Is it my fault or is JLCPCB overly pedantic when they say these are two designs?

[kellogs]

My first order with them was on August 2020, have had 7 designs similar to OP's in prototyping quantities / small runs until December, roughly the same design with minor variations. I got charged for just 1 design. Today, on the 8th order, for roughly the same design, they said it was two designs. They have just confirmed by email the rules have not changed... Not an extra lot charged, it still is a bargain, but I wonder for how much longer. Also I do not recall a Paypal fee of 0.5$ during previous checkouts.

[Dubbie]

I don’t have any way of proving I am right, but I suspect that this rule is in place to weed out cheapskates who are never likely to convert into profitable customers. From where I am sitting, it looks like it is working well 😁

[phil from seattle]

At the risk of rehashing this.  They get to set the rules.  I don't recall the added cost being that high though the one I got rejected was an assembly job.  I chose not to go forward though.

I believe a tech reviews each order and can choose to accept or reject. So, ones that got through were just luck.  I think you can combine two orders for one shipping.  Shipping is the bulk of the cost so why worry about 2 or 4 extra bucks?

[Matt-Brown]

The board houses we use would easily do any muliple designs on one panel with no extra charge.
The only thing I hate about having mutiliple on one, is that if one board is bad, then you have to build a whole set again in order to get that one (bare panel, not parts). So you scvrap the other boards on the panel.
Muti boards per panel are fine for very small qtys, but cost adds up when you get to volume.

[ejeffrey]

THe real problem is that the pricing model does not match the manufacturing costs.  ANd since they all largely do it, they all can get away with it.

If one did it, they all would do it very quickly.       If the market demanded it, and had enough momentum it woudl happen. but I suspect it might also cauase an overall increase in basic costs.

If the pricing model matched manufacturing costs you would be paying more.  These ~$5 boards are loss leaders to get customers.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Well, you have to draw the line somewhere. In this case, there are two of them in the top-right.