The main expenses are typically divided into two parts: design fees and printing fees. NATURAL PACKAGING has compiled some common pricing methods and strategies that businesses can refer to when creating packaging boxes, allowing you to choose a cost-effective and value-driven production strategy.
1. Design Costs
The cost of designing a product packaging box is influenced by both the designer and the quality of the output. There are various ways to approach the design:
Owner Designs: If the business owner is skilled in design, this is both efficient and cost-saving, though rare.
In-House Design Team: Mainly incurs salary costs for the company.
Printing Factory Layout or Regular Designer: This option ranges from free to around 300USD, typically suitable for storage-type packaging and rational consumer industries.
Professional Design Companies or Senior Design Directors: Collaborating with experts can cost over 2500-3000USD per design.
Another option is working with a packaging printing factory that employs professional designers. This can reduce design costs while ensuring better integration of paper and production techniques, making the packaging both cost-efficient and valuable.
2. Printing Costs
The cost of printing product packaging boxes is affected by factors such as structure, paper type, processes, dimensions, and quantity, with quantity being a major influence. The unit price for the same box can vary significantly depending on the order size, sometimes differing by several times. Therefore, NATURAL PACKAGING suggests using ready-made, generic packaging boxes during the product testing phase to save costs.
If custom-branded packaging is necessary, businesses should invest time in researching packaging used by competitors and similar industries. It’s also important to avoid overly complex packaging structures, instead enhancing quality through design, paper, and processes to reduce customization costs.
Types of Packaging Boxes and Their Costs
Packaging boxes generally fall into four categories: cardboard boxes, corrugated paper boxes, luxury rigid boxes, and colored cartons.
Cardboard Boxes: The most affordable, with unit prices ranging from a few cents to a few USD. Orders of over 5,000 units are usually more economical.
Corrugated and Colored Boxes: Unit prices range from 2-3 RMB to over 10 RMB by China factory. Orders of over 3,000 units are typically cost-effective.
Luxury Rigid Boxes (Cardboard or Wood Core): Unit prices range from 5 RMB to 20 RMB, and sometimes up to 100 RMB or more. Orders of over 2,000 units are generally more cost-efficient.
Minimum Order Quantities
Some factories may require a minimum order quantity. While we typically don’t enforce strict limits, smaller orders tend to result in higher unit prices. The reason is that setup costs, such as PS plate-making and machine adjustments, involve a fixed startup cost that’s charged per run. For example, the cost of one machine setup might be 100 RMB, so dividing this across 50 boxes results in a unit cost of 2 RMB, whereas for 5,000 boxes, it’s only 0.02 RMB.
However, increasing the order size doesn’t indefinitely lower the unit price. After reaching a certain quantity, startup costs become negligible, and pricing is based mostly on the production cost per unit.
NATURAL PACKAGING will continue sharing more insights on creating product packaging. Stay tuned for further valuable knowledge!
