Four hundred cells, one for every four-hundredth of what a single unit costs you by the time it is on your shelf. The colour of each cell is what that fraction is paying for. Drag the quantity and watch the tooling share collapse.
The gap
The rate you were quoted and the money that leaves are different numbers
A quotation prints a unit price at a quantity and stops. It does not print the tooling charge spread over that quantity, the freight spread over that shipment, the duty charged on the goods, or the units scrapped alongside the ones you keep. Every one of those is money you pay per unit, and none of them is in the rate.
Rate you were quoted
$4.20
the tier 3 rate at 1,000 units
Landed, per unit
$14.04
the money that actually leaves
Difference
3.34x
not a markup; arithmetic with no line for it
Those three figures are this page’s own model run on its own defaults: an $8,000 tool, a $4.20 tier rate at 1,000 units, $1,200 of freight on the shipment, 4.5% duty on the goods and 2% scrap. Change any of them in the field above and all three move.
The number no price list states
1,867 units
The smallest order at which the tooling charge, spread over the order, first falls below what one unit costs to make. Below it, you are still buying the tool. At and above it, ordering more barely moves the price at all.
Landed unit price at multiples of that quantity
1x · 1,867 units
$9.60
5x · 9,335 units
$5.50
10x · 18,670 units
$4.99
Ten times the break quantity still does not reach the $4.20 that was quoted, and no quantity ever will. Tooling amortises. Freight, duty and scrap do not.
Where the recovery hides
The same $8,000 can reach you in three different shapes
A supplier has to recover what the tool cost. Which of these three they choose changes what you can see, what a reorder costs, and who carries the risk if the volume never arrives.
As its own line
$8,000 for the tool, then $4.20 a unit.
The only shape where the amortisation is yours to do. Order 1,000 and the tool costs you $8.00 a unit. Order 10,000 and it costs $0.80. Order again next year and it costs nothing, because it is already paid for.
Folded into the rate
No tooling line, and $12.20 a unit at 1,000.
The same $8,000, on a schedule the supplier chose rather than one you agreed. The rate does not know the tool is paid for, so a reorder at a smaller quantity can quietly charge you for it a second time.
Against a committed volume
$4.20 a unit, against a commitment to 10,000.
The cheapest of the three if the volume arrives. If it does not, the $8,000 is still owed and the units that were meant to carry it were never ordered.
Bands and worked examples from Jaycon’s 2026 injection moulding pricing report and from Omni Online Strategies on tooling and NRE costs. Both publish that this practice exists and give worked examples of what it costs. Neither publishes how often it happens, so this page does not say how common it is.
Parts
Six example parts, each carrying its own tier table and its own break quantity
Every figure in these cards is this site’s own model run on that part’s own numbers, not a figure typed into a card. Swap the tooling charge or a tier rate in the CMS and the card follows.
Injection moulding
Enclosure lid, ABS
Quoted at MOQ
$4.20
Landed at MOQ
$14.04
Break quantity
1,867 units
3.34x
what you actually pay, against the rate
Compression moulding
Gasket seal, nitrile
Quoted at MOQ
$0.74
Landed at MOQ
$1.35
Break quantity
3,130 units
1.82x
what you actually pay, against the rate
Sheet metal
Bracket, 5052 aluminium
Quoted at MOQ
$3.80
Landed at MOQ
$7.35
Break quantity
415 units
1.93x
what you actually pay, against the rate
Materials
Scrap is the smallest of the four shares, and the only one that never amortises
Tooling, freight and duty all get cheaper per unit as the order grows. Yield loss does not: every good unit carries its share of the units scrapped beside it, at every quantity. At 1,000 units that is pennies against an $8.00 tooling share. At ten times the break quantity, when tooling is down to $0.43 a unit, the same pennies are a much larger part of what is left.
Thermoplastic
ABS
Typical scrap
2%
Yield multiplier
1.0204x
At 1,000 units it adds $0.09 to a $14.04 landed unit: nine cents, against $8.00 of tooling in the same unit.
Thermoset elastomer
Nitrile rubber (NBR)
Typical scrap
3.5%
Yield multiplier
1.0363x
At 1,000 units it adds $0.16 to a $14.11 landed unit. The trim loss is permanent: a thermoset cannot be reground and run again.
Metal
5052 aluminium
Typical scrap
1.5%
Yield multiplier
1.0152x
At 1,000 units it adds $0.07 to a $14.02 landed unit, the lowest of the six, because offcut is recovered rather than discarded.
Lead times
A minimum order quantity is a schedule, not a price
Changeover
Paid once per run
Stripping a tool out, mounting yours, running to first article and proving it. The line is not making anything the whole time, and a small order pays the same bill as a large one.
Scheduling
Paid in position
A run that fits the gap between two larger ones goes in this month. One that does not waits for the next gap, and the wait is not a line on any quotation.
The run nobody breaks
Paid by whoever is smallest
A supplier will not stop a 40,000-unit run to fit a 500-unit one. That is not obstruction, it is the changeover cost again, and a minimum is how it is priced.
Enquiries
Send the part, the quantity and the tolerance. Ask what the figure excludes.
Three questions get you most of the way to a number you can trust: what the tooling charge is and whether it is inside the rate, what the quantity breaks are, and which incoterm the price is on. A supplier who answers all three is quoting. One who answers none is estimating.