An aspect that’s not limited to the keyboard hobbiest space is prices for things like group buys are mostly driven by small batch manufacturing.
Like, it’s not necessarily that the material cost or quality per se are significantly higher but manufacturers have minimum order quantities and have to slot in production time for some (relatively) small production run of nth keyboard <thing>. Sometimes issues arise which then delay release targets and increase costs for the maker, etc.
For contrast large/established brands make and sell tons more product which brings down per unit cost, for otherwise like-for-like things.
AliExpress is a subsidiary of Alibaba, and they’re more or less like Amazon but based in China. They sell some things themselves but like Amazon, much of what’s sold there is done by 3rd party sellers using the platform. They do have support which I’ve personally found to be hit-or-miss, mostly down to the individual seller. There are plenty of reputable businesses and individuals selling there, and plenty of shady ones, too. So far I’ve always gotten everything I ordered, and the only real issue I had was a weak LiPo battery that the seller offered a partial refund for. Shipping can take a very long time, but is usually reasonable - though I’m not sure how recent developments will impact that. Generally speaking, it’s a good place to pay less for keycaps if you’re patient and keep an eye out for sellers that have done plenty of business.
MT3 does have a tight scoop / smaller area for your fingers to rest on than Cherry and OEM. SA has a more shallow and broad scoop in comparison, with profiles like XVX, CXA, and MDA being even more broad. DSS and DSA might have the smallest / tightest scoops of all the caps I’ve used. I haven’t used KSA or KAT, but I’d say MTNU is a little more shallow and broad than MT3 but not as much as SA or Cherry. Here’s a comparison image of some of them for height:
From left to right, all from the row just above the space bar: EMA, MDA, XDA, DSS, DCS, two different takes on Cherry, OEM (Akko’s), MT3, SA sculpted (R2), SA uniform (R3)
If you like the look of CXA but want something quiet, I’d recommend tring XVX, somtimes called MDA (but it’s not, long story short, “real” MDA is only sold by MelGeek and some other companies call their caps that but they are a different shape). Here’s XVX and CXA next to each-other; the biggest difference is that CXA is thin ABS while XVX is a bit thicker and made of PBT:
Both have broad surfaces and shorter height than MT3. Color choices seem pretty limited right now though, and to make things confusing, the company XVX makes lots of keycaps not in their own XVX profile. Here’s the only set I saw for sale on their site right now; the good thing about XVX is the reasonable price.
As for price differing so widely with some caps being $25 for a full set and others being $250 for the same number of caps; there are a few factors. Most of the less expensive ones will be single injections of plastic with the letters printed on with a variety of methods, while more expensive ones will actually be two or sometimes three different colors of plastic molded around each-other. There are less expensive multi-shot caps, but they are usually produced with less precision, consistency, and/or material thickness than the pricy ones.
Like many hobby items, if a baseline of practical quality is what you’re looking for, keycaps (and keyboards) live on a pretty steep gradient of diminishing returns, and it’s quite possible to get an excellent typing experience without climbing too far up that hill. The stuff at the high end is aimed at enthusiast collectors, or folks looking for something very specific in terms of color or aesthetics, and isn’t necessarily even the most durable. In a practical sense, some of the best keycaps I have ever used were quite inexpensive - thick, good texture, very durable, consistent production - but they’re beige Cherry profile, so they don’t fit in with of my collection of mostly black, purple, and silver keyboards, or my preference for spherical (bowl-scooped) caps.
The CX SA and AF SA I was referring to are affordable keycap profiles that are shorter than SA, and sculpted. Conceptually, they are related to the CXA that you mentioned. But I think CXA is probably more premium, with thicker keycaps, and focused directly on a Cherry-like sculpt.
There are a number of medium-height, large-dished keycap profiles by Chinese manufacturers / vendors that retail for a low price. They are all kind of like a shorter SA-profile. Somewhat like a taller, dished-out Cherry-profile.
WRT prices, yes, I think these CX SA, AF SA and the like are close to the real ‘floor’ of keycaps that are available to us.
There are things that increase the price of keycaps: country of manufacture, involving a professional designer, colour matching, trademarks, amortizing new tooling, higher-end materials, thick keycaps, choice of shipping provider, order quantity and so on.
