Odd JLCPCB pricing

[Microdoser]

So I needed to order 3 prototype board designs, 5 of each. I uploaded the Gerbers and for each set of 5 it gave me a price of £7.78 including taxes and delivery. When I went to the checkout, If there was any deviation from that price I expected a slight reduction in shipping, but the total price was £26.84, £3.50 more than adding up each individual cost, and was actually £8.95 per board.
 
I removed 2 of the boards from the checkout and the individual price was back at £7.78. Naturally, I made 3 individual orders and got all the boards for £23.34, £7.78 each.
 
If you buy boards from JLCPCB, I thought you'd be interested to know this.

[DavidAlfa]

The offer is applied only to the first order.
I make different orders (+shipping) for each PCB, that way it's $2 (pcb) +$2 (Global standard shipping) = ~$4.

[Microdoser]

The offer is applied only to the first order.
I make different orders (+shipping) for each PCB, that way it's $2 (pcb) +$2 (Global standard shipping) = ~$4.

The board price stayed the same, it was the postage that increased

[DavidAlfa]

First order pcb is $2, further ones are $4, shipping is pretty much the same with few cents difference?

- 1 order:  PCB $2, shipping $1.5 = $3.5
- 2 orders: PCB $2 + $4, shipping $1.5 = $7.5
- 3 orders: PCB $2 + $4 + $4, shipping $1.5 = $11.5
- 4 orders: PCB $2 + $4 + $4 +$4, shipping $1.5 = $15.5
- 5 orders: PCB $2 + $4 + $4 + $4 + $4, shipping $1.5 = $19.5

- If you make 5 separate orders, it'll be $18.

Then import fees do apply, Europe applies VAT for all outside-EU imports, it's 21% in Spain.

If your board is larger than 100x100mm, then there's no special offer!

[Microdoser]

First order pcb is $2, further ones are $4, shipping is pretty much the same with few cents difference?

- 1 order:  PCB $2, shipping $1.5 = $3.5
- 2 orders: PCB $2 + $4, shipping $1.5 = $7.5
- 3 orders: PCB $2 + $4 + $4, shipping $1.5 = $11.5
- 4 orders: PCB $2 + $4 + $4 +$4, shipping $1.5 = $15.5
- 5 orders: PCB $2 + $4 + $4 + $4 + $4, shipping $1.5 = $19.5

- If you make 5 separate orders, it'll be $18.

Then import fees do apply, Europe applies VAT for all outside-EU imports, it's 21% in Spain.

If your board is larger than 100x100mm, then there's no special offer!

This is what was strange, the board price remained the same (one board £5.34, three different board designs £16.02), and while shipping for one design, 5 boards, was £1.37, shipping for three board designs was £7.62, £2.11 per set of 5 boards, these prices include taxes. Without taxes shipping for one board is £1.14, and three is £6.34, that's an 84% increase in shipping costs compared to ordering them individually but no increase in board costs...

I hoped they would have used your maths, where subsequent boards might cost more, but shipping was essentially flat.

[Solder_Junkie]

I have had a few sets of boards made by JLCPCB recently and also find that prices appear to change in mysterious ways. I have only had small quantities made for home assembly.

Examples of “tweaks” worth trying include:

Change the board colour (“non green” colours take 2 days longer).

Switch between lead/tin and lead free, or vice versa, at least for home use being lead free isn’t an issue.

A set of 2 x 5 boards can sometimes work out cheaper than 1 x 10 (even allowing for postage).

Use as small a board size as practical, also let them cut boards to size, there is no advantage in having “snap out” board sets if home assembling (might be different for commercial assembly).

Reduce the number of vias if you are simply joining large areas on each side of a board to carry more current. 50 on a small board made no difference, 100+ did push up the cost a lot.

My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that small numbers of small boards can be arranged among batches of other boards, making for economies of scale. JLCPCB work with boards around 500mm square, then cut them out.

Trying various colour options is fairly quick, although unless you have endless patience changing the board size or deleting vias can be tedious.

Using the cheapest delivery to the UK, cost 3.85 GBP for 5 purple coloured boards 71 x 49mm, including PayPal surcharges, carriage and pre-paid 20% vat. That was a few days ago. Yet an earlier order for 5 green coloured boards 47 x 12mm cost 7.20 GBP! Bizarre isn’t it.

Expensive combinations to avoid are yellow boards with lead free pads, over ten times the cost of a green board (when checked a moment ago, it may change tomorrow).

For those wondering about shipping details, using their cheapest option seems to involve sending a batch of boxes via air freight from Hong Kong to London, then posting them via Royal Mail 48 hour tracked delivery. From uploading the zip file to the postie handing me the package takes around 10 to 12 days.

SJ

[David Aurora]

My checkout price almost never matches the first price I see. It also seems to change by the minute.

