Tooling costs money once; laser time costs money every part. Here is how we find the break-even for a real bracket.
A customer sent us a 2 mm SPCC bracket and asked for a price at 5,000 pcs a year, then at 80,000 pcs a year. The two quotes look nothing alike, and the reason is worth explaining.
Laser cutting plus bending has almost no fixed cost. You pay machine time per part: roughly 40 seconds of laser, two bends, one deburring pass. That cost stays flat whether you order 100 or 100,000.
A progressive die has a large fixed cost — for this bracket, around USD 4,800 — but the piece price drops to a fraction of the laser route, because the press makes one part every stroke.
For this specific part the two lines crossed at roughly 18,000 pieces per year. Below that, laser wins. Above it, the die pays for itself inside the first year and keeps paying afterwards.
The practical advice: tell your supplier the annual volume before asking for a price, and ask for both routes when you are near the crossover. A quote that ignores volume is a quote that is wrong for one of you.
Most sheet metal cost overruns are designed in, not manufactured in. These four rules catch the common ones.
Added capacity for medium-volume weldments, with a positioner that lets one operator load while the robot welds.
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