I’m the guy who signs off on every purchase over $500 at our shop. That means I’ve made some good calls. And I’ve made some expensive mistakes. The xTool S1 purchase? It was somewhere in between, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions we made—after I almost didn’t make it.
The Outsourcing Problem
Last year, we were spending about $2,200 a month on laser cutting and engraving services. Custom wooden signs, acrylic jewelry, engraved leather goods—you name it. Our shop produces these for local businesses and wedding favors. The outsourcing cost was killing our margins. I calculated that buying our own laser could pay for itself within a year if we did even half the work in-house.
So I started comparing laser systems. The first quote I got for a compact diode laser was $385. It looked decent—enclosed, USB connection, all the basics. I was ready to buy it until I realized it only handled two materials. Actually, it could do wood and maybe acrylic, but not metal at all. We get a lot of requests for metal engraving. The cheap option didn’t even have a rotary attachment for tumblers. So I signed a quote for a CO₂ laser? No—I stopped myself.
The Cost Analysis That Almost Went Wrong
I went back and forth for two weeks. The xTool S1 was nearly four times the price of the budget machine. But it came with a 20W module, and you could swap to 40W or even an infrared diode laser for metal marking. That infrared diode laser option was the game-changer. It meant we could do stainless steel tumblers and aluminum plates without sending them out.
The decision kept me up at night. On paper, the xTool S1 made sense, but my budget said “cheap.” The cheap machine would save me $1,000 today. The xTool S1 would save me a lot more if it worked. What if it didn’t? What if our operators hated the software? I hit “order” and immediately thought: did I just make a mistake?
The First Few Weeks: Settings and Swearing
The first few weeks were rough. I’ll be honest. We had to figure out the right settings for every material. I remember searching “xtool s1 leather engraving settings” at 11 PM because the leather samples either came out burned or so faint you couldn’t see the logo. The community forum saved us—it turned out we were using too much power and too slow a speed. Once we dialed it in, leather became one of our most profitable jobs.
We also learned that for wood, the “best way to engrave wood” isn’t some secret technique—it’s having a reliable machine and testing. We found that baltic birch plywood gives the crispest results, but you need the right focus and speed. The xTool S1 made it easy to replicate settings across jobs. For detailed logos, we run at 300 DPI, which is the standard minimum for photo engraving. I always tell my team: don’t go below that for anything with fine text.
The Metal Game-Changer
Then came the metal test. Our biggest client wanted 200 engraved stainless steel bottles. I’d read the marketing copy saying “can xtool s1 engrave metal”—but I didn’t fully believe it. We had the 40W module installed, and the test piece looked good. Not deep engraving, but a smooth permanent mark. We used the infrared diode laser for that. It’s a separate module you can slot in, and it made a huge difference. The bottles came out perfect, and we landed the contract.
That contract alone paid for the entire accessory bundle. (Should mention: we ordered the rotary attachment for tumblers at the same time, and it’s been worth every penny.)
Acrylic Jewelry and Wood Engraving
Now we cut acrylic jewelry almost every day. The xTool S1 handles it cleanly, and with the honeycomb bed and air assist, the edges are smooth enough to sell without extra sanding. It certainly beats sending those little earrings to an outside shop. Our setup includes the rotary bundle for drinkware, the honeycomb bed for flat materials, and an air assist pump. Total add-ons: about $850. We bought them upfront because I didn’t want to risk needing them later and paying rush shipping.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Eight months later, I ran the numbers. Our outsourcing spend dropped from $2,200 to about $400 a month (we still send out the occasional large-format piece we can’t fit). The machine cost $1,850 plus add-ons—rotary, honeycomb, air assist—came to $2,700 total. Maybe $2,745, I’d have to check the spreadsheet. Monthly savings: $1,800. Payback period: 7.4 months. Since then, we’ve stopped two extra vendor contracts.
Here’s the lesson: the $385 machine would have been a paperweight for half our work. We would've spent $700 on a second machine for acrylic, $300 for a metal marking setup, and wasted hours in between. The xTool S1’s modular design let us grow without replacing the base. That’s TCO, not sticker price.
The “cheap” option isn’t just about the sticker price—it’s about the total cost including your time spent managing issues, the risk of delays, and the potential need for redos. In my experience managing procurement for 6 years, the lowest quote has cost us more in about 60% of cases. This one was another datapoint.
What I’d Tell Another Cost Controller
Don’t buy on price. Buy on capability and expandability. If you only need to engrave wood coasters, sure, get the cheapest diode laser. But if you’re like us—taking custom orders across leather, wood, acrylic, and metal—the xTool S1 is the better investment. It handles the materials, the settings are documented, and the community is active. We’ve never needed a CO₂ laser, and I’ve stopped second-guessing the decision.
Jury’s still out on whether we’ll buy a second unit for production. But at this point, the spreadsheet knows what it likes.
