Keyboard Builders' Digest / Review
MoeeTech custom metal artisans
I tested MoeeTech's new custom metal artisan keycap service: beginner-friendly design process, great quality, surprisingly competitive prices.
Published June 12, 2026
If you'd like a one-off metal artisan without breaking the bank, I found a great service for you that I can recommend. MoeeTech launched a new keycap designer to guide you through the whole design and ordering process. Whether a fully automated laser etching or something more complex involving a keycap artist who fills in the carvings – it costs just $9.90 per keycap.
It's really a no-brainer if you have a cool design in mind, and it also makes a great gift for a keyboard enthusiast.
The gist
- Here: keycaps.moee.tech
- Nice aluminum base, Cherry R4 (top row) profile, e.g. Esc
- 8 anodized base colors
- Two methods: laser etching or deep carving filled in with pigment
- Online interface. Not yet perfect, but usable.
- Price: $9.9 per keycap, with sensible or even free shipping.
- Discount: the KBDNEWS coupon code is only valid if you order the caps along a keyboard, which seems to be impossible at the time of writing this (different carts) :)
Prerequisites
An image or at least an idea may come in handy, but no design experience needed. Create your own personalized keycap with preview before production.
To say the truth, my keycaps you can see in the photos were done before the website went public, so the workflow was a bit different: a few iterations per email and Discord.
Currently, you can do everything online, but the interface has a messaging section as well, so you can expect MoeeTech's help if needed.
OK, let's see the whole process in detail.
Production methods
In the Start customizing section of the home page, select from the two different production methods currently available:
- Laser deep engraving – I find this the more intriguing approach, resulting in a more appealing product. This was new to me: Deeper carving, filled in with pigment by a keycap artist.
- Laser marking – this is the more traditional approach you can see at some other services, e.g. my old kbd.news artisans done by metalkeycaps.no (not available anymore).
Image upload and preview (Step 1 and 2)
Just create, sketch or grab an image you'd like to see on the keycap.
After uploading the image, the online interface can do all the job automatically, but it's a bit dumb. It identifies the pattern and traces it perhaps via AI (you can skip this step). You can invert colors or even edit the pattern in your browser.
However, the tracing (turning a bitmap into a vector image) can result in some strange shapes, corners rounded. Other than that, inverting a B&W logo messed up some paths for me as well. So if you run into an issue, it's a good idea to do the prep work in advance or revert entirely to your vector editor of choice.
The only way to retain full control over the image was providing an SVG (vector) file to the interface. (Try Inkscape if you're new to this. Pro tip: Path > Trace bitmap…, then Object > Ungroup to separate background.)
Edit pattern (Step 3)
I tried to skip this step and do the editing in Inkscape, as updating the pattern color didn't always work for me.
Keycap colors (Step 4)
Here in step 4 you can select the color of the anodized base, and also position and resize the pattern to align it to the boundary of the top surface. There are 8 preset colors available for the base:
- black, white, red, gold, light pink, lilac, midnight blue, and army green
I went with a red and gold sample – great and pretty universal accent colors for keycap sets with various colorways. Well, black or white are more universal of course, but maybe less extravagant.
Preview
The interface offers live previews during the whole process, but there's a final one before confirming the design and adding the keycap to your cart.
If you don't like something, you can always go back to the previous step.
Ordering and prices
A custom metal keycap costs just $9.90. Pretty unbelievable.
Customers from some lucky countries get free shipping over two keycaps, or pay $2.99 below it.
A lot of countries (most Western regions included) get free shipping over 4 keycaps, $4.99 shipping fee otherwise – still fabulous.
The shipping fee for other countries is $9.90.
Don't be shy though, and try to request adding your country to the lower shipping tiers, as e.g. only half of the EU is added at the moment.
Quality
I'd say that the quality of the keycaps is top-notch.
I love both the colors and the feel. In my white on red design I had some really tiny carvings that had to be filled in by hand, but it's been done perfectly. Thanks to the unsung hero.
You can surely feel the unevenness of the top surface, but that's the whole point of the deep engraving method. This is an artisan, so you don't really use it for typing – however, you definitely can if you want.
A small remark: The height of the keycap is just a tiny bit shorter than some of my other Cherry caps. The difference is maybe the fraction of a millimeter, visible only on close inspection with two caps compared back to back.
If it's about the skirt, this shouldn't affect overall height when mounted.
Packaging
Upon arrival, I was blown away by the packaging. It's very stylish and clever. MoeeTech is a big fan of drawers (Glitter65 L01 review coming soon), and this small box follows in the footsteps of their larger boxes for keyboards: Honestly, I felt bad about tearing it open.
Current issues
- The automatic tracing (and inverting) may result in some funny outcomes. Depends on the pattern I guess. Use Inkscape and SVG vector format to skip this step and retain full control over your design.
- Infill color selection is buggy I guess. It behaves quite unpredictably.
- Previews don't work with white pattern (over the white background).
Conclusion
I really like the new MoeeTech artisan keycaps and the service behind them. The online designer tool isn't perfect yet, but it's already usable. For full control and fewer headaches, prepare and provide an SVG file. The final products are high-quality aluminum artisans, and there's something genuinely satisfying about holding a custom keycap that was manufactured from your own design. Best of all, it's actually super cheap compared to other one-off metal artisan options. For those who qualify, free shipping is the icing on the cake.
Go and try it out yourself: keycaps.moee.tech.
Published on Fri 12th Jun 2026. Featured in KBD #213.
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