A plastic soldier set is on the order of $20, and collectors will often purchase dozens.
A Bambu A1 mini (which is sufficient for the level of detail needed for these figurines) is about $200, which breaks even after 10 sets.
I don't think my A1 Mini would have success trying to print at 1/72 at the same detail as an injection molding process. I've done 28mm figures on it, but it was a lot of work and had a high failure rate.
more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7pBUk8AvJ8, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldkW5nXRXN4
But either way, margins for some companies like mentioned GW are huge
The internet is rife with influencer content that makes these look OK and "not that dangerous", along with people who want to believe that rather than face buyer's remorse.
It's more dangerous than you think. It's messier than you think. The process steps are more ennui than you think. If you don't respect it you will make unsafe mistakes out of lack of knowledge, or impatience, or lazyness.
This shouldn't really be consumer gear. You can also fuck up on health and safety with FDM printers, but the default beginner lane (printing PLA in common colors) is a lot less risky on zero knowledge entry.
I've been 3d printing with resin for a long time before I had my dog. Now I don't do it, unless I can be sure that I can have the dog out my printing room for several days straight, for the water-washable resin to solidify on the sun after usage, and all the different after-print steps that have to be taken care of.
It's also annoying to clean the plate, and deal with the resin bottles when you stop using them. There's no easily accessible infrastructure to dispose of the waste from the printing process so if you become lazy, you end up creating toxic hazards for anyone in the community. Not a good outcome at all.
Still, safe 3d printing brings me a lot of joy, specially to prepare board games sessions with friends and neighbours. Printing, painting, etc. You just have to be responsible and civic and do the right thing.
There's a safe way to handle this stuff, but you have to be very disciplined about it. Animals and kids complicate that big time.
For my kids, swapping a 0.2mm nozzle into the printer, setting layer height to sub-0.1mm, and reducing print speed to 50% produces surprisingly good results.
$200 for a printer does not break even at 10 sets if the sets are $20 unless the cost per unit printed is $0.
The fact that the analysis can be carried out in monetary units (because we don't have a good direct measure of utility) doesn't mean that receiving money itself is the only source of utility that needs to be considered.
The commericial overhead rate for an SLA printer is about $5 a plate - the washing and curing steps can be largely automated, or even if they are done manually, it's not that much work.
In the US, it’s common to get quality generic PLA for $15 per kg. Buy several spools at once in a package deal and the price can fall to $11-12 per kg. Wait for a sale and buy a 10-pack and I’ve been getting PLA under $10 per kg. It’s very cheap.
For toys I’d prefer to spend a little more on PLA Pro or Plus, which means it has modifiers added for better impact resistance. This helps a lot with small toys I print for the kids.
You may be looking at more advanced materials like carbon fiber or fiberglass reinforced filament for printing larger parts that take a load/stress.
Even assuming no losses, just by volume, something like $0.10 per figure, and packs of 1/72 scale figures that retail for $20 are often a 20-50 figures.
Often the artists are solo artists that you can, like, hang out with on Discord and chat directly with.
The exception might be Russia, there's a big 40K hobby there and they're cut off from buying stuff due to sanctions and the terrible state of the economy.