PM Cost

Cost Per Sintered Part: How to Quote Powder Metallurgy Work

Break down what actually drives cost per sintered part and how to build a quote that survives an audit, from powder cost to tooling amortization.

Material is 40 to 60% of a sintered part's cost, so start there and get the fill weight right. At $2.20/kg for water-atomized iron premix and a 24.6 g fill weight, raw powder is $0.054 per part before loss. Add 2 to 3% unrecoverable loss and the material line is closer to $0.056. Alloying pushes this fast: 2% copper at $9/kg or 0.8% graphite is minor, but a 0.5% Ni-Mo prealloy or stainless base can triple the powder cost to $6 to $8/kg. Price the exact premix, not a base-iron placeholder, or you underquote by 20% on alloyed jobs.

Press labor and machine time are quoted per stroke, not per hour in isolation. A single-level part on a 60-tonne mechanical press runs 12 to 20 strokes/min; at 15 strokes/min and an $85/hr loaded press-plus-operator rate, that is $85 / 900 strokes = $0.094 per part. Multi-level parts on CNC presses run slower, 6 to 10 strokes/min, and carry a $120 to $160/hr rate, so compaction alone can hit $0.20 to $0.35. Feed your real stroke rate and cell rate into Cost Per Sintered Part; guessing 20 strokes/min when you run 12 inflates margin by a third.

Furnace energy is a real line item, not overhead you can wave away. A continuous belt furnace at 1120 C with endogas draws 90 to 160 kW plus atmosphere gas. At 130 kW, $0.11/kWh, and 1,200 parts/hr, energy is 130 x 0.11 / 1200 = $0.012 per part, before the nitrogen or endothermic gas at another $0.005 to $0.015. Run Furnace Energy Cost against your actual belt loading, because a half-loaded furnace doubles per-part energy instantly. Sintering higher alloys at 1250 C in a pusher furnace can push energy past $0.04 per part.

Tooling amortization decides whether short runs are profitable. A compaction tool set runs $8,000 to $60,000 depending on levels and complexity; amortize over the committed or realistic lifetime volume, not the tool's mechanical life. A $25,000 tool over a 250,000-part program is $0.10 per part; over a 40,000-part order it is $0.625, which can exceed material cost. Tooling Amortization lets you show the customer the per-unit tooling line at each volume tier so a 3x price break at 500k parts is defensible instead of arbitrary.

Scrap multiplies every upstream cost, so apply it as a divisor, not an add-on. If yield is 96%, every cost incurred before the reject point divides by 0.96, adding about 4.2% to material, press, and pre-sinter handling. Late rejects hurt more: a part scrapped at final machining has absorbed powder, compaction, sintering, and machining, so a 3% final-inspection reject on a $0.90 part can add $0.027 to $0.03 per good part. Model scrap at the stage it occurs using Part Yield, because averaging it flat understates the cost of late failures.

Secondary operations quietly dominate on tight-tolerance parts. Repress or size operations add $0.03 to $0.08 per part; steam treat runs $0.10 to $0.25/kg of parts; oil impregnation is $0.01 to $0.03; machining a single feature to an IT7 bore can add $0.15 to $0.50. Deburr, tumble, and 100% gauging add labor most estimators forget. Build these as explicit lines, because a self-lubricating bushing quoted without oil impregnation and a bearing-grade gauging check is a quote you lose money on at volume.

Overhead and margin close the quote, and this is where estimates drift. Loaded rates should already carry building, maintenance, and QA; layering a second 15% overhead on top double-counts and prices you out. A clean stack for a mid-volume structural part often lands near $0.06 material, $0.10 press, $0.02 furnace, $0.10 tooling at that tier, $0.05 secondary, and $0.03 scrap, roughly $0.36 factory cost, then a target margin of 20 to 35%. Assemble the full stack in Cost Per Sintered Part so material, energy, tooling, and scrap are visible line items a buyer can challenge and you can defend.

Published 2026-07-01.