Bulk Order Pricing & Volume Discounts

How it works

The unit price of a machined part falls as quantity rises because the fixed work is shared across more pieces. On a first batch the part is programmed, the job is set up, tooling is loaded and the machine is proved out before the first good piece comes off the spindle. That setup work costs about the same whether you order ten parts or five hundred, so once it is divided across a longer run its share of each unit shrinks, and the price follows it down.

Tooling is the second lever. A short run often uses a standard cutter and a simple fixture that suits only a handful of parts. A longer run justifies dedicated tooling and a purpose-made fixture, plus a toolpath that is optimised for cycle time, which reduces the machine-hours in every piece. Material buying behaves the same way: ordering bar stock or plate for a full production run lets us buy in the quantities the mill sells in, so the material costs less than it would cut to order.

A price break is therefore not a goodwill figure. It reflects a real change in how the part is made: the setup is amortised, the tooling is better matched, the material is bought once and the machine time per piece drops. When a break appears between two quantity bands, the part has crossed a threshold where one of those costs is spread differently. Ask us to quote two or three bands side by side and the breakpoints become visible, which is the honest way to plan a bulk purchase.

Production orders start at a minimum of 50 pieces. Samples sit outside that rule and can be ordered from a single piece, which is how most buyers begin: a short run of five to ten days lets you check fit, finish and function before you commit to a production quantity.

What to send us

To get a real price rather than a placeholder, send a drawing or 3D model together with four pieces of information: quantity, material, tolerance and finish. Quantity drives the setup-amortisation arithmetic above, so tell us the first quantity you would order and, if the part repeats, the annual volume so we quote the band that actually matters. Material narrows both price and lead time; we work in aluminium 2024, 5052, 6061 and 7075; stainless steel 301, 303, 304, 304L, 316, 316L, 410, 416 and 17-4PH; carbon and alloy steel 1045, 1215, 4140, D2 and O1; brass, copper and bronze; titanium; and engineering plastics — each machines and costs differently, and the materials page sets out which grades are economical at volume and which carry a premium. Tolerance sets how the part is made and held: we hold ±0.01 mm on precision features and apply ISO 2768-m as the general tolerance unless your drawing states otherwise. Finish, whether the part is machined, anodised, passivated or plated, changes cost and lead time and should be stated up front.

Vague drawings are where hidden costs appear. If a bore carries no tolerance we have to assume one, and a conservative assumption is often tighter than you need. If a surface carries no finish callout we may polish what you only wanted deburred. If a thread is written as “M8” without a pitch, or as a fractional size without UNC or UNF, the quote reflects a guess. Every missing detail is a decision we must make for you, and the safer the decision, the higher the price. A complete drawing returns a tighter and fairer price, so check our drawing requirements and materials pages before you send.

What you get back

Within 24 hours of receiving your drawing you get a quote and, alongside it, DFM feedback: notes on how the part could be made more cheaply or more reliably before you commit. If a wall is unnecessarily thin, a corner unnecessarily sharp, or a tolerance tighter than the function requires, we say so, because those choices move the price more than almost anything else on the drawing.

The quote lists the quantity band, the unit price within each band, any dedicated tooling, the material, the finish and the lead time. Samples run five to ten days; production runs twenty-five to thirty-five days after you approve the sample. Every order ships with a material certificate (MTR) and pre-shipment photos, so you can see exactly what left the floor.

If you are a distributor buying in bulk, the same logic holds at larger scale: send the drawing once and we quote the bands from 50 pieces upward, with breaks wherever setup, tooling and material costs step down. Volume pricing rewards a clear drawing and a planned quantity, because the more certain the order, the more certain the price. Start on the request-a-quote page or browse our machining capabilities.