Mold costs vary widely based on complexity, size, and material, from a few thousand dollars for a simple aluminum prototype mold to over $100,000 for a complex, multi-cavity hardened steel mold. We provide a detailed mold and part price breakdown with every quote.

A simple prototype mold can be made in 1-2 weeks. A standard production mold typically takes 3-6 weeks, depending on its complexity. We will always provide a firm lead time in our quotation.

You do. The mold is your property. We will maintain it and store it for you free of charge for future production runs, but you can request to have it shipped to you at any time.

Draft is a slight taper (typically 1-2 degrees) applied to the vertical walls of your part. It’s essential for allowing the part to be ejected cleanly from the mold without being damaged or creating drag marks.

A family mold has multiple cavities that produce different parts within the same injection cycle. It can be a cost-effective way to produce all the components for a small assembly, but all parts must be made from the same plastic material.

After the T1 samples are approved, our standard production lead time is typically 2-4 weeks. This can be faster for smaller runs or expedited if requested.

While we are primarily a manufacturing partner, we have a network of trusted industrial design partners. We can connect you with a qualified designer to help turn your idea into a manufacturable 3D model.

A cold runner is a channel that is cooled with the part and ejected each cycle, creating plastic waste. A hot runner system keeps the plastic molten right up to the part, eliminating waste and often enabling faster cycle times, though the mold is more expensive.

DFM stands for Design for Manufacturability. It’s an analysis where our engineers check your design for features that could cause problems during molding. We offer it for free because it’s in everyone’s best interest to identify and fix issues before the steel is cut.

We are flexible. For prototype runs, we can go as low as 100 parts. For production, we are most cost-effective at volumes of 1,000 parts or more, but we will quote any quantity you need.

We use a color spectrophotometer to verify that the molded part’s color matches your specified Pantone, RAL, or physical sample. We provide color chips for approval before launching mass production.

Yes, absolutely. We have extensive experience with glass-filled resins like GF-Nylon and PC. These materials are abrasive, so we use hardened steel molds to ensure tool longevity.

We guarantee the lifetime of our production molds for a specific number of shots (e.g., 500,000 shots). If the mold wears out before reaching its guaranteed lifetime, we will repair or replace it at our own cost.

We prefer 3D CAD files in STEP (.stp, .step) format for the most accurate quote. We also accept IGS (.igs, .iges), X_T, and native SolidWorks (.sldprt) files.