How Many Pins Should I Order?
We get asked this question a lot, and it really comes down to your budget and current ability to sell products. If you are new to making pins or producing products, it probably won’t make sense to get 500 of a pin, or even 200. But if you have been selling items for a while and sell at a lot of events, 200 or 500 can be a great way to reduce your pin per cost and raise your profits. We have pricing listed at the factory breaks on the site, but you are not locked into those tiers only- you can also order 150, 275, 350, etc. (We’ll let you know if you’re super close to a price break!)
For most people starting out, 100 is the sweet spot and a great balance of cost and profits.
You can order 50 pins if you’d like, but generally it does not make a lot of financial sense to do unless you really only need 50 for an event or are unsure that there will be demand for a product and want to test the waters. We set our minimum order quantity (MOQ) at 50, because while the factory will technically make less an 50 of a design, they’d charge as if you ordered 50, so there’s no reason to do that. They need to price based off of labor time and making 25 and 50 takes virtually the same amount of labor.
The way I (Greg) always approach it is to look at the break even point and balance that with my own selling experience. The median price people sell pins for is $10, so it makes the math really easy to figure out. How many pins do I need to sell to break even? You can price your pins at whatever you like, but $10 is easy to calculate.
Here is an example of a simple 2 color black dye pin, to give you an example. Pricing listed on our site includes US shipping and there are never any surprise fees, making it easy to do these calculations.
50 qty: $195 (sell 20 to break even/ 30 additional for profits - $305 profit after selling out)
100 qty: $235 (sell 24 to break even/ 76 additional for profits - $765 profit after selling out)
As you can see, you only need to sell 4 more pins to break even on 100 as on 50, and will have more pins leftover to sell just for profit. This makes 100qty a great starting point.
200 qty: $340 (sell 34 to break even/ 166 additional for profits - $1660 profit after selling out)
500 qty: $575 (sell 58 to break even/ 442 additional for profits - $4425 profit after selling out)
1000 qty: $790 (sell 79 to break even/ 921 additional for profits - $9210 profit after selling out)
We often get asked what it could cost to order 50 now and re-order 50 more later, so I will show the pricing of 50 2x vs 100 upfront using this same kind of design.
50 first time = $195
50 second time = $145 ($50 off because the mold has already been made)
Total investment = $340
100 first time = $235
So if you can spring the extra $40 upfront, you could ultimately save $105.
While you do save some money on a reprint, the cost to ship 50 pins from China vs 100 is about the same, so you are basically paying for two shipments instead of one. In fact, that’s where a large part of the volume discount comes from- shipping things all together is much cheaper than shipping them in smaller batches.
Although this pricing breakdown is based off of a 2 color soft enamel pin with black dye plating, the principle holds for any style of pin. In short: it makes sense to get as many as you think you can sell! And of course, if you only need 50 pins, that’s completely okay! We just can’t help telling everyone about a good bulk bargain <wink>
