Recycled Product Cost Calculator

The calculator is accurate to within roughly 10% of real workshop production once you have settled into a stable batch rhythm. The biggest sources of variance are operator skill (a fast operator can beat the labour minutes by 20% or more) and recycled plastic price (which moves with the market). Use it for first-pass quoting and unit economics, then verify against your own production logs before you sign a customer contract.

No. The seven cost lines cover energy, labour, repairs, mould and machine depreciation, and recycled plastic. They do not include rent, insurance, accountancy fees, marketing, or packaging. Treat the unit cost as a "fully-burdened production cost", and add your own overhead margin (commonly 20% to 40%) on top before setting your retail price. The Workshop Setup guide on this site walks through how to size that overhead figure for a small workshop.

Yes, with a caveat. The "Design your own" custom card lets you set every parameter manually, so you can model a machine and mold combination that is not in the Sustainable Design Studio catalogue. The two machine cards are still the only options on the machine picker, so pick the one closest to your hardware (compact pneumatic = Injection Mini V2, larger floor-standing = Arbour Injection Machine V2) and adjust the import tax field upward if your machine cost is meaningfully different. For full custom hardware, contact the team directly.

An aluminium mould wears out by use, not by time. A mold sitting on a shelf is fine ten years from now, but one that has injected 10,000 shots is at the end of its life. The 10,000-cycle assumption matches the rated life of an aluminium Sustainable Design Studio Premium Mould in normal production. A 3D printed insert wears out far sooner (often under 100 injections), so for those products the calculator is conservative and the real per-product mould cost will be higher. If you have measured a different life for your own batch, use the custom card and divide your mould cost by the measured cycle count.

They are derived from internal Sustainable Design Studio workshop logs over four years of running pilot batches with the Injection Mini V2 and Arbour Injection Machine V2. Most aluminium moulds carry a 5% rate, which represents the early shots of any run that go to regrind. Sunglasses, Watch, Pen, and 3D Printed Insert Holder products carry 10% because the geometry is more demanding. The figure is approximate, treat it as a sensible ceiling for a first-time operator and reduce it as your batches stabilise.

The cost engine works in GBP. When you switch the display to EUR or USD, the calculator converts on display only, using the live ECB-backed rate from the Frankfurter API (loaded once on page open). If the network call fails the calculator falls back to indicative rates of EUR 1.18 and USD 1.28. All prices on the Sustainable Design Studio storefront are charged in GBP at checkout, so use the converted figures as guidance only, not as a binding quote.