Pros & Cons
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- Exceptionally easy to use
- Curated content library
- Compact and kid-friendly design
- Reliable out-of-the-box performance
- Strong ecosystem approach
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- Premium filament pricing
- Small build volume
- Ongoing content costs
- Limited material support
Toybox Alpha 3 Deluxe Bundle Specs
| 3D-Printing Technology | Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) |
| Dimensions (HWD) | 9.5 by 7.7 by 7.5 inches |
| Frame Design | Open |
| LCD Screen | |
| Materials Supported | PLA |
| Maximum Build Area (HWD) | 3.5 by 3.1 by 2.8 inches |
| Number of Extruders | 1 |
| Number of Print Colors | 1 |
| Primary Interface(s) | Wi-Fi |
| Top Print Resolution | 2000 |
| Warranty (Parts/Labor) | 1 |
| Weight | 5.07 |
With the growing interest in 3D printing among families and younger makers comes a wave of small, approachable printers designed to make printing as simple as possible. Even so, many low-cost models still expect users to wrestle with assembly, calibration, slicer settings, and a vocabulary of acronyms before producing anything recognizable. That’s emphatically not the case with the Toybox 3D Printer. Aimed squarely at kids and complete beginners, Toybox arrives fully assembled, connects over Wi-Fi, and is operated almost entirely through a curated app filled with ready-to-print designs. With one-touch printing, a tightly controlled ecosystem, and a strong emphasis on safety and simplicity, Toybox trades raw flexibility for accessibility. It's not a traditional hobbyist tool, but more of a plug-and-play printer for households that want results now, not a weekend-long tinkering project. It earns an Editors' Choice award as a beginner 3D printer aimed at the youngest set.
Bundles and Basics: A Simple, Reliable Way to Get Printing
Toybox Labs launched in the mid-2010s with a very specific audience in mind: kids. Instead of courting hobbyists or aspiring makers, the company aimed to create a 3D printer that could be safely used, understood, and enjoyed by children with minimal adult intervention. No kits, tuning, and open-ended experimentation: Toybox built a fully assembled, app-driven system centered on age-appropriate design, curated content, and one-touch operation. The result is a product that functions less as an on-ramp for new 3D-printing enthusiasts and more as a self-contained creative toy, designed to spark imagination without demanding technical fluency.
The Toybox 3D Printer drew me in from the moment I unboxed it. Maybe it was the size, maybe the open-framed design, but I just had to get close to the printer and look inside at the parts.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Unlike most entry-level hobbyist printers, which rely on a bed-slinger design, the Toybox 3D Printer uses a CoreXY-style motion system. On bed-slinger machines like the Bambu Lab A1 and A1 mini, the print bed moves forward and back, while the print head handles side-wise and vertical motion. Toybox, on the other hand, keeps the bed moving only vertically, with the print head responsible for all X and Y movement. (If you’re new to 3D-printing buzzwords, check our explainer.) This approach is more commonly seen in compact, enclosed printers and helps reduce the mass that needs to be moved during printing. Here, it’s less about speed or performance and more about maintaining stability and a small, kid-safe footprint.
For this review, Toybox sent me the Toybox Alpha Three Pro Mega 3D Printer Bundle (currently listed for $359), designed for children at least 5 years old with an adult supervising. The Alpha Three has had some substantial changes since our original review of the Toybox in 2021. The bundle comes with eight rolls of filament (referred to as “printer food"), one month of Toybox Pro Membership (which adds AI-powered model design), 5,000 Bolts (currency to purchase premium toy files), one EZ-Peel Bed, and a catalog of over 7,000 free toys you can print. The Alpha Three’s hardware delivers up to double the print speed of the original—with 150% higher print detail, the company claims.
The bundle offers one-touch printing of simple objects from either the iOS or Android-supported app, as well as a web browser. Besides the toys in the catalog, kids can make their own constructed from primitive shapes or even a text editor. I used the Android app exclusively and found my experience with this printer to be fascinatingly simple and reliable—one reason it earns another Editors' Choice award for basic budget 3D printing, four years after we reviewed the original.
Design and Setup: A 3D Printer Designed for Kids
The Alpha Three's compact, kid-friendly body measures around 9.5 by 7.75 by 7.5 inches and weighs about five pounds, making it a great size for tabletops. Even the 1.75mm PLA filaments it uses arrive in smaller, kid-friendly spools.
Some of the other super-small printers we’ve reviewed, such as the MakerBot Replicator Mini (15 by 11.6 by 12.2 inches) and the Polaroid PlaySmart 3D Printer (12.6 by 10.6 by 11.8 inches) appear huge in comparison. The smallest and arguably most popular small 3D printer, the Bambu Lab A1 Mini, measures up at 13.7 by 12.4 by 14.4 inches, nearly double the Toybox’s size.
The Alpha Three's manageable size comes with a downside, though: a very small build volume of just 2.75 by 3.2 by 3.5 inches.
