Host it, then hand-build the database | Connect Etsy, scan a spool — minutes |
| Filament model | Per-gram weights via printer integrations | Sealed-spool counts + weeks-of-stock forecast |
| Sales & fees | — | Whole Etsy history, exact fees itemized per order |
| Price | Free, open source | Free during beta |
| Best for | Klipper tinkerers & gram-accuracy fans | People selling what they print |
Can you run both?
Sure. Some print-farm owners keep Spoolman for per-machine gram nerdery and use SpoolPilot for the business: profit, fees, forecasts, and what to print next. They don't compete for the same job — they compete for the same shelf.
See your real profit in minutes
SpoolPilot syncs your whole Etsy history, itemizes the exact fees Etsy charged on every order, and shows true net profit per sale. In beta on iOS — join the waitlist for early access.
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Spoolman is an open-source project by its respective authors; SpoolPilot is not affiliated with it. More: free Etsy fee calculator · a Stocksmith alternative