Tooling is quoted in stages, and the number that surprises buyers is not the price of a mould. It is how many moulds your volume needs, since output scales with cavities rather than with tools.
Price the Stages for Your Cavity Count
Prototype $500, sample mould $1,200, production tooling 8 cavities $9,600 to $17,600. Total $11,300 to $19,300.
| Stage | Price | Lead time | What it settles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acrylic prototype | $500 | about 10 days | Shape, feel, label wrap and shelf presence. |
| Sample mould | $1,200 | 35 days | Real glass: weight, wall, closure fit and line behaviour. |
| Production mould | $1,200 to $2,200 each | Quoted per project | Output, once the design is signed off. |
Figures are the published SGSBOTTLE stage prices on a 700 to 750 ml basis. Your shape, finish and embossing move where a production mould sits in its range, and the quotation states the cavity count it covers.
Why the Stages Exist in That Order
Your prototype settles the shape while changing it is cheap. Your sample mould settles everything glass reveals and acrylic cannot: real weight, wall distribution, closure fit and how the bottle behaves on a line.
Production tooling then commits your money to a design that has already answered its questions. Each stage protects the one after it, and the whole path costs less than one production set cut to an unproven drawing.
What Moves a Production Mould Within Its Range
Shape complexity is the largest factor, since corners, punts and asymmetry all add machining and hand finishing. Embossing adds engraving. A specialist finish adds a neck ring.
Glass grade moves your minimum rather than your tooling. Super flint runs in Shandong on 7 lines, so a custom mould there starts at 12,000 pieces against 50,000 in standard flint.
Cavities set your run rate. SGSBOTTLE spreads 14 lines across two sites in Shandong and Xuzhou.
Buying Cavities Against Real Volume
Match the set to the quantity you have rather than the one you hope for. A partial set gets your launch made and keeps money available for stock, decoration and freight.
Extending later is straightforward, because SGSBOTTLE cuts additional moulds to the same approved drawing. Our engineers schedule the extra cavities into the next campaign.
What the Estimator Does Not Include
It prices tooling only. Your unit price, your minimum order, your decoration and your freight all sit outside it, and on a 750 ml (25 oz) programme each of them dwarfs your tooling.
Ask for them together. A quotation that names tooling, minimum, unit price and cavity count in one place is the only way to compare two suppliers honestly.
What Goes on Your Enquiry
Your drawing or reference bottle, the capacity in ml and oz, your glass grade and colour, your annual volume and your closure. SGSBOTTLE comes back with the tooling quotation, the cavity count and the minimum your grade carries.