Cults3D
👤 Hugo Fromont, Pierre Ayroles & Sunny Ripert (Two ex-ad creatives and a coder. Design roots made them side with designers — 80% payout, self-financed, no investor to appease.)🌐 siteLinkedIn
Bootstrapped French marketplace for 3D-print files. Designers keep 80%, Cults keeps 20%, neutral to every printer brand.
Will it work? · our read
Independence pays. Free, maker-owned platforms own the audience and give models away free. Cults must hold pros on payout alone while richer rivals outspend it on reach.
01How the money moves
Designers upload 3D files, free or paid
→
Makers browse 2.3M models, pay per download
→
Cults keeps 20%; designer takes 80%
02The numbers
$940K
net profit, 2023
Fr. filing
20%
platform take rate
founder
2.3M
models listed
cults3d
Turnover is confidential under French law; net profit is the only disclosed figure. societe.com
About $940K net profit in 2023 (French filing). Turnover is confidential, legally under about $13M.
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Wikipedia — Cults marketplace: founders, model, 20% commission, scaleSociete.com — CULTS filed accounts: 2023 net result EUR 868,555, turnover confidentialPappers — CULTS legal entity: creation 2015, directors, confidential accounts3DPrint.com — interview with co-founder Hugo Fromont on staying independentVoxelMatters — 80/20 split, self-financed, designer earnings example
Revenue here is deliberately conservative. CULTS is a self-financed French SAS that files its accounts under a confidentiality declaration, so turnover (true revenue) is not public — French law only lets small firms hide it if it stays under about 12M euros ($13M). The one hard number that leaks through the filing is net profit: about 868,555 euros ($940K) for FY2023, on just 1-2 employees — that profit-on-a-tiny-team is itself the story. The 80/20 split and self-financing are founder-stated (first-party); membership, designer and model counts (13.6M / 223K / 2.3M) are Cults' own published marketing figures, not audited. No drama is invented: Cults won on a patient, documented strategic bet — stay neutral, pay designers — not a dramatic pivot. [our read] tags mark my interpretation of the threat from maker-owned free platforms. We never score you.