Every mold has a price—the figure quoted to you on the bottom line of the RFO. That price is a “good faith” estimate and includes the hard costs of design time, raw materials, mold components, programming and machining time.
The cost of a mold includes many more factors that aren’t always measurable in terms of the actual mold build. These include mold construction techniques involving the expertise and creativity of the mold builder that can result in vastly reduced cycle times, which can equate to a tremendous manu¬facturing cost savings over the life of the product.
Thus, the true cost of the mold is more than the price you agreed to pay on the RFO. The true cost of the mold includes all of the costs-to-manufacture.
Why this misunderstanding? Steven, president of first-rate mold solution company, says, “Typically, buyers see molds as incidental commodities, similar to cutting dies, rather than as the strategic link to product cost, quality, time and perform¬ance that they are in injection molding.”
The bottom line is, you may pay more up front for a mold designed and built for optimum manufacturing considerations, but in the long run, the total cost to manufacture the product will be con¬siderably less.
Things to Consider
Maintenance Costs of the Mold
Maintenance requirements on an offshore mold are often greater than those for a U.S.-built mold. Downtime is critical because lost time is lost production, which is costly. Also, some U.S. mold manufacturers offer mold maintenance programs to help you keep the mold in good working order throughout its life. Remember, shipping the mold back to your offshore source for repairs or rework is generally not an option.
Life of the Mold
You want a mold that lasts for the life of the program or for the number of shots that are standard for the type of mold you purchase according to SPI standards.
Shipping Costs
Rework Costs
Many who purchase molds offshore for U.S. molding say it takes about 10 percent of the purchase price of the mold to an offshore-sourced mold up to U.S. production mold standards. Thus, if you pay $50,000 for a mold from an offshore source, you will probably put another $5,000 into the mold to get it production-ready.
Engineering Costs
If you send a tooling engineer to Asia or Europe to oversee the mold build, an additional 20 to 25 percent can be added to the cost, say tooling engineers. This cost includes time lost on other engineering projects while overseeing the project offshore.
Communication Costs
One consultant for offshore mold purchasing says he spends as much as $5,000 on communications including phone, faxes, overnight prints, etc. E-mails cannot always be counted on to be a reliable means of communication in some foreign countries.
The mold is a hi-tech product for a special purpose, as a result we should not cater to customers with low price or even selling at a loss. Instead, we should guarantee high quality and a favorable price, and put the quality, precision and service life of the mold in the first place, without overvaluing the mold cost. If you pursue low prices mold, it will be difficult to guarantee the quality, precision and service life of the mold. In the case that mold manufacturing shares the same accounting unit with product development & production, or is financially interrelated with it, its cost price should be quoted as the mold price. Mold price estimation should only include basic cost price of the mold, leaving aside other costs and the profit for the time being. Subsequently, the added value of the mold fee can be extracted from the profit as compensation after the mold is put into production. However, the quotation at this timepoint cannot be used as the actual price of the mold, but only as mold cost in the early development stage. In the future, once the product is successfully developed and profits are generated, the added value of the mold fee should be extracted and returned to the mold maker. The sum of the two forms the price of the mold. At the moment, the price of the mold may be higher than the one obtained in the first scenario, and even with a very high return rate, which is tens or hundreds of times higher than the original mold cost. Of course, it is also possible that the ROI is 0.
The process of injection mold price estimation:
First, we should choose the steel and manufacture process base on customer requirement.
Afer choose the material, we should make a simple draft, then we will get the mold size and weight.
Manufacture cost, the manufacturing cost is 1.5-3 times of material cost base on complexity.
Every mold should consider risk cost, it normally is 10% of mold price
Tax, it depends on local policy.
Design fee, normally it is 10% of total mold cost
Trial fee, it is 3-5% of total mold price
injection molding parts cost analytics
The way of injection mold price calculation
Mold price=steel cost+design fee+manufacture cost+profit+tax+trial cost+package and transport fee
The proportion
Material cost: steel and standard spare part take 15%-30% mold price
Manufacture and profit: normally 30-50% of mold cost
Design fee:10-15% of mold cost
Trial fee: within 3% for big size mold,5% for small mold
Package and transport: real cost
Here’s an example of how to do the computation
Say your part has these measurements:
Part Size = 200 mm x 200 mm x 4 mm
Weight = 50 grams
Now, the part is very large; therefore, the mold will be on the higher-priced side. Pellet cost differentiation is by the grade, meaning you’ll pay more for High-density polyethylene (HDPE) or Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) pellets. For this example, we’ll say since the device is a common household product, you’ll be using standard materials.
