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True Trade Cost

Powder Coating Cost Calculator: Price a Batch From Prep Minutes and Rack Time

Updated

A batch of 100 steel mounting brackets, about 12 x 6 inches, blasted, outgassed and coated in satin black comes to $1,954.31, or $19.54 a part, at a $51 break-even rate with 25% profit. Put in your own setup hours, minutes per part and powder cost and the batch price and the quantity table move with you.

This powder coating cost calculator prices a batch the way the shop floor sees it: the hours you spend once getting the line ready, then the minutes each part takes from the degreaser to the inspection bench. The defaults are a simplified version of the bracket order in the Powder Coating Pricing Calculator spreadsheet.

1. The order
hrs

Tank and blast setup, gun and booth cleanout, oven loads, rack cleaning, wrapping and paperwork.

min

Degrease, blast, hang, spray, unrack and inspect one part, plus masking its holes.

$

Powder at real transfer efficiency, blast media, plugs and hooks for one part.

2. Costs that come with every order

The ones owners leave out most. Put 0 if it doesn't apply.

$
$
$
3. Your rate and profit
$/hr

What each labour hour has to bring in to cover wages and overhead.

%
%

Don't know your break-even rate? Work it out in two minutes with the true hourly rate calculator.

100 parts$1,954.31 · $19.54 each

Rack minutes, not square inches, set the bracket price

A small bracket with two holes to plug can take longer than a flat plate twice its size. Hanging, blasting into corners and plugging holes all cost minutes the surface area never shows, so the calculator asks for minutes per part and lets the price per part fall out of that.

In the example each bracket takes 9.85 minutes across degreasing, blasting, hanging, spraying, unracking and plugging its holes. At $51 that is about $8.37 a part in time before profit, against $3.06 in powder and supplies. Labour is the bigger number on nearly every batch.

Twenty-five brackets at $32.43, five hundred at $16.11

The quantity table runs the same bracket at 25, 100, 250 and 500. Twenty-five come to $32.43 each, a hundred to $19.54, 250 to $16.97 and 500 to $16.11. The once-per-batch hours do most of that: 2.7 hours at $51 spread over 25 parts is about $5.51 each, and over 500 it is about 28 cents.

Show that table to a fab shop that wants a per-part price "for now and for later". Quote the price for the count they are sending, with the bigger-batch prices beside it, so a smaller reorder doesn't get the same rate.

Freight and the oven: the two lines owners move first

The example ships the finished brackets back on a pallet at $145, about $1.45 a part. When the customer picks up their own parts, set that line to 0 and the bracket drops to $17.73. That is a real choice to offer, and a reason to quote freight as its own line.

Minutes per part is the other number to watch. If plugging or tricky hanging pushes each bracket from 9.85 to 12 minutes, the bracket goes to $21.83. Time one rack from the first hook to the last unracked part, divide by the count, and you have a better number than any guess.

The spreadsheet's $20.43 bracket and what it counts

This page skips the hourly running cost of each piece of equipment, the safety cushion, the markup on outside freight and the full list of coating costs owners forget. The spreadsheet adds those and prints a customer quote with your color and finish terms, which is why its version of the same batch is $20.43 a bracket.

Your break-even rate depends on the oven's gas bill, rent and the hours you actually bill: work it out with the free true hourly rate calculator. The powder coating pricing guide covers wheels, one-offs and what other coaters charge, and the markup vs margin guide explains the 25% markup on powder. For quoting a part you have not seen yet, see the quote vs estimate guide.

How the math in the Powder Coating calculator is checked

Every version of the powder coating spreadsheet goes through an automatic test before it ships. The test rebuilds the file, recalculates it in a separate spreadsheet engine, and fails the release if any of these is off.

  • The example's break-even rate, $51.00 an hour, is worked out a second time outside the spreadsheet and the two have to agree to the cent.
  • At all four quantities on the quote, the price each times the quantity has to equal the order price, the price each may never go up as the quantity goes up, and the customer quote has to show the same four prices.
  • The example quote ($20.43 each (100 pcs)) has to earn more per labour hour than it costs to run the business. It earns $82.36 an hour against the $51.00 break-even.
  • Then the test tries to break it: every yellow box on the quote emptied, nobody on the crew billable, a material price 400 days old, an order of zero. No cell may show an error, and the checks box has to flag the missing customer name and the out-of-date price.
  • The formulas only use functions that work the same way in Excel and Google Sheets.

Last test run: Powder Coating passed, along with 39 of the other 39 trades. The example job and the list of easy-to-miss costs come from research into 9 videos of powder coating owners explaining how they price. More on how the calculators are built.

Questions owners ask

How do you calculate powder coating cost per part?

Add the hours you spend once on the batch to the minutes each part takes through prep, spray and unracking, price both at your break-even rate, add powder and supplies, freight and oven running cost, then profit. The example batch of 100 steel brackets comes to $19.54 a part.

Why does a small powder coating order cost so much more per part?

The gun cleanout, oven warm-up and paperwork are the same for 25 parts as for 500. In the example, 25 brackets come to $32.43 each and 500 come to $16.11 each.

How much powder does one part use?

Less than you spray. Part of every pass misses the part, so price powder on what you actually use per part, not on the surface area alone. The example puts powder, blast media, plugs and hooks together at $3.06 a bracket.

What is a fair minimum charge for powder coating?

The example shop uses $100. A single small part still needs the booth cleaned, the oven heated and the order written up, so it pays the minimum even when its own minutes come to less.