The industry floor for a stock-mould airless pump bottle from China is about 10,000 pieces per item, against roughly 500 for a plain stock bottle, because the piston, pump group and body are separate sub-assemblies. Screen print or hot stamp barely moves that floor; a sprayed sleeve adds a 2,000–5,000 per shape spray minimum; a private mould means 10,000–30,000 pieces plus RMB 25,000–70,000 (≈ USD 3,500–9,700) per component tool. Factory-gate lead time is 20–30 days for stock, 30–45 days with decoration, and 90–120 days for a full private-mould programme. Multiply any quote by 1.3 and add 15 days across Chinese New Year.
Why airless does not follow the low-MOQ rules
A stock bottle is one part off one machine, so a partner factory holding the mould can run 500 pieces. An airless bottle is different in kind. It is a body, an inner piston and a pump group of roughly eleven parts (actuator, stem, collar, gasket, closure, seal, spring, housing and so on), usually with an outer cap or decorative sleeve on top. Each sub-assembly comes off its own line, each line has to be set up for your order, and the pump group in particular arrives from a sub-supplier with its own minimum.
That is why the published floor for airless sits where it does. Of the nine suppliers whose public minimums we track on the MOQ index, one publishes "10,000 pieces per design" for custom airless jars and most others publish 5,000–10,000 per item. Through partner factories already tooled for the format the number does not fall much: the indicative floor is about 10,000 pieces per item, with lower runs only where a factory holds assembled stock. Any quote promising 500 custom airless bottles deserves a hard look at what "custom" means.
MOQ by route
The minimum is set by how much of the bottle is made for you. Read the table per component, because a sprayed sleeve, a plated collar and a moulded body are three different set-ups with three different floors, and the highest one applies.
| Route | Indicative minimum | Tooling | What sets the floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock mould, stock colour, undecorated | Industry floor ~10,000 pcs per item; occasionally lower from assembled stock | None | Piston and pump sub-assemblies from separate lines |
| Stock mould + screen print / hot stamp | ~10,000 pcs; print adds almost nothing | Screen or foil plate (trivial) | Same as above; ≈ USD 0.014 per print colour, ≈ USD 0.055 per hot-stamp design |
| Stock mould + sprayed custom colour or metallised sleeve | 10,000 pcs, and 2,000–5,000 per shape for the spray line — the higher applies | Colour-matching set-up per shape | Spray line set up and cleaned for your tone alone; ≈ USD 0.07–0.15 per piece |
| Stock mould + electroplated collar or cap | ~10,000 pcs — this floor does not move | Racking only | Plating line configured for your tone; below 10,000 most plants stock black and white only |
| Stock mould + moulded-in custom colour | 5,000–10,000 pcs on top of the item floor | Masterbatch | Full material changeover and purge on the moulding line |
| Private mould (your own body / sleeve shape) | Typical partner-factory range 10,000–30,000 pcs on the first run | RMB 25,000–70,000 ≈ USD 3,500–9,700 per component tool; an airless set is several tools | Steel cut for your shape; paid 30/40/30; rated 800,000 cycles; owned by the brand |
Two things follow from the table. Put a tight budget into the printed mark, not a bespoke colour or plated cap. And treat decoration as one programme: six SKUs of 2,000 sharing one metallised finish present the chamber with 12,000 pieces, clearing a threshold none clears alone. That logic is worked through in matching a collection across formats.
Lead time by route, at the factory gate
All figures below are factory-gate days for partner factories under normal load, after order review and with a signed golden sample. Sampling comes first and sits outside the production figure: 7–10 days for a stock sample, 2–4 weeks for a decorated one.
| Route | Factory-gate lead time | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Stock airless, undecorated | 20–30 days | Piston and pump sub-assemblies come from separate lines and are assembled after moulding |
| Stock + screen print / hot stamp | 20–30 days + 5–7 days | Print runs after moulding; plates take 2–3 days |
| Stock + sprayed sleeve or custom colour | 30–40 days for the spray, partly parallel; 30–45 days total | Spray and metallising are usually sub-contracted; metallising ≈ 6 h per chamber cycle plus queue |
| Stock + electroplated collar / cap | 25–40 days including the plating queue | Plating sub-contractors close first in environmental inspection weeks (Nov–Mar) |
| Private mould | Mould 45–60 days; brief → mass production 90–120 days | Plan launch 5–6 months from brief; the tool needs DFM sign-off before the 40% payment |
| Buffer rule (all routes) | Quoted cycle × 1.3; +15 days across Chinese New Year (6 Feb 2027) | Then sea 18–25 days to US West Coast, 30–35 to Northern Europe, 20–25 to Australia; +5–10 days clearance each end |
Worked example. A 30 ml stock PP airless, screen-printed, 10,000 pieces: 25 days