The GigTag franchise · Ireland
Your printer is idle. Ours is in the wrong country.
We make a QR tag that live musicians clamp to a mic stand, and every one of them is a 3D print. Irish orders are made and posted in Ireland. Become a GigTag franchisee, print and post them from Ireland, and we pay you €11.49 a tag for each one that goes out. Nothing to pay us, at any point — no fee, no kit, no territory to buy.
- €11.49 a tag in Ireland
- No fee, ever
- One part, learned once
What this is
A franchise with one product and nothing to pay
The thing you would be printing
A GigTag is the QR tag a live musician clamps to a mic stand. Somebody in the audience scans it with their camera and lands on that act's page, where they can request a song, leave a tip, follow the act or send a booking enquiry. No app, nothing to install. The tag is 150 × 190 × 3 mm, printed face-down so the face comes off the plate flat, with the artwork inlaid into it in colour.
Why we want a printer in Ireland
Every tag ordered in Ireland is printed and posted by a printer in Ireland, so there is no wait at the border and nothing to pay on the doorstep. More printers in Cork, Galway or anywhere else make it a tag printed down the road and posted with An Post. The machines that could do it are already here, sitting idle most of the day.
What we pay, and what you pay
€11.49 for every tag you print and post in Ireland, agreed with you in writing before you start. It is our UK rate in euros, a price per tag rather than a cut of a sale, so it does not move about with what we charge. You never pay us anything: no joining fee, no kit to buy, no minimum order and no territory to license.
Where this is open
The United Kingdom has been open since the start, and the euro area is open now: Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands each have their own page, in their own language and money. The first printer in a country who runs the test plate well gets that country's orders.
The numbers
One Irish tag, all the way through
Our own arithmetic, at Irish prices, so you can check it rather than take a claim. Filament at 1.8 cents a gram, power at 120 W and 40 cents a unit (the Eurostat household figure for Ireland, the dearest in the EU), bolts bought in a pack, boxes in fifties, and postage as an An Post Large Envelope.
| What we pay you, per tag | €11.49 |
|---|---|
| 94 g of PLA, tag and clamp | −€1.69 |
| Power, about 3 h 51 m on the plate | −€0.18 |
| M6 bolt and nut | −€0.15 |
| A4 large-letter box, and the A5 card inside it | −€0.35 |
| Postage, An Post Large Envelope up to 500 g | −€3.50 |
| Failure allowance, 7% | −€0.14 |
| Left with you, per tag | about €5.50 |
What it takes from you: a plate change, 3 filament swaps at the colour pauses, a few minutes of assembly and a trip to post it. Twenty minutes a tag to begin with, under ten once you have the rhythm. The 3 h 51 m on the plate is unattended.
Batching is what moves it. Two or three tags in a row share the setup, the swaps and the walk to the postbox, which is all a large envelope needs. The margin per tag does not change; your minutes per tag fall by more than half.
We would rather you saw that figure now than discovered it in month two. It pays for machine hours that were going to waste. It is not a wage, and we are not going to dress it up as one. If the sum works for you, the rest of this page is the job.
What we need
What you need to be able to do
- An FDM printer with a bed of at least 160 × 200 mm. A 220 × 220 machine is plenty; an A1 Mini is too small.
- A willingness to swap filament at 3 colour pauses. That is how the face gets its colours, so no multi-material system is needed.
- Prints that come out right every time. We will send you a test plate first, and we would rather you ran it before either of us commits.
- Somewhere to post from. A tag, its clamp and the A5 card go in an A4 large-letter box, under 25 mm thick, so it travels as an An Post Large Envelope for €3.50 and goes in any postbox.
- An M6 bolt (45 or 50 mm long, never 40) and a nut per clamp, bought locally. No glue: the clamp pushes, snaps and screws together.
How it goes
From the form to the first order
- 1You applyThe form below: where you are, what you do, what machine you have and how long you have been printing. Five minutes, and a person reads it.
- 2We send the files and a test plateThe print profile, the colours, and one tag to print at your own pace. 67 g, about 2 h 35 m. You post it to us or photograph it; we look at the face, the fit and whether the code scans.