Imagine something like MTNU Modern Dolch Light. It is made in Germany. It references a licensed set [MoDo] in which a designer may need to be paid. It is on relatively new-tooling that was invented recently. The keycaps likely use maximum thickness and the best-quality plastics, likely imported from overseas. Limited number of orders from enthusiasts. Shipped by Western companies. This is all going to be relatively expensive.
Now, envision the CX SA and similar sets that I referenced via the links. Many of them are made using the same tooling / molds / profiles that became operational years ago. Made in China, and they don’t have to pay licensing to anyone. They use whatever colours they can get in quantity, locally-available. Thin keycap walls. Shipped via AliExpress under lower developing-country rates.
So CX SA are mass-produced in China to the lowest price-point using maximum standardization, and maybe huge batch production, whereas MTNU goes through a ‘boutique’ process in Germany. So if cost is the main factor, the CX SA wins out. However, some people are looking for very specific things in keycaps, and are willing to pay more [MTNU] to meet their own needs.
It is actually possible to tell the difference between CX SA / AF SA and MTNU in casual usage. But it’s really a question of what’s important to you.
CX SA / AF SA and MTNU are actually at extreme opposite ends in terms of price. And there is a difference between them. But yes, I think the difference between a lower-midrange like Keychron and something high-end like MTNU is maybe not so enormous.
AliExpress is basically a Chinese Amazon. It is really a bunch of different vendors under one “roof.” Anyone who has been there for years, like KPRepublic, KBDFans, and others are pretty reliable. You can find some of these vendors [like YMDK] having fronts on Amazon.com as well.
Ordering from any established vendor on AliExpress should be safe, but the return process is difficult. That’s where it’s not like Amazon. So you should order on the assumption that you won’t be returning items.
I have ordered a number of keycap sets from AliExpress. They have a number of competitive Cherry-profile manufacturers. But I have ordered some of the CX SA / AF SA / MG Profile sets that I have posted links to. They are definitely something you could consider. $28 CAD for a high-profile double-shot set was unthinkable a few years ago. Those sets are definitely unbeatable on price: they offer much of what a high-end high-profile set does, at a mere fraction of the price.
If you were to order one of these $22 USD CX SA sets from AliExpress, it certainly would be a very affordable way to try out a profile. You could test for yourself whether the difference between a $20 set and a $90 set is meaningful. But since you are new to this, perhaps it is best to stick with retailers in your own country.
Regarding SA and MT3 vs. other profiles, I haven’t tried SA-profile in a while.
Basically, there are two main types of keycap surfaces: cylindrical and spherical. Cherry and OEM are cylindrical, and it has been the most common type of sculpted non-flat keycap since the late-1980s or so.
Before that, spherical keycaps were more common, where the surface is a more even sphere or dish instead of a cylinder.
They went out of fashion, but many of today’s retro-inspired sets adopt a spherical profile.
Basically, SA are high-profile spherical keycaps. They can be sculpted, or uniform-profile such as R3. Signature Plastics are the ‘canonical’ manufacturer, and their quality is super-luxury. Companies like Domikey also make cheaper clones of this profile.
A newer high-profile is MG, which I think is inspired by Topre high-profile. They aren’t as lavishly manufactured as SP SA. More of a Domikey-level quality. The ones sold on AliExpress are certainly very price-competitive with SP SA. I think they may have kind of a more squarish or rectangular dish.
MT3 is a lower high-profile than SA, maybe more of a medium-profile. They definitely use row-sculpting, and have a spherical dish. They are kind of like a spherical OEM-profile, but with different sculpting.
Then you have the ‘lower SA’ type profiles. Basically what is sounds like. AF SA is like a slightly lower MG. HSA is “Half SA.” CX SA is supposed to be similar. I think CXA conceptually fits into this range as well. Although CX SA is almost a low-profile.
OEM is a tall Cherry profile, it may reach the height of these ‘lower SA’ profiles. But OEM is cylindrical.
Cherry is among the lowest-profile, sculpted, cylindrical keycaps. It is more of a ‘low-profile’ by these standards.
If I were in your position and wanted to experiment with high-profile or spherical keycaps, I would order some cheap MG-profile or even cheaper AF SA / CX SA from AliExpress. But that may be daunting for you, and I don’t know about the reliability of AliExpress shipping in your area.
You might be better-served by trying CXA samples, if that is still possible:
If you can really try those for $20 or so, that would be a very cost-effective way of learning more.
Here is some more information about SA keycaps:
And here is some information from the developer of dev/tty:
Yes, it’s tough for a beginner to know what the ‘acceptable quality’ baseline is.
