Creality SPARKX i8 Raises US$1.9 Million in 24 Hours on Indiegogo

Creality says the SPARKX i8 raised more than US$1.9 million and signed up more than 5,000 backers in its first 24 hours on Indiegogo, and it is claiming three category records for the campaign. The i8 went live on 21 September 2026 at a super early bird price of US$289.

The SPARKX i8, Creality’s four-colour follow-up to the SPARKX i7. Image: Creality

The three claims Creality is making, in its own words, are US$1,000,000 funded in 40 minutes, US$1.9 million funded in 24 hours, and the all-time most backed 3D printing campaign on Indiegogo. All three are labelled “first in history” in the company’s announcement graphics. The 40-minute figure also appears in the campaign’s second Indiegogo update, where Creality told backers the i8 passed US$1,000,000 forty minutes after the campaign opened.

This article covers the campaign performance and the current pricing. The i8 has not shipped and no independent review units exist, so nothing here is based on using the machine.

The numbers

The interesting part of those figures is what happened after the first day. If US$1.9 million came in within 24 hours, then roughly 91 per cent of the current total was pledged on day one, and the campaign has added about US$177,000 and roughly 400 backers since. That pattern is normal for a crowdfunding launch with a limited cheapest tier, and it is worth remembering when the running total keeps being reported as though it were steady demand. The US$289 super early bird is gone. The cheapest printer-only tier is now US$309.

The printer-only early bird tier, now US$309 after the US$289 super early bird sold out. Image: Creality via Indiegogo

Dividing the current total by the backer count gives an average pledge of about US$383, which sits well above the US$309 printer-only tier. The gap comes from bundles and add-ons. The i8 with the CFS Lite four-spool unit is US$428, the full kit with the PrintEase accessories is US$497, and a two-printer tier is US$618. Filament packs, an RFID reader and the CFS Lite are also sold separately as add-ons. Anyone budgeting around the US$309 headline is budgeting below what most backers are actually spending.

What the funding total does and does not tell you

Creality is not a startup raising money to build a first product. It is a listed company, trading as 03388.HK, that has been shipping printers since 2014, and the i8 follows the SPARKX i7 already on sale. On a campaign like this, Indiegogo works as a discounted pre-order channel with a deadline rather than as a test of whether the product can be built at all. The total is a sales figure, and a large one.

The record claims are Creality’s own. Indiegogo does not publish a public category leaderboard for funding speed or backer counts, so there is no straightforward way to verify “first in history” against other 3D printing campaigns on the platform. The underlying totals, though, are visible on the campaign page and they are real.

What the figures do show is demand at a price. Four-colour printing with no prime tower, at US$289 to US$309, found five thousand buyers in a day. That says something about where the multicolour segment is heading on price.

What they do not show is print quality, reliability, or whether the QuarTeks colour-change system holds up over hundreds of hours. Creality’s own update says the machine is in its final debugging phase, with mass production planned for October.

What backers are actually buying

QuarTeks keeps four filaments loaded in one hotend, with a shared path Creality says is under 1 mm. Image: Creality

The i8’s headline feature is QuarTeks, a four-channel hotend that keeps four filaments loaded at once. Creality says the shared filament path is under 1 mm, against 35 mm or more in conventional external-feed systems, and that this allows a colour change in under one second. The company claims 0 g of external purge waste during printing, with a small amount flushed at the start, and no prime tower because the purge goes into the model’s infill. Creality also notes that the infill purge mode does not work with every model.

Other stated specifications include a 260 × 260 × 255 mm build volume, 13 sensors tracking the four filament channels, 81-point auto-levelling with automatic Z offset, full-frequency input shaping, an AI camera for spaghetti and air-printing detection, a hotend that swaps in five seconds, and 90 per cent pre-assembly out of the box. The CMYK colour-mixing claim comes with Creality’s own caveat that layered mixing cannot reproduce all specified colours precisely.

Creality’s own print-time comparison against an external-feed system. The test conditions are Creality’s, not independently repeated. Image: Creality

These are all Creality figures from internal testing. The 500 per cent faster multicolour claim in particular comes from a comparison against external-feed systems performing 3,000 colour changes, which is a test built around the i8’s main advantage.

What Malaysian buyers should check before backing

Delivery is scheduled for November 2026 and depends on region and peak-season logistics. Creality’s own risk statement lists development, manufacturing, certification and shipping delays as possibilities, which is standard for crowdfunding but still real.

Refunds work differently from a normal purchase. Creality’s campaign page states that refunds cannot be processed automatically through Indiegogo and must go through its customer support before shipment, and that once an order has shipped and a tracking number is issued, it is no longer eligible for a refund.

Shipping and import charges sit on top of the pledge. Creality’s launch announcement offered the first 1,000 backers a refund of shipping and taxes up to US$50, which no longer applies at this stage of the campaign. Work out the landed cost, including shipping and any duty and SST on import, before comparing the US$309 tier against whatever local retail pricing appears once the machine reaches distributors here.

There is also the ordinary trade-off with any crowdfunded printer. Backing now saves about US$90 against the MSRP, and waiting for retail means buying after independent reviews exist and after the first firmware and hardware revisions have been through real users.

What to watch next

The campaign runs for another 38 days, and Creality will most likely announce further milestones as the total climbs. The more useful markers come later: whether factory shipping actually starts in October, whether November deliveries hold, and what the first owners report about colour boundaries, clogging and the purge-into-infill mode in practice. We will follow up once units are in users’ hands.

Sources

• Creality SPARKX i8 Indiegogo campaign
• Indiegogo campaign update #2: $1,000,000 funded in 40 minutes
• Creality’s 24-hour milestone announcement on Facebook
• PR Newswire: Creality launches SPARKX i8 on Indiegogo at $289