The anatomy of a bottle price
A bottle quote is not a single number pulled from the air. It’s built from resin weight × resin price, plus colourant, processing, a wastage allowance, decoration, accessories, packing, freight and tax — then a margin. Understanding the parts helps you value-engineer without cutting quality.
Wastage and why it’s in every quote
Manufacturing is never 100% yield. We build in a realistic wastage allowance: around 5% for plain bottles without printing or labelling, and about 10% once printing or labelling is involved. PE production typically carries a 10% allowance, applied in two stages.
Minimum order quantity (MOQ) and set-up fees
Tooling and machine set-up cost the same whether you run 3,000 or 30,000 units — so on small runs, that fixed cost is spread across fewer bottles. Below 10,000 units we apply a transparent set-up fee:
- 5,000 pcs: +¥500
- 4,000 pcs: +¥800
- 3,000 pcs: +¥1,000
The takeaway: the jump from 3,000 to 5,000 pcs often lowers your per-unit price more than you’d expect, because the set-up cost is diluted.
Accessory minimums
Caps, pumps and sprayers carry their own minimums. Standard accessories start at 5,000 pcs in white, black or natural. Custom colours start at 10,000 pcs, and electroplated or metallised (electrochemical aluminium) finishes generally start at 10,000 pcs because of their own set-up.
Custom moulds: SJT and SJE
If an off-the-shelf shape doesn’t fit, we build a private mould in our in-house tooling room. PET moulds are numbered SJT…, PE moulds SJE… Owning the tooling in-house means faster iteration and tighter control than outsourced tooling.
How to brief us for an accurate quote
Send four things and we can quote fast and accurately:
- Capacity and target material (or the formula, and we’ll advise)
- Quantity for this order (and any repeat forecast)
- Decoration: silk-screen colours, labels, hot stamp, etc.
- Accessories: cap / pump / sprayer type and colour