As you say, it’s a steep gradient of diminishing returns.
You could get a basic 120 or so key Shenpo PBT beige + cream Cherry-profile set that covers most boards for about $38-50 CAD in the past few years.
It’s an entirely adequate set.
The same full-coverage set from CRP might cost upwards of $150 CAD.
Is the CRP set 3x times better? No. But CRP will have the straightest spacebars, the best keycap consistency, the best colour consistency, and the best legends.
Many people would not notice the difference at a glance. But as the final touch on somebody’s custom-build, there will be those who prefer CRP.
For high-profile, I’m not as sure. I think you can get perfectly acceptable high-profile keycaps from MG or Domikey. And AKKO’s ASA.
For medium-profile, AF SA should be identical. CX SA is even cheaper, but I find the angle of the sculpt to be a bit weird. And they are clearly manufactured to a low price point.
So most of those should be ‘perfectly adequate,’ depending on the sculpt a person wants. Which may take time and money to find out.
If you want to go upscale, HSA is kind of like a nicer AF SA [at least it types similarly to me], MT3 a thicker, taller CX SA. CXA is probably a nicer, Cherry-sculpted AF SA / CX SA. Then you can go really upscale with SP SA, if you want.
There’s a lot of low-profile non-cylindrical to choose from on AliExpress as well, most of which are perfectly adequate. MTNU is probably a luxury version of this.
Not sure if you have check these out but Omnitype has Modo Light in their in-house lineup they call OTC. It’s not in stock right now but I would imagine at some point in time Garrett will restock them. OTC Modo® Light – Omnitype®
Again… thank you so much for all of this info! So much detail I’m not finding when researching. Glad I decided to join here so I can be part of this great community. Learn from others that know so much!
So I’m going to say I’m probably not going to order from Aliexpress. Just because of the pain of returns.
Second, you are correct about the MT3. It is by far the smallest surface area where your finger tips touch the keys of any keyboard I’ve ever touched! It’s actually silly how small it is. I don’t like it at all. The dish and scoop was interesting for sure and feels neat. And who knows, maybe with time I’d come to love them. But right off the bat, I’m not a fan of how small they are.
Then in your photos, I definitely like the look of the second cap, the 9th and 10th. So MDA, SA R2 and SA R3. I’m not 100% sure, but I’m assuming those R’s don’t mean a different “type” of SA keycap? Just that it’s from the 3rd row and 2nd row? Those 3 look like they have a nice med-large surface area for your finger tips and I like that. At least that’s what I like as of now. As I said earlier about MT3, maybe I’ll like smaller more sculpted later on down the road, who knows?
My goodness, this is amazing. So much great info from all of you. I’ll have to read through all of this and the links.
I had no idea about that CXA try before you buy deal from Canonkeycaps. Unfortunately, it says they are sold out right now. Plus I just want to order them, I don’t need to try them. Maybe they’ll offer me a 20% off coupon anyway since I’d like to buy from them?
Thank you again for all this great insider info. I appreciate it
Those are Cherry profile and I’m not really digging those. So far, the only keycaps that speak to me have rounded edges, rounded corners of the body, sculpted or spherical tops and look a bit more classic or even retro. Cherry/OEM just don’t look good to me. I like how they feel, but the look is just not my cup of tea.
But thank you for showing me those! I had no idea. If I can ever get the MODO light at a reasonable price, that would probably be a great set for me.
But in reality, they aren’t even my “perfect” keycaps. I’d want bright cool white alphas with minimal thin retro/classic type face for the legends. Very light cool silver modifiers and then I’d probably still like a light bright cool red and cyan for the ESC and Enter. But all the legends on all the keys would be south facing side print. And then I’d probably make them medium height, with SA looking profiles and med-large surface area tops. That would be my “end game” set as the kids like to call it, haha.
I don’t think MTNU is actually all that much bigger, and indeed may be smaller, but Matt3o rounded the transition to make it feel less punishing if you don’t land exactly where your fingers “should.” I haven’t personally tried the “MT” profiles, so no personal comments on them, but I don’t find Signature Plastics SA (either sculpted or in flat “R3” sets), Akko SA, and either of the low-end “CSA” or “QX SA” (you can spot them because the novelties are always squared-off emojis) to be problematic, and I’m not a proper touch typist at all, so “finger discipline” is not really a thing for me. I will say that I found the China-made PBT version of DSA to have a smaller landing spot than I find ideal, and perhaps not surprisingly, DSA was Matt3o’s entry into custom keycaps.
