What is a group buy?

For anyone versed in the hobby of custom mechanical keyboards, they will know that the process of buying high end keyboards is very different compared to most products due to the limited nature of these keyboards. Because of the limited production runs, we participate in the purchase of keyboards in Group Buys. 

A Group buy is a pre-order for a product before the production process begins. The process is very similar to participating in a Crowd Sourcing Project, with the caveat being that the design has already been thoroughly prototyped and tested through multiple iterations to ensure what you're paying for meets what a buyer would expect from a premium keyboard design. This means that manufacturing doesn't begin production until the vendor collects all pre-order payments before placing the one-time order with the factory. Once placed, the order goes through production, assembly, quality control, and distribution. 

In many cases with a group buy, some designs have a minimum order quantity (MOQ) threshold of purchases that must be met in order for production of the keyboard to happen. This ensures that the designer can reach economies of scale to make building this keyboard at the specified price possible.

But at Pantheon Lab, for any of our current and future designs like the Atlas 65, we want to make sure that our design meet our high expectations of a high end keyboard with superior craftsmanship. But in order to meet this lofty goal of manufacturing, hand assembling, and providing extra QC for each keyboard in the US, we have to keep our order quantities small.  So for our group buy, we will be keeping a maximum order quantity limit for the number of keyboards produced. In the case of the Atlas 65, this limit will be 150 keyboards in the world. 

In addition to a more detailed inspection of each keyboard in the QC process from this maximum production threshold is that we will be able to deliver you the final keyboard in under 3 months after the group buy closes. So you can rest assured you won't be waiting for years for your end game keyboard.