Cost of Mold = $30,000
Pellet Cost = $10 per kg
Cycle time = 80 seconds
Injection Molded Parts Manufactured = 45 per hour
Machine Usage and Labor = $30 per hour
The way of injection mold price calculation:
1) Mold price=steel cost+design fee+manufacture cost+profit+tax+trial cost+package and transport fee
The proportion
2）Material cost: steel and standard spare part take 15%-30% mold price
3）Manufacture and profit: normally 30-50% of mold cost
4）Design fee:10-15% of mold cost
5）Trial fee: within 3% for big size mold,5% for small mold
6）Package and transport: real cost or 3% mold price
7）VAT: 5%-17% of mold price
To make an accurate calculation of the cost per part of injection molding, we need to factor in all the manufacturing processes and what those processes entail. These factors include the cost of labor, type of materials used, etc. In this section, you’ll learn how to calculate plastic injection molding costs like a professional. The factors to consider include:
1. Cost of the plastic injection mold
As earlier discussed, injection molds come in different sizes and sell at different prices. To purchase a plastic injection mold, you may be looking at spending a thousand dollars or even tens of thousands, depending on the machine’s complexity. However, if you need a single cavity mold, you don’t have to bother about spending so much on purchasing a mold with multiple cavities.
2. Cost of Polymer resin material
polymer resin for injection molding
Polymer resin for injection molding
A polymer resin is an essential part of the production. Therefore, the quality of Polymer resin used in the production will influence the plastic injection molding cost. For instance, if you make parts using engineering resin with extra strength and chemical resistance, the material will be a little more expensive than those made of commodity resin-like polyethylene. If you want low-cost injection molding, you can opt for resins made from recycled plastics. They are more affordable.
3. Cost of labor
Although the company is fully in charge of hiring the machinists needed and maintenance of machines and tool bits needed for the job, the cost of labor will be partly included in the quotation you receive, which is also a part of the custom injection molding cost.
The cost of the mold is largely defined by the complexity and the amount of time it takes to produce it. We advise adhering to design for manufacturing principles to drive down part costs with injection molding.
The cost of producing the mold can be reduced by applying the following design guidelines:
Evaluate the CAD model to determine its feasibility before undertaking an injection molding project. Eliminate potential bottlenecks such as steep angles, undercuts, and other complex geometries.
Evaluate the model’s design to eliminate unnecessary features. This reduces the mold’s size and the material used to develop the model.
Apply a core cavity approach that simplifies the design of Side B of a mold. The core cavity approach involves sinking the wall cavities into the mold base, thereby reducing the need to mold steep draft angles while improving surface finish.
Embrace the use of self-mating parts to reduce the need to create multiple molds when one universal mold can be used to achieve similar results.
1) The process of injection mold price estimation:
First, we should choose the steel and manufacture process base on customer requirement.
Afer choose the material, we should make a simple draft, then we will get the mold size and weight.
Manufacture cost, the manufacturing cost is 1.5-3 times of material cost base on complexity.
Every mold should consider risk cost, it normally is 10% of mold price
Tax, it depends on local policy.
Design fee, normally it is 10% of total mold cost
Trial fee, it is 3-5% of total mold price
2) The way of injection mold price calculation
Mold price=steel cost+design fee+manufacture cost+profit+tax+trial cost+package and transport fee
The proportion
Material cost: steel and standard spare part take 15%-30% mold price
Manufacture and profit: normally 30-50% of mold cost
Design fee:10-15% of mold cost
Trial fee: within 3% for big size mold,5% for small mold
Package and transport: real cost or 3% mold price
VAT: 5%-17% of mold price
The way of injection mold price calculation
Mold price=steel cost+design fee+manufacture cost+profit+tax+trial cost+package and transport fee
The proportion
Material cost: steel and standard spare part take 15%-30% mold price
Manufacture and profit: normally 30-50% of mold cost
Design fee:10-15% of mold cost
Trial fee: within 3% for big size mold,5% for small mold
Package and transport: real cost or 3% mold price
VAT: 5%-17% of mold price
This is a problem that every mold company must face, but there are many ways to calculate, and the goal is the same.
thanks for sharing your experience on this issue, actually For the calculation of mold cost, each mold company has it’s own cost accounting.
mold cost is a very important factor for every mold project
thanks for sharing your experience
maybe different mold company has different calculating method
I think every mold maker will care about mold cost
maybe we could discuss this issue when we feel free
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how to control mold cost is an important part for every mold project
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