Injection moulding and 3D printing are both ways of manufacturing customised items from raw materials. Injection moulding is done by pumping a material (generally plastic) into a custom shaped mould which is generally made out of metal (steel or aluminium). 3D printing, on the other hand, is done by slowly building up a plastic model through a specialised tool that acts like a traditional printer, going back and forth over itself until the desired object is achieved. While they both have their advantages and disadvantages, injection moulding has a clear leg up over the competition and here is why.

Scale

Injection moulding is very easy to scale once you have done all the groundwork. Yes, you might be able to start quicker on a 3D printer but once you have your moulds done and all the equipment in place you can practically make thousands of your items in an hour. 3D printers are expensive and most of them can only work on one piece at a time. That makes them good for making single-use items or prototypes but on a mass scale, they fall short of injection moulding. 

Speed

Injection moulding is astronomically quicker at producing items than 3D printing. Depending on how new your 3D printer is you could be taking hours to create just a single piece while injection moulding can dish out hundreds of pieces in the same time. There is a reason injection moulding is so popular for large scale products and 3D printing and CNC manufacturing are not: time. The less time it takes to make the more you can create in the same time frame and the faster and wider your customer reach expands. When it comes to large scale manufacturing speed is so important to keep an expanding business going.

Price

While there is a fair bit of start-up cash required to test the injection moulding and create the moulds, once that is done injection moulding is far cheaper per unit than 3D printing. 3D printing supplies can be quite expensive even to the commercial vendors mostly because it is still a relatively new method. Injection moulding has been around for a long time now and supply chains have only gotten better. This allows injection moulding to keep costs low once they are in production while a 3D printer will struggle to give any discounts for bulk orders. When it comes to which option creates more money in your bank account there is simply no comparison.