I literally just loaded up a file and got a quote of roughly $9 for the boards and $18 for the shipping. By the time I made it to the checkout page the total was $39. No extra charges present, just the board/shipping prices had jumped since the previous page.

I cleared the order, went back to the first order page and now I get a quote of roughly $13 for the exact same boards with same options and $26 for shipping (exact same service). This was within the space of 5 minutes.

Feels like this is the case every damn time. Other than that I've been happy with JLCPCB, but yeah, this annoys the hell out of me as I never have the slightest clue what the end price will be. It's not so bad for a tiny order like the one above, but if I'm grabbing a bunch of boards it can change a lot

[David Aurora]

Actually wait, the numbers I just got looked very close to what I'd expect from USD exchange, and that's precisely it.

Even though my account is set to AUD, it seems that it's actually displaying USD until I get to the payment page and then it finally converts. Then when I go back or add more to the order it will display properly.

[fourfathom]

Actually wait, the numbers I just got looked very close to what I'd expect from USD exchange, and that's precisely it.

Thanks for posting this.  I've recently put a lot of small jobs through JLCPCB and was wondering about the price variability.  I've been happy with the results (both bare PCB and some assy jobs).

[themadhippy]

Also,once you've tuned the price, check your account for discount codes,my last order dropped to   around  £2 from around £9 after i found the discount coupon thingy

[ArdWar]

If your board is larger than 100x100mm, then there's no special offer!

The actual limit is 102x102mm by the way, or exactly 4000x4000mil. Might come in handy if you don't want to make a board with odd mechanical spacing and just need that extra tiny bit.

Likewise the limit for 4 layer board is 51x51mm, or exactly 2000x2000mil

[nigelwright7557]

The postage costs go up as well when you add more pcb's.

[JLCPCB Official]

Hello and thank you for sharing this topic! We have an exciting $2 special offer that applies to one design per order. If you're combining several designs to be shipped together, the special offer will only be applied to the first design added to your cart. For any additional designs, the standard pricing will be used.
To provide a clear example, let's say you upload the same design three times to the cart. The $2 special offer will be applied to the first uploaded design, while the subsequent designs will be calculated at the standard price, as it shows the attached image.
For more details and assistance, please feel free to reach out to our dedicated support team at support@jlcpcb.com.

[JLCPCB Official]

Get more coupons for your JLCPCB order https://jlcpcb.com/coupon-center?from=WUELQNNBAABSVL

[Microdoser]

Amazing, even JLCPCB themselves have missed the actual point, which is THE BOARD PRICE STAYED THE SAME, at £5.34 before tax per set of 5 boards, and it was the shipping per item that increased as the number of items increased ending up 80% higher per item to have it shipped (even though all three could fit into a single standard box size they send boards in)

[themadhippy]

as the number of items increased ending up 80% higher per item to have it shipped (even though all three could fit into a single standard box size they send boards in)

yea right on ,the parcels 3  times heavier  why do i need to pay more

[DavidAlfa]

The actual limit is 102x102mm by the way, or exactly 4000x4000mil.

Great to know, I had to make dark rituals to panelize some PCBs,because they would only fit in 101x100mm, and even with the goat head and the candles I had  to remove 3 PCBs in the end!

[Infraviolet]

"So I needed to order 3 prototype board designs..."
I'll just throw this thought in here, especially as JLCPCB's eevblog account has commented here:
When one is in this situation, wouldn't it be nice if JLC would let you place an order for just one or two copies of each design, rather than minimum 5 per design. Perhaps with a higher price per board, but still cheaper than you'd get for having 5 copies made when you know you're only going to need one.

[DavidAlfa]

And if you make a panel combining several designs the price will skyrocket, why so when it's a pcb after all?
So I have to order 5x5=25 PCBs for testing 5 designs which I only need 2/each and could fit in a single 100x100 panel.

[thm_w]

"So I needed to order 3 prototype board designs..."
I'll just throw this thought in here, especially as JLCPCB's eevblog account has commented here:
When one is in this situation, wouldn't it be nice if JLC would let you place an order for just one or two copies of each design, rather than minimum 5 per design. Perhaps with a higher price per board, but still cheaper than you'd get for having 5 copies made when you know you're only going to need one.

They drill 5 stacked PCB's at a time, so unless they completely change the process flow to handle single panels it won't work. This has been discussed before.
Thats not to say it will never happen, but, on $2 2 layer PCB's I can't see it happening. Maybe on a more premium board?

[Microdoser]

as the number of items increased ending up 80% higher per item to have it shipped (even though all three could fit into a single standard box size they send boards in)

yea right on ,the parcels 3  times heavier  why do i need to pay more

80% more PER ITEM. I ended up making three separate orders and spending far less in total. Instead of paying 3 times the postage price (which I happily paid), they wanted nearly 6 times the price for three items. I fully expected to pay more, maybe even up to three times the individual price, but not 5.4 times the price.

