Order a PCB yourself or have your build finished?

Order it yourself when you want a custom PCB, several copies or the practice: five bare boards at JLCPCB cost $4.00 plus shipping, and two assembled boards add a setup fee, a stencil, parts and feeder fees, all before the case, the build-in and the testing. Have it finished when you have one working breadboard build and want it as a device: Protoship's Finish my build keeps your board, adds a case made for it, builds it in, flashes and tests your firmware, at a fixed price agreed before you ship.

The two routes side by side

	Order a PCB yourself	Finish my build
Starting point	A schematic and layout you draw	Your working board, modules and firmware
You get	Bare or assembled boards; case, wiring, flashing and testing are still yours	Your build in a case made for your board, wiring tidied, firmware flashed and tested, USB-C power
New PCB	Yes	No; your existing board and modules are used
Copies	5 boards minimum at JLCPCB, sets of 3 at AISLER	One device, your own
Price	Board, assembly, parts, shipping and customs, plus your time (see below)	Fixed price before you ship; typically about 180 € in Germany incl. VAT and return shipping
Time	JLCPCB: about 12 to 16 business days from order to door with Direct Line shipping, then your own build time	About three weeks after your build reaches the workshop

What ordering it yourself involves

Draw the schematic and layout, for example in KiCad, and export Gerber files.
For assembly, export a bill of materials (BOM) and a placement file (CPL) with part positions and rotations.
Pick parts from the maker's library. At JLCPCB, basic and preferred-extended parts avoid the $3.07 feeder fee per extended part in Economic assembly.
Check the rotations. JLCPCB notes that a part's 0° may differ from your CAD tool's; you correct it in the placement file.
Mark polarity in the silkscreen. JLCPCB places by the silkscreen when it disagrees with the placement file, and missing polarity marks cause an email and a delay.
Keep traces and parts more than 0.3 mm from the board edge, and avoid vias in pads, which JLCPCB says can cause weak joints.
Confirm every BOM line. Only confirmed lines get assembled; parts that are not placed are not shipped to you.
Pay VAT, the €3 EU duty and the €2 fee where they apply (see one-off PCB assembly compared).
When the boards arrive: solder what was not assembled, design and print a case, mount everything, flash and test.

What it costs at JLCPCB and AISLER

Published fees, checked 4 Nov 2026. Parts, solder joints and VAT come on top.

Item	JLCPCB	AISLER
Bare boards, 2-layer 100×100 mm	$4.00 for 5	€40.50 for 3 incl. VAT
Assembly setup (Economic)	$8.18	not published
Stencil (Economic)	$1.53	not published
Per extended-part feeder (Economic)	$3.07	–
Customer-supplied part	consigned stock possible	€15 per part
Shipping to Germany	$7.04, 9–11 business days	free, 2 business days

JLCPCB's timeline adds up from its own figures: 2 days for the boards, 1–3 days for Economic assembly and 9–11 business days for Direct Line shipping, about 12 to 16 business days in total.

When doing it yourself is better

You want several identical devices. JLCPCB's minimum is five boards anyway.
Your design needs a custom PCB anyway: a specific form factor, many parts, or parts a dev board does not have.
You want to learn PCB design and assembly, and the time is part of the fun.
You will keep changing the hardware. A finished device is the end of a design, not the middle.

When having it finished fits

You have one build that works on the breadboard, and you want it on the wall or the desk without spending weekends on CAD, soldering and print settings. You send your working board, modules and firmware. Protoship designs a case for your exact board, a workshop in Germany builds everything in, tidies the wiring, flashes and tests your firmware and sends it back as a finished USB-C device. You get a fixed price before you ship; a typical build costs about 180 € in Germany including VAT and return shipping and takes about three weeks. You keep the case files as STL and STEP. It is an individual build service on your own hardware: devices run on USB at 5 V, no mains voltage, no lithium batteries, and we do not solder radio modules.

Let your agent check it

estimate_build gives cost and lead-time ranges for both routes from your project, with sources; match_parts checks your BOM against JLCPCB basic and preferred-extended parts; and if you choose Finish my build, request_finish sends the request for you after you agree. Connect the Protoship MCP server once:

claude mcp add --transport http protoship https://mcp.protoship.dev
codex mcp add protoship --url https://mcp.protoship.dev

An agent without MCP calls GET https://protoship.dev/api/check?url=… with the link to your repo or config file.

Questions

How much does JLCPCB assembly cost for two boards?

On 4 Nov 2026 JLCPCB's Economic assembly listed an $8.18 setup fee, a $1.53 stencil, $0.0016 per SMT joint and $3.07 per extended-part feeder, plus parts, the boards and shipping. The minimum is 2 boards.

What is JLCPCB's extended part fee?

In Economic assembly JLCPCB charges $3.07 per extended-part feeder; basic and preferred-extended parts are exempt. Standard assembly charges $1.53 per feeder for any part.

Does Finish my build make a custom PCB?

No. Finish my build uses the board and modules you send, designs a case for them, tidies the wiring, flashes and tests your firmware, and sends the device back. It does not order a new PCB.

Is ordering a PCB yourself cheaper?

The boards are cheaper, often a few dollars. The full device also needs assembly, parts, shipping, customs, a case and your time for build-in and testing; for several copies doing it yourself is clearly cheaper, for one device the gap is smaller.

Finish my build Let your agent check your project

Sources

Read on 4 November 2026.