Why Five Stainless Parts Cost Nearly as Much as Fifty
September 21, 2026
The first question on most stainless RFQs is how many. The answer changes the unit price more than almost anything else on the drawing, and not in the way most buyers expect.
What you pay for on the first part
Before a single good part exists, a shop has spent time on:
- Reading the drawing and deciding the process
- Programming, which on a multi face part is hours rather than minutes
- Buying material, often a minimum bar length regardless of how many parts you want
- Fixturing, from soft jaws cut to shape up to a dedicated plate
- Proving out, running the first part slowly and measuring as it goes
- First article inspection and the report
That is all fixed. It happens identically whether the order is for 1 part or 500.
Stainless makes it worse than aluminium in two specific ways. Proving out takes longer because the material punishes a setup that is not rigid, and the shop cannot borrow parameters from a different job with confidence. And work hardening means the first attempt often teaches something that changes the approach.
The shape of the curve
Rough proportions for a typical multi feature stainless part. Your part will differ, but the shape holds.
| Quantity | Setup share of unit price | Unit price relative to 100 off |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Most of it | 5 to 10 times |
| 5 | Large | 3 to 4 times |
| 10 | Significant | 2 to 3 times |
| 50 | Modest | 1.2 to 1.5 times |
| 100 | Small | baseline |
| 500 | Minor | 0.8 to 0.9 times |
| 1000 and up | Negligible, process changes take over | depends on the process change |
Two things follow.
Small increases at the low end are nearly free. Going from 3 parts to 10 often adds very little, because you are only adding cycle time and material. If there is any chance you will need more, order them now.
Large increases at the high end need a process change to pay. Past a few hundred, the saving comes from the shop doing something different, such as building a dedicated fixture, moving the job to a bar fed lathe or running it lights out. That decision needs a commitment or a forecast, which is why saying an order repeats matters.
The mistake that costs twice
The common sequence is: order 5 prototypes from whoever is fastest, validate the design, then run a competitive process for production and award it elsewhere on price.
The second shop then pays the entire setup cost again, from a standing start, on a part it has never made. That cost is in the production quote. Meanwhile the first shop’s knowledge, its fixturing and everything it learned about how this geometry behaves is discarded.
Sometimes that is the right trade, for example when the prototype shop genuinely cannot do volume. Often it is not. If a shop can do both, prototyping there and staying puts the learning where it is useful.
The related version of the same mistake is splitting a known annual requirement into four quarterly orders without telling anyone. Four setups, four first articles, four lots of paperwork. A blanket order with scheduled releases gets you the volume price and the cash flow, and it is worth asking for explicitly.
What changes between prototype and production
It is not only quantity. The specification usually should change too.
Prototype stage. Loose tolerances except where you are testing fit. Minimal finish requirements. Skip the certificates you will not read. The goal is to learn whether the design works.
Production stage. Tolerances tightened only where the prototype showed they mattered. Finish and passivation specified properly with standards. Full documentation. See what tolerances cost and citric against nitric.
Carrying prototype looseness into production risks parts that vary. Carrying production tightness into prototypes means paying for control you do not need yet. Both happen constantly.
Telling a shop the truth about volume
Two failure modes, both common.
Understating. Asking for a quote on 10 when you need 1000, hoping for a low unit price you can then hold them to. The shop quotes 10 as a 10 piece job, with no fixturing, and when the real order arrives the price does not scale the way you hoped.
Overstating. Asking for a quote on 1000 to get a good number, then ordering 20. The shop priced in fixturing it has not built and volume it will not get, and the relationship starts with a correction.
The useful thing to say is the truth with its uncertainty attached: 20 now for validation, expecting 300 to 500 a year from the second quarter if it passes. A shop can quote both, tell you where the breakpoints are and often suggest a quantity that lands just past one.
What to put in the RFQ
- The quantity you want now
- Whether it repeats, how often and roughly how many
- Whether this is a prototype, a validation batch or production
- Whether you would consider a blanket order with releases
- Which requirements are firm and which are provisional at this stage
That last line saves more money than it looks like it should. A shop that knows a tolerance is provisional will tell you what it would cost to relax, and a shop that thinks it is firm will just quote it. The RFQ checklist covers the rest, and what drives the cost puts quantity next to the other five levers.
Frequently asked questions
At what quantity does the unit price stop falling?
For a typical machined stainless part the steep part of the curve is over by around 50 to 100 pieces and it is fairly flat past a few hundred. Past that, savings come from process changes such as dedicated fixturing or bar feeding rather than from volume alone.
Should I order prototypes from the shop that will do production?
Usually yes. The shop learns the part on your prototype run and carries that knowledge into production, and the fixturing and programs are already paid for. Splitting the two means paying the learning cost twice.
Is it cheaper to order 20 now or 10 twice?
Nearly always 20 now, if you are confident in the design. Two orders of 10 means two setups, two first articles and two lots of paperwork. The material is the only part that does not double.
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Get matched with a stainless shopFigures in this guide are published specification limits or published typical values for the alloy, not measurements of any part. Machinability is rated against free-machining carbon steel B1112 at 100 and PREN is chromium plus 3.3 times molybdenum plus 16 times nitrogen. The conventions are set out in thereference section and the editorial standards.