Five things to settle with the factory before you approve a mould
A mould quotation is a single number for a piece of steel that will run for years. Everything that makes that number fair or unfair sits underneath it, and most of it never gets written down.
1. Part complexity — and what your drawing actually commits to
A straight-walled cup is the cheapest thing we make. Add a curve, an undercut, a moulded-in handle, an oval or a textured grip, and the tool needs side actions, more steel and more bench time. The price moves with the geometry, not with the size of the part.
This matters at the drawing stage, not the quotation stage. A 2 mm change to a rib, agreed before the steel is cut, can be the difference between a straight-pull tool and a tool with two side actions. Ask the factory which features are driving the price, and whether any of them can be simplified without changing what the customer sees.
2. Steel grade
Mould steel is not one material. A P20 pre-hardened tool is cheaper and perfectly adequate for a promotional run; a hardened S136 or 718H tool costs more and holds its finish through hundreds of thousands of shots.
A tooling quote that does not name the steel is not a quote you can compare. Two factories quoting the same part with a 30% price gap are usually quoting two different tools.
3. Cavitation — one-out-two or one-out-four
A four-cavity tool costs more than a two-cavity tool and produces twice as much per cycle. Whether that is worth paying for depends entirely on your annual volume, not on your first order.
The arithmetic is simple enough to do in the enquiry. If your forecast is a container a quarter, extra cavities pay for themselves inside a year. If you are testing a market with one 5,000-piece run, they never will. Give the factory your honest forecast and ask for both numbers — most will quote them side by side.
4. Surface finish and texture
Polish and texture are separate line items, and they are not reversible in the cheap direction. A tool can always be textured later; a textured tool cannot be polished back to optical clarity without significant rework.
If the bottle is transparent, the cavity needs a high polish and that is part of the tooling price. If you want a matte or leather-grain grip, specify the texture standard (a VDI or Mold-Tech code) rather than the word 'matte', so that the sample you approve and the production you receive are the same surface.
5. Mould life, repair liability and where the tool lives
These three are the ones that turn into arguments two years later, and all three take one line each to settle:
- Expected mould life, stated in shots. A P20 tool might be quoted at 300,000; a hardened tool at over a million.
- Who pays for routine maintenance, and who pays when the tool needs repair before it reaches its quoted life.
- Where the tool is stored, who owns it, and what happens to it if you stop ordering — including whether it can be released to you or to another factory.
At our plant the tool stays on our floor and runs only your orders. That is a normal arrangement and it suits most buyers, but it should be a decision you made rather than something you discover later.
The six lines that belong on the tooling purchase order
| Line | What to state | Why it matters later |
|---|---|---|
| Steel grade | The actual grade — P20, 718H, S136 | Two quotes 30% apart are usually two different tools |
| Cavitation | 1×2, 1×4, and the cycle time quoted with it | Decides output per day on every repeat order |
| Surface finish | A VDI or Mold-Tech code, or 'high polish' | Texture can be added later; polish cannot be recovered |
| Mould life | Expected shots, e.g. 300,000 or 1,000,000 | Sets the point at which repair is chargeable |
| Repair liability | Who pays before that figure is reached | The most common tooling argument |
| Ownership and storage | Who owns it, where it lives, release terms | Decides what happens if you change supplier |
A quotation that answers these six is comparable to another quotation that answers these six. A quotation that answers none of them is a number, not an offer.
Put it in the purchase order, not the chat
None of this is exotic. Steel grade, cavitation, finish standard, life in shots, repair liability and ownership are six short lines. Put them on the tooling purchase order and the whole category of tooling dispute disappears.
For how tooling cost interacts with minimum order quantity and unit price — the other half of the same conversation — see our article on MOQ and tooling cost.