How Wholesale Packaging Pricing Works

Packaging is priced in tiers because the costs behind it are lumpy, not linear. Understanding where the lumps are tells you when it is worth buying more, and when it is not.

What actually drives the price down

• Setup cost spread wider. A production run has a fixed setup — tooling, plate changes, machine time before the first good unit. On 100 units that setup dominates the price. On 5,000 it barely registers.
• Freight per unit. A pallet costs roughly the same to move whether it is half full or full. Getting to a full pallet is often the single biggest per-unit saving available.
• Handling. Picking one carton and picking twenty takes similar administrative effort.

This is why the tier breaks are not evenly spaced. They tend to sit where a real threshold is crossed — a full carton, a full pallet, a minimum production run.

Reading a tier table

Every product on this site shows its own quantity pricing. A tier applies from its quantity upward until the next tier begins: if the table shows 250 at one price and 500 at a lower one, then 300 units are priced at the 250 rate.

It is worth checking the gap. If 500 units costs less in total than 400 does — which happens when a break is steep — buy 500. The site shows you the line total as you change the quantity, so the comparison takes seconds.

Minimum order quantity

MOQ is the smallest quantity that can be produced, picked and shipped economically. We supply in bulk only, so our minimum is 1,000 units on every product. Below that, the setup and freight cost per unit swamps the goods cost and the price stops meaning anything — which is why a bulk supplier quoting you 200 units is either not a bulk supplier or not quoting you honestly.

When to request a quote instead

Above a certain quantity, published pricing stops being the right instrument. At that point the cost depends on your delivery location, whether we can consolidate your order into a container, and what the supplier’s current input costs are. That is why large quantities route to a quote request rather than a checkout button — a quote will normally beat the published tier, sometimes substantially.

Ask for a quote when:

• Your quantity is at or above the quote threshold shown on the product
• You want several products delivered together
• You need custom sizes, materials or printing
• You want a standing schedule — the same order every month

A word on our published prices

Where a product shows a Planning estimate flag, the price is our working figure from supplier indications, not a confirmed quotation. We publish it so you can budget, and we mark it so you know what it is. Once a supplier quote is verified for that line the flag comes off and the price is firm.

Working out a budget for a launch? Send us your list and we will price it properly.