Quotes, pricing and timing

Ten things that move the price

Price comes out of the same ten factors on almost every job: size, material, quantity, process, complexity, finish, CAD or design work, tolerances, urgency, and assembly. They interact, which is why the number is specific to your part. But once you know which one is dominating your quote, you usually know what to do about it.

Size. A bigger part takes more material, larger stock, longer cutting paths and more machine time. Past a certain point it also stops fitting a standard vise or chuck and needs workholding made for it. If the envelope is generous because nothing forced it to be tight, trimming it is real money.

Material. Two costs live here, and the second one is bigger than people expect. There is what the stock costs, and there is how the material behaves — tough, heat-resistant and abrasive grades cut slower and consume tooling faster. If you copied a grade off an old drawing, tell us the property you actually need instead, and we will tell you whether a cheaper stock does the job.

Quantity. Everything that happens before the first part gets made happens once. Spread over one part it is the whole cost; spread over a batch it nearly disappears. Ask for two or three quantities on the same quote — it costs you nothing and it shows you exactly where the curve flattens.

Process. Each process prices on a different axis. Printing charges roughly by the volume and time on the machine, machining by how much material comes off and how many times the part is set up, laser cutting by cut length and sheet usage, molding almost entirely by the tool. The same part can be sensibly made three ways at three different prices. Tell us what the part has to do and let us pick.

Complexity. Deep pockets, undercuts, thin walls and features on five faces all mean the same thing: more setups, longer tool paths and slower cutting. Every time a part has to be unclamped and re-fixtured, that is another setup charge and another opportunity to lose alignment. Removing a feature you do not need is usually the cheapest change available.

Finish. Finishing is its own process with its own queue, not a step at the end of the build. Cosmetic surfaces need masking, racking, careful handling, and they generate visible rejects that plain surfaces would not. Say which faces are cosmetic and which are structural, and the rest gets handled the fast way.

CAD and design work. If a model has to be built, repaired, converted or re-toleranced before anything can be made, that is engineering time in front of the job. Sending clean STEP geometry with a PDF drawing alongside it removes that work entirely. Sending a photo of a broken part means we do it for you, and it shows up in the number.

Tolerances. Tight tolerances do not just mean more care. They change the cutting strategy, add slower finishing passes, add measurement, and can change which shop makes the part. See below.

Urgency. Moving your job forward means moving something else back, and it can mean paying to expedite material or working outside normal hours. Urgency is priced when it is real. When it is not real, saying so saves you money.

Assembly. Assembly is hand labor plus the fixturing and checking that goes with it. Fasteners, fit-up, jigs and a functional check are all separate from making the parts. Decide up front whether you want a box of components or a finished, working thing.

The two that surprise people

Setup, and why one part costs nearly as much as ten. Before a single chip comes off, someone programs the job, designs and builds the workholding, proves out the first piece and verifies it against the drawing. That work happens once. Order one part and it carries all of it. Order a batch and the same work is divided across every piece in it. This is also why molded parts only make sense above a certain quantity — the tool is a real investment that has to be paid off by the parts that come out of it, so a small molding run is almost all tooling and hardly any part.

Tolerance. People treat tolerance as a preference and it behaves like a process decision. A tighter callout forces lighter, slower finishing passes, more of them, and more measurement afterward. It can also change where the part is made. Tolerances are reviewed per project. Ordinary work is made and verified in-house. When a drawing calls for something tight, the job goes to a partner who can supply a CMM report — which usually costs less than trying it twice.

The useful habit is to tolerance the few dimensions that control fit or function, leave the rest to a general note, and tell us what the part mates with. That single change moves more money than almost anything else on this page.

Four things that reliably reduce cost

• Send complete information the first time. Geometry, material, quantity, finish, and your date. A quote built on guesses gets padded to cover the guesses.
• Tolerance only what matters. Mark what controls fit or function. A general note handles everything else.
• Ask for more than one quantity. Seeing the same part priced at two or three quantities tells you what the setup is costing you.
• Loosen what does not need to be tight. Material grade, surface finish and cosmetic requirements are often inherited rather than chosen. Tell us the requirement, not the specification you copied.

Why we do not publish a price list

Because the factors above multiply. The same drawing in a different material, at a different quantity, with a different finish, is a genuinely different number — and a published list would have to be either wrong or padded high enough to be safe on every version of the job. Neither helps you. So we quote the part in front of us.

Quotes are valid for 30 days. If material moves or the design changes in the meantime, tell us and we will re-issue rather than let you plan against a stale number.

Timing: your quote carries a real date

We do not publish lead times, and that is deliberate. A range on a webpage is written before anyone has seen your part, your material, your finish or the shop's queue that week. Your quote is written after. It carries a date for your job, from a person who has looked at it — which is worth considerably more than a number that was never about you in the first place.

What lengthens a schedule

• Material we do not stock. Alloy, temper, grade and product form are all specified separately, and an unusual combination has to be procured before anything starts.
• An unusual finish. Finishing sits in its own queue, and a specialty coating may sit in someone else's.
• A tight tolerance routed to a partner. The right shop for the part is sometimes not this one, and that routing has its own schedule.
• A first article. Verifying before committing to the full run is a deliberate gate. It is usually the right call, and it adds a decision point on purpose.
• Assembly. More operations, and every one of them depends on the one before it.
• Incomplete file information. Missing material, missing quantity, geometry that needs repair, or a drawing that contradicts the model. The clock does not really start until the questions are answered.
• A revision mid-run. A change after work has started is not an edit, it is a change order. Parts in progress may no longer be the right parts.

What shortens it

• Complete information up front, so nobody is waiting on an answer.
• Standard material, in a form that is normally stocked.
• Flexibility on finish where function allows it.
• A date with a reason attached to it.

How to give us a date we can plan against

"As soon as possible" tells us nothing we can schedule around. It gets treated as normal work, because there is no way to tell it from normal work.

"We ship to our customer on the 14th" is something we can plan against. It tells us what is actually fixed, what the consequence of missing it is, and whether it is worth paying to expedite material or reordering the queue. It also lets us tell you honestly and immediately if it does not work, while you still have time to do something else about it.

When you will hear from us

We respond to new inquiries the same business day, usually within the hour — from a person, not an autoresponder. Business hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Eastern, closed federal holidays.

Uploading a file is not a commitment. It starts a review. A person confirms feasibility, pricing, capacity and timing before we commit to anything.