Total Cost of Ownership

Compare offshore vs. domestic plastic injection molding cost.

Piece price tells you what a part costs. Total cost of ownership tells you what a program costs. Enter your numbers below to see the difference.

Your Program

Adjust the assumptions to match your situation. Results recalculate as you type.

Annual Volume units / year

Total units purchased per year across all variants of this part.

Offshore Piece Price USD per unit

Current FOB price from your offshore supplier (before tariffs and freight).

Domestic Piece Price (UPM Quote) USD per unit

Quoted piece price from UPM. If you don’t have one yet, estimate at 20–35% above your offshore price.

Tariff / Duty Rate % of FOB price

Section 301 tariffs on Chinese-origin plastic categories typically range from 7.5% to 25%, with select goods higher. Adjust for your specific HTS classification.

Freight & Logistics % of FOB price

Ocean freight, customs brokerage, drayage, and handling. Typically 3–7% of FOB price.

Offshore Inventory Buffer months on hand

Safety stock you must hold to cover offshore lead times. Typical transpacific programs require 4–5 months. Domestic programs at UPM typically require ~1 month.

Your Current Supply Chain Stress 1 = no concerns · 10 = constant firefighting

Soft assessment, not part of the dollar calculation. Used in the comparison below.

Annual Cost Difference

Difference between offshore and UPM total annual cost.

Working capital freed up $0

Annual TCO Comparison

Offshore

UPM

Per-unit cost	Offshore	UPM
Loaded price	$0.00	$0.00
Inventory carrying cost	$0.00	$0.00
TCO per unit	$0.00	$0.00

Beyond the financials: UPM customers consistently report dramatically lower supply chain stress vs. offshore arrangements.

7 You

2 UPM

This is 3 of 18 TCO factors.

Quality cost, IP exposure, tooling capex amortization, supplier failure risk, currency exposure, and other dimensions often shift the picture further. Request a full TCO deep dive with UPM’s team to model your complete cost structure.

Request a TCO Deep Dive →

How this calculation works. Loaded price for offshore = piece price × (1 + tariff% + freight%). Loaded price for domestic = piece price (no import overhead). Inventory carrying cost = piece price × 25% annual carrying rate × (months on hand / 12). TCO per unit = loaded price + inventory carrying cost. Annual cost = TCO per unit × annual volume. Working capital freed up = (offshore piece price × annual volume / 12) × (offshore buffer months − 1 month). UPM domestic buffer is assumed at 1 month based on 2–3 week post-tooling lead times. This model accounts for 3 of 18 TCO factors and does not include quality cost, IP exposure, tooling capex amortization, travel, communication overhead, currency risk, supplier failure cost, demurrage, or other dimensions that typically shift TCO further toward domestic production.

Your Program

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