[Solder_Junkie]

And if you make a panel combining several designs the price will skyrocket, why so when it's a pcb after all?
So I have to order 5x5=25 PCBs for testing 5 designs which I only need 2/each and could fit in a single 100x100 panel.

There is nothing to stop you taking your business elsewhere. I checked several European board manufacturers and they were all many times the cost of JLCPCB. While I am just a hobby user of their services, I cannot complain about the quality, cost or delivery.

SJ

[Microdoser]

And if you make a panel combining several designs the price will skyrocket, why so when it's a pcb after all?
So I have to order 5x5=25 PCBs for testing 5 designs which I only need 2/each and could fit in a single 100x100 panel.

There is nothing to stop you taking your business elsewhere. I checked several European board manufacturers and they were all many times the cost of JLCPCB. While I am just a hobby user of their services, I cannot complain about the quality, cost or delivery.

SJ

Neither can I. I've also checked other board manufacturers and found them to be the cheapest. I can't comment on the quality of other board makers, but the boards I got from JLCPCB were fine and delivered in the time frame they said they would be. Often, the price for 5 boards is far less than the price of a single board from other manufacturers and while I usually just need 1, having more means I can 'destructively adapt' some of them to test out future changes. Also, they make acceptable tech themed cup coasters.

[Infraviolet]

"They drill 5 stacked PCB's at a time"
Suddenly it all makes sense, thanks.

[westfw]

that's an 84% increase in shipping costs

I believe that there's a special "small package" shipping rate from China, and the 5-board 100mm deal is carefully designed to skirt in under that weight.
The same thing happens (or did happen) with domestic shipping, at least in the US.  You could mail small enough packages up to 8oz or so at the first class postage rate ($0.66/oz), and then it jumps to the 1lb rate ($7.xxx) (or "flat rate" boxes @$8.55)


It might be nice if they would divide up your "big order into smaller packages if that makes things cheaper, but  that's asking a lot, IMO.

[Microdoser]

that's an 84% increase in shipping costs

I believe that there's a special "small package" shipping rate from China, and the 5-board 100mm deal is carefully designed to skirt in under that weight.
The same thing happens (or did happen) with domestic shipping, at least in the US.  You could mail small enough packages up to 8oz or so at the first class postage rate ($0.66/oz), and then it jumps to the 1lb rate ($7.xxx) (or "flat rate" boxes @$8.55)


It might be nice if they would divide up your "big order into smaller packages if that makes things cheaper, but  that's asking a lot, IMO.

That makes sense. It would be a very trivial task to alter the purchase code to send them out individually by making each order a separate order, though. I'll just remember to order one, then the next, then the next in future.

[Chris56000]

I sent the Gerber Files for a Lightning Detector System to JLC and they analyzed it as four separate designs even though it had been "panelized", and they asked for an £18 "multi–design" supplement!

It worked out a lot cheaper to pay the £18 supplement than try to re–work the design file into four separate boards and pay four lots of postage, import tax and VAT, etc., etc!

Chris Williams

[nigelwright7557]

The last thing I would complain about is JLCPCB pricing.
I have done around 500 different designs with them and they are the cheapest I have found.
If I bought in from the UK they would be many times the price.

[Microdoser]

I'm not complaining, I'm saying it's odd.

[asmi]

I'm not complaining, I'm saying it's odd.

Their business - their rules. Don't like 'em - take your business elsewhere. I for one is eternally thankful to JLCPCB for giving me access to technologies which I could only dream of before - like making five 15x12 cm 10 layer impedance controlled PCBs with via in a pad for just over $200. Before them such tech would be way beyond my price range. And in general for constantly pushing the envelope of what's accessible to hobbyists at great prices.

[Microdoser]

Again, I'm not saying I don't like their prices, I'm not complaining, I'm saying they are odd.

Why do people want to turn this into some sort of argument?

[vk4ffab]

I'm not complaining, I'm saying it's odd.

Not a great deal odd about it, its all about weight when it comes to air freight and the relationship to price is not linear. There are heavy discounts out of China on less than 500 grams, but over that you pay the regular rate. If all you are doing are 100mm boards, then individual orders works out way cheaper, but if you are doing larger boards, bigger orders are much cheaper. My last order 5 different designs, largest board was 260x160mm those 5 boards are 800g and $37 shipping, 20 boards $67 for 3Kg.

[Smokey]

I noticed that because my stencil didn't fit in the same box as the boards, the shipping almost doubled because they shipped it in two boxes.

[fourfathom]

I noticed that because my stencil didn't fit in the same box as the boards, the shipping almost doubled because they shipped it in two boxes.

To reduce the shipping charges you can request a smaller stencil (if that works for you.)  There is an option for this.