Setting up the Toybox is very simple. You attach a roll of filament to the back, then place the magnetized rubber print bed on the print platform. The bed is very flexible and sticky on its surface.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)
(Credit: Michael Lydick)When you power on the Toybox for the first time, the LCD prompts you to download the Toybox app, available for iOS and Android. After creating a free Toybox account, you pair your phone to the printer over Wi-Fi, then finalize the connection by entering the six-digit code displayed on the LCD into the app. Every instruction and piece of feedback displays brightly and is read easily on the LCD screen.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Loading and unloading the filament is very easy, as it loads into the top of the extruder with a firm feeling as it drops down into the toolhead. There’s a menu item for Printer Food that has a simple load/unload directive, with the nozzle heating up very quickly for both. This came in handy when I was printing multipart toys for assembly with multiple colors, or making parts with multiple colors and changing mid-print.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Software: Using the Toybox App
I tested the Toybox app on my Pixel 9 Pro XL. (Along with using iPhone or Android devices, you can launch prints from the Toybox site in your browser.) On the bottom of the app, you'll find several icons. The leftmost one, Explore, lets you search for printable toys or collections in the catalog. Each toy has a time associated with the print job, in minutes. Pressing the Print Me button launches the print job.
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(Credit: Michael Lydick)I was surprised to see that the app allowed me to import STL files (a very common 3D-print file type) from other websites like Printables or Maker World, opening up tens of thousands of printable options. Moreover, the Toybox app will automatically slice these files, allow me to scale them up or down, and generate supports for more complex parts. This feature allowed me to import my test files, including the well-known Benchy, and print them easily through the machine.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)The Filament and the Print Bed
Toybox says these machines are factory-calibrated, but the app warns that the bed may require levelling once you activate the unit. I had high hopes of having a calibrated bed, but I found out early on that it would require a bit of adjustment. I did love that the app walked me through the process and had videos to follow very precise instructions.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Using the bundled angled screwdriver and making half turns at a time, I increased the distance between the bed and the nozzle. After three adjustments, I was able to get a very nice first layer that matched the video in the app.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)One thing I wish for: an easier way to access the adjustment screw. It’s awkwardly located in the rear corner of the machine, and getting that angled screwdriver into the corner wasn’t easy for my old, fat fingers. I would've appreciated an access hole in the top to adjust from above.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Removing parts from the bed is refreshingly drama-free. Instead of prying at a stuck print like you would on many hobbyist machines, the Toybox lets you lift the flexible, magnetically attached build plate straight off the printer with your creation still on it. Usually, a gentle bend or two is all it takes for the part to pop free. Drop the plate back onto the platform, and you’re ready for the next print.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)In terms of filament, this machine is a PLA-only printer. This is great news for a kid machine: The prints, as well as the very minute amount of fumes the printer may generate, aren’t toxic, and the toy prints are easy to work with. A pack of seven different half-pound rolls of filament costs $60, with individual spools selling for $11 to $19. Toybox's spools cost about 3.5 times as much per weight as generic filament models, a consequence of the company's walled garden and the convenience of the kid-sized spools.
As I quickly learned when printing different toys and designs, you’re going to want a lot of different-colored spools. I started to think of the colored spools like Crayola crayons, starting with the eight-color box and ending up with the 64-color mega-package.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Testing the Toybox Alpha Three: No End of Things to Print!
I tried 98 test prints, mostly from the Toybox catalog. Every single one came out successfully on the first try, with no errors or failures. The overall print quality was surprisingly good, nearly completely free from Z-banding or virtual artifacts, for smooth, finished sides and walls. After the first dozen prints or so, I started to forget that this was a machine built for children, especially when it came to the torture-test calibration prints I output for higher-end machines like my Bambu Lab H2S.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Once I started using the machine, I morphed back into a kid. I wanted to make increasingly complex prints, building my own kits of multicolored toys. I remembered my days of Fisher-Price Adventure People, Legos, and Star Wars action figures, and set out to make toys I remembered wanting to play with when I was eight or 10.
I started with a multicolored truck, which easily snapped together. I felt surprisingly satisfied when it was finished and christened it with a “Vroom Vroom” across my desk.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Next, I stumbled across several spaceships in the Explore side of the app, and I chose this particular rocket I'd have loved when I was younger...
(Credit: Michael Lydick)I can’t explain the feeling, other than to say that when I browsed the “Space Builders” set of toys, I whispered, “Cooooool,” and set about figuring out which colors I would use to make another rocket ship, this one a snap-together model. The connectors clicked the pieces and blocks together easily, and within a few hours, I was completely satisfied with the result.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Through the eyes of my inner child, I started to see what this printer was and who it was for. The toys I played with growing up were important, and informed who I became in my professional life. I recall one toy in particular: a robot arm that my father bought me from Radio Shack (“Armatron”). I could control it with joysticks and use it to manipulate blocks and balls on my table. The toy meant so much to me and my imagination that I've kept it all these years—and, during my tests, I took it out and used it with some of my new Toybox creations. I can’t imagine how something like the Toybox would have influenced me if I’d had one growing up.
(Credit: Michael Lydick)Final Thoughts
(Credit: Michael Lydick)
Toybox Alpha Three
The Toybox Alpha Three nails kid-first 3D printing with one-touch simplicity and a huge library of ready-made fun. It's 3D printing with training wheels.