Plastic mold injection: approximately how much it cost?
July 1st, 2010 | 
Author: Question by davidvu2007: Plastic mold injection: approximately how much it cost?
I want to produce something like this:
http://youremblem.com/images/samples/3.jpg
The letters are separate and are chrome plated. How much would it cost to produce and chrome plate 500 letter assuming it is 1x2x.25 inch and are made of plastic?
Best answer:
Answer by tlbs101
Setup charges are the ‘killer’ to a small project like this. The per-letter cost will be pennies, but it will cost several thousand US$ as a setup charge.
The injection molding company *may* have a standard letter-set mold in stock, so that may save a bundle. You’d have to check with each company to find out if they have letters in stock. Be sure and ask if they do the chrome plating, too.
Even if they have a set of letter molds on-the-shelf, they may charge a minimum that will run in the US00’s.
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There are a lot of variables that are absent from your question that affect the answer, I’m not sure where you’re going with the question, but I used tye URL for your image and it looks like the prices they’re charging per letter is probably in line with what it should be. The letters at $0.49 on that web site are not unlike refrigerator magnet letters that seem to run around $8.95 for a set, which works out to about $0.35 per letter, but without chrome and the magnet is possibly equal in cost to the adhesive backing.
I lack experience with what the cost of the chrome would be other than to say it’s a vacuum applied film, plating is usually done with an process involving conductivity of electric current, and plastic is non-conductive.
That said, it is probably less than a dime in material, but the larger cost comes from labor and tooling. (Depending on how many are made). This is also where most of the variation in how much this could cost would come from. High volume production would involve these coming out of a multi-cavity die every 10 seconds without an operator in attendance full time, but that is done when the high tooling cost can be nearly neglected across piece price due to production volume (which could be on the order of 1 million pieces/year)
If you’re looking about getting a word made for yourself paying for your own new tooling, depending on the process you might be looking at $500 per letter or something on the order of $5000-$15,000 for a family die, and you could get 1 or 100 pieces or anything in between for not much difference.