You generated a model, printed it, and someone at the market wants to buy three. Whether you can say yes depends on a document you clicked past during signup, and the documents differ wildly between generators. Here's what they actually say, read on September 1, 2026, in plain language. The obligatory line, and it's true: this is a summary, not legal advice, and terms change — the links go to the sources.
Short version: on free tiers, assume nothing. Meshy free lets you sell with credit (CC BY 4.0); Tripo free is non-commercial, full stop; several tools reserve commercial rights for paid plans. Read the tier you're on, not the marketing page.
The scoreboard, tier by tier
| Generator | Free tier | Paid tier |
|---|---|---|
| Meshy | Meshy owns the model, licenses it to you under CC BY 4.0 — commercial use OK with credit | You own it privately; no credit required; publishing to their community makes it CC0 |
| Tripo | Non-commercial, models public; Tripo retains broad rights | Commercial use, private models, no training on your data |
| Hyper3D Rodin | "We will not limit your use" in the ToS, but pricing reserves broader export/usage rights to paid plans — treat free-tier selling as ambiguous | Paid plans list unlimited export and use |
| PHORM | Free and Hobby: personal, non-commercial use | Maker and Studio: yours for any purpose, including commercial |
Sources for the claims: Meshy's terms and commercial-use FAQ, Tripo's terms (§5.2) and pricing, Hyper3D's terms and pricing.
What "CC BY 4.0 with credit" means at a craft fair
Meshy's free tier is the interesting case because it's genuinely usable commercially, with homework. CC BY 4.0 allows copying, remixing and selling "for any purpose, even commercially", on three conditions: give appropriate credit, link the license, and indicate changes. For physical prints, that means the credit lives on your listing, packaging or an insert card ("Model created with Meshy, CC BY 4.0, modified"), not engraved on the object. What you can't do is imply Meshy endorses your shop, or drop the credit because the buyer doesn't care. One more Meshy wrinkle worth knowing before you publish anything to their gallery: community-published models become CC0, public domain — generous to the commons, irreversible for you.
The fine print that bites
Your input is your problem. Every generator's terms say a version of the same thing: they license you their output, not the rights to what you fed in. Generate from a photo of a trademarked figure and no license on earth lets you sell the print; PHORM's terms state this restriction explicitly, and so do Meshy's. The platform-side version of this rule is covered in where AI models can be published →.
Copyright on AI output is genuinely unsettled. Several jurisdictions currently decline copyright to purely machine-generated works. Serious tools say so out loud: PHORM's terms assign you "all of our rights in the Result, to the extent such rights exist" while warning that a result may not qualify for copyright protection at all. Practically: your license controls the deal between you and the generator; your ability to stop third parties from copying the model is a separate, weaker thing.
Downgrades and history. Check what happens to models generated on a paid plan after you cancel. The good pattern (Meshy and PHORM both state it): rights attach at generation time and survive downgrades. Where terms are silent, assume nothing and export everything before cancelling.
"Free while in beta" needs one extra question. For any tool in beta, ask which tier's license your beta generations fall under, and keep the answer in writing. On PHORM, the Free and Hobby plans are personal use and commercial use starts on Maker; plan licenses are listed on the pricing page →.
A working checklist before you sell
Find the section of your generator's terms titled ownership, license or output (five minutes, once per tool). Match your tier against it, not the best tier's promises. Write the credit line now if one is required. Confirm your input was yours to use. And keep a dated copy of the terms page; license changes are common in this market, and the version that governs your model is the one from when you made it. The making itself — getting from a generated mesh to a product someone pays for — is a print-quality problem before it's a legal one →, and the parts catalog with materials that survive daily use is in the replacement-parts guide →.