On the other side, I find that the XVX profile listed above (now often called ISA because, as mentioned, XVX sells a LOT of profiles) to go almost too far in the other direction. The keytops are pretty large and sometimes don’t feel like they’re “assisting” me to land on the right key. My work board is in Akko MDA, which I’m convinced is the exact same molds, and I make a few more errors than I do on SA boards. Still, in the value space, the kitting for weird boards is awesome.
XDA gets a bad rap because it’s been around for a while and is uniform, so it became the favorite of clone manufacturers, but if you want a bargain for thick, deep (which can work well as part of a quiet build) caps, it’s worth looking at. Throw out the novelties if you’re feeling ethically conflicted . It also has wide keytops, but being flat makes it work a little better for me than ISA/XVX. There’s also ZDA/XDAv2, which I haven’t tried yet, but the molds are a bit newer, and I understand the keytops are just the slightest bit smaller. One of my favorite boards has a set of “VSA”, a profile from Vortex (a Taiwanese vendor that is less popular in the hobby than in years past) that splits the difference between DSA and XDA, skewing towards the former but easier for me to type on. You will find lots of cheap Dolch-like “double-shot DSA” that are really overstock VSA, and a couple of other colorway-clone sets of it are still floating around, but at a less attractive price point.
My wife is fond her MOA keycaps, which are unsculpted, but each key is almost pillowy in how the design is rounded. Mostly “kawaii” aesthetics, but more staid designs are sneaking through, although there is nothing that drives me nuts more than a lazy bargain set that leaves a completely different and aesthetically discordant font on some of the mods while the rest is a generic helvetica dye-sub. Simple is damn near as cheap as reuse; be simple!
Yes, it’s probably worth at least talking to Cannonkeys about trying CXA profile.
Since you are an interested buyer, maybe they have some spare keycaps they can loan you to test out the profile.
But since you are willing to buy, yes, maybe a 20% coupon is possible somehow.
It’s worth taking a special look at what @wjrii wrote about the XDA profile. Sure, it’s flat. But it’s comfortable. You can try it VERY cheaply. One example set is PBT Matcha, which you can search for. I think it’s even listed on Amazon, if it’s the XDA version.
PBT Matcha [XDA clone] was about $22 USD during AliExpress Sales, and shouldn’t be much over $30 USD from something like Amazon.
Correct about the SA rows; and the reason I have both on there is that some SA sets have some or all of the different row heights and angles, and some sets are uniform, with all the keys being shaped to Row 3.
There’s going to be a lot more variety with SA, but there are some nice MDA sets too. The one pictured is MelGeek’s original version, and are some of the broadest-faced row-sculpted caps I know. A few vendors have sold them from time to time but the only place I know to find it reliably is their own site.
MelGeek also has a profile sort of in-between MT3 and SA called MG; deep scoops like MT3 but not as small and tight around the fingertips - they’re pricy, though - and shipping straight from them can be pretty expensive.
I looked at all the sets at that site you linked and only sort of liked one of them, the fishing set. And it’s $160!!! I do like the look of the MG profile though. Too bad there’s no good colorways. As I stated back in an early post, I don’t find 99% of keycaps to be good looking. They’re all boring, weird, lame or childish to me (sorry if that sounds offensive, I’m not trying to poopoo on others love for keycaps. Just mho about keycaps). There are SOOO few colorways that look nice to me.
But I think I’m almost for sure going with the Canonkeys CXA WOB set or the Domikey Calm Depths SA set. They were already on my short list of keycaps I’d sifted through for over 3 months of searching, haha. I’ll be very happy with either one. But thanks for sharing and other suggestions, I really appreciate it
. It also has wide keytops, but being flat makes it work a little better for me than ISA/XVX. There’s also ZDA/XDAv2, which I haven’t tried yet, but the molds are a bit newer, and I understand the keytops are just the slightest bit smaller. One of my favorite boards has a set of “VSA”, a profile from Vortex (a Taiwanese vendor that is less popular in the hobby than in years past) that splits the difference between DSA and XDA, skewing towards the former but easier for me to type on. You will find lots of cheap Dolch-like “double-shot DSA” that are really overstock VSA, and a couple of other colorway-clone sets of it are still floating around, but at a less attractive price point.