How we Price Your Die Cutting or Laser Cutting Job
Your custom die cutting quote will be quoted on three basic principles.
- How much is the tooling?
- How much is the raw material?
- How fast can be load, unload, box and cut it?
How much is the tooling?
Don’t Break the Bank
Your job will require a custom steel rule die. A steel rule die is made from sharpened blades of steel supported by wood to crate a pattern from which all of your parts will be stamped. In short, it’s a cookie cutter. Steel Rule Dies are used because they are easy to make, hold a tolerance of about +/-.015″, are relatively cheap, and last a long time. Our average die cost per job is about $250 with a typical yield of 8,000+ impressions depending on material. Your price and longevity will vary depending on your design and raw material. For more information follow the link the steel rule dies.
How much is the raw material?
Many of our customers choose to supply the material to us to save money. Let’s face it, with the internet you can find just about anything at a decent price. Unless you buy in bulk, chances are we will conduct the same internet search you do and find the same pricing. If we buy it, we have to mark it up 15% to account for the time and expense to inventory it. If you buy it you save the 15%. Keep in mind that we do have many wholesale vendors for plastics, wood, felt, etc and can get lower prices… but we need to buy the minimums set for by the vendor. If you job is small, stick to Google. If you job is large, I’m sure we can get the material wholesale.
How fast can we load, unload, box and cut it?
Your job will be based on how fast we can cycle the press. This includes loading the press, cutting the parts, removing the parts from the die and boxing them. For example, if we cut 10 parts with each cycle of the press and have to separate them into 10 different boxes, your price goes up. If we leave those same parts in the webbin and pack all of them in the same box… your pcies goes down. We aim for about $80/hr press time.