- 3We agree the money in writingWhat you get per tag, €11.49 in Ireland, who pays postage, and how often you are paid. Before you print anything for a customer.
- 4Orders start arrivingA tag at a time, each with that musician's own code and name, so you make the plate per order rather than printing to stock. You print, check, pack, post, and tell us it has gone.
Apply
Apply to be a franchisee.
A person reads every application and replies by email, usually within a couple of days. The reply comes with the print files and a test plate, so you can see the part before either of us commits to anything.
We ask about your machine because the bed size decides whether the part can be printed at all, and about your week because a tag takes 3 h 51 m on the plate. Nothing here is a credit check, and there is no CV to upload: a link to anything you have made does the same job.
Not what you were looking for? The guide to making money with a 3D printer in Ireland covers the other routes, honestly, including the ones that have nothing to do with us.
Questions
Printing GigTags in Ireland: your questions
What do I actually earn per tag?
€11.49 a tag. Out of that come filament, around €1.50 to €2.10 for the tag and its clamp, about 18 cents of power, the M6 bolt and nut, the large-letter box, and postage, which is €3.50 as an An Post Large Envelope. So you keep something in the region of about €5.50 a tag, plus whatever batching saves you. We would rather write that down than let you work it out later: it pays for machine time that was going to waste, and it is not a wage.
Why is the figure lower than on the UK page?
Two things, both Irish: An Post's large envelope is €3.50 against Royal Mail's £1.90, and Irish electricity is the dearest in the EU. The pay is the same rate in euros. Batching helps with the first and printing at night on a smart tariff with the second.
Is there anything to pay, now or later?
No. Not a joining fee, not a licence, not a kit, not a minimum order, not a deposit. If anybody ever asks you to pay us to print GigTags, it is not us. You buy your own filament and bolts, as you would for anything else you print.
What kind of franchise is this?
The honest answer is: half of one. You make and post our product, under our name, to our specification, which is the part of a franchise that applies. The rest of what the word usually means does not: there is no fee to join, no kit to buy, no minimum order, no territory and no exclusivity, and either of us can stop whenever we like.
Do I get an exclusive area?
No. We are not selling territories, so nobody is buying the right to be the only printer in Dublin. Orders go to whoever is nearest and has capacity. The upside of that is the thing nobody says about territories: you are not paying for one.
What printer do I need?
Any reliable FDM machine with a bed of at least 160 × 200 mm, printing PLA or PLA+ at 0.20 mm on a 0.4 mm nozzle. We print on an Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2; a Bambu P1S or A1, a Prusa, an Ender 3 in good order all do this job. You do not need a multi-material system: the colours are filament swaps at a pause.
How many will I get?
We cannot promise you a number, and we will not pretend otherwise. GigTag is young and Ireland is a market we are only starting in. What we can say is that orders go to the nearest printer who has capacity, and that we would rather have a few people printing well than a long list printing occasionally.
Who pays if a print fails?
You reprint it; that is normal for per-unit work and it is why the figure above includes a failure allowance. If a tag arrives damaged or the code does not scan, we reprint it between us and sort it out — you will not be left arguing with a customer, because the customer is ours.
Who deals with the musician?
We do. They order from us, they pay us, and they write to us if something is wrong. You are the manufacturing end: you get an order with a file and an address. It means no listings, no photography, no customer service and no returns to handle.
Do I need to register a business or pay tax on this?
Non-PAYE income under €5,000 a year goes on your ordinary return; above it, you register with Revenue as a sole trader and file a Form 11, deducting your real costs. Rules change and we are not accountants, so check revenue.ie. There is more in making money with a 3D printer in Ireland.
Can I sell GigTags myself?
Not as GigTag, no. The design, the artwork and the name are ours, and the files we send are for the orders we send you. If you want to sell your own products, that is your business and we have no claim on it — see what actually sells when you print to order.
Curious what you would be making, from the musician's side? See what a GigTag does, or design one for yourself.