CNC Aluminum Keyboards are Overpriced

There’s a real ceiling to the quality and tighter tolerances that separate a $100 board from a $400 one. At a certain point, you’re not paying for performance, you’re paying for niche scarcity, access to limited drops, and a premium you’re almost never getting back. And if you do try to sell? Your main marketplace is basically Discord.

Let’s be honest: the ROI (Return on Investment) on keyboards is humbling. Most boards don’t hold their original value, and the only people willing to pay a premium are collectors deep in the community. The special collabs and notorious Signakbd drops that sell out in seconds? Those are the ones no one wants to part with. But try selling something like a Lucky65 or a KBD fan's custom board, you’re not getting what you paid. You’re either negotiating in Discord servers or hoping someone’s willing to trade.

Even as the community grows, scarcity, especially around customized aluminum builds, continues to push prices up. But tighter tolerances and machining alone don’t justify it. You can get similar build quality for cheaper. The real constraint is finding an aluminum board in the exact style you want. So you either ignore the price or cap your budget and settle.

I had a client looking for the Singakbd Kohaku. It’s nowhere online (they stopped making it) and is not even listed on eBay. That's crazy. So I joined the Singakbd Discord, and people were selling Kohakus for over $1,000. For something that’s relatively inexpensive to manufacture, that price feels detached from reality. But it’s basically a designer bubble: limited supply, no official resale benchmark becuase its no where to be found online, and heavy YouTube exposure. Of course, prices inflate; it’s inevitable.

And that’s the frustrating part of custom keyboards. You can (ish) customize a lot, but not truly everything unless you’re building your own PCB from scratch. Each group buy mechanical keyboard kit requires new tooling and planning, which makes sense. But at the core, most builds are still just aluminum cases made with CNC machines. Anodizing and powder coatings are just aesthetic treatments that vary case by case, but the base is fundamentally the same. In theory, many of these boards could stay in production. The Kohaku isn’t an impossible design; it’s a fairly standard form factor. What makes it “special” is the weight, the custom PCB, and even the authentication card (which honestly sounds fake until you see it).

So, in reality, if you really want an exclusive form factor that is no longer sold and nothing on the market tickles your fancy, maybe you can find a CAD file online or build it yourself as a side project. There’s a YouTuber called Simulator Tech who did exactly that. Check out his YouTube video; he used PCBway for PCB fabrication, Keyboard Layout Editor to design the layout, ai03 plate generator for CAD files, and Fusion360 for modeling. I personally prefer Onshape, but they are both free.

What’s crazy is the total cost: about $140 for the ENTIRE board, even with finishing options like anodizing. Not $400, not $300—$140. That just shows everything that I said above is relevant. The only real tradeoff is time, which you would have been spending working if you actually spent $400! I think learning CAD is a great skill, and it involves you in the hobby for longer, not just building the keyboard from a kit, but actually building it from scratch. The production wait might also be a downside if you just want to buy an in-stock kit, but when is anything available these days? Honestly, the wait time is not much worse than waiting months for a group buy. I ordered something in February, and it’s not arriving until late May.

Simulator Tech also has part 2 showing the final results, which are better than I expected. You know, when people are so confident in the DIY projects, but they actually turn out to be underwhelming? Yeah, that's what I thought it would be, but it looks really well done and legit. I would have thought it was a kit they bought, so hats off to them. Simulator Tech also references another creator, Zlane, who literally speedruns building a custom keyboard in about 10 minutes. Again, that is crazy. So, there are probably tons of resources out there, but this proves my point: you can create a completely unique, 1-of-1 board with premium materials for less money than most kits; you just don't have the prestige of the brand, which doesn't really matter that much to me (my personal opinion), and if you do like the brand and prestige thats fine too.

In total, my takeaway is this: I’d rather put in the effort and make something myself than deal with inflated prices, long waits, and limited availability. Some people don't have that time or want to even touch modeling software, and I respect that too. If I do learn, though, and I make a cool board, I will update you guys!