Fixed job costs: the real margin at 200 pieces.
The median job in rigid-box making is 200 pieces. At that volume, a nominal 26% margin fell to 1.4% once we counted make-ready and spoilage sheets. It was not a pricing error: it was a cost nobody had put in the sums.
What the fixed job costs are
- Make-ready on the machines: the time to set up the die cutter, the wrapping machine, the plotter, before the first good piece.
- Make-ready and spoilage sheets: paper and board used to get set up, not to make boxes.
- Job set-up: flat layout, template for the designer, file check, sample.
- Cutting die, if new, unless it is invoiced separately.
Why they weigh on short runs
Because they are divided by the number of pieces. The same make-ready is worth one cent on 10,000 pieces and fifty cents on 200. If the price is worked out as a percentage on the variable cost, at 200 pieces the margin you see on paper is not the one you bank.
Do the sums with your own figures
Your figures, simple sums: margin = (price − cost) ÷ price. The preset values are only an example.
How Cartis handles them
The quote always counts the fixed job costs, even at 200 pieces, and shows the same price in the column, in the summary and in the quotation. Quantity breaks show the customer how much the unit price changes as the run goes up: often it is the customer who chooses 500 pieces instead of 200. The costs and mark-ups are yours, in your space: by contract we do not look at them.
Decide your fixed costs per step once and enter them in the software. From then on every quote brings them in by itself, and the margin you see is the real one.
The guides are written by the box maker that built Cartis. If something in your practice is different, write to us: we will correct them.
The real margin on your own quote.
In the demo we redo one of your recent quotes with the fixed costs in: at 200, 500 and 1,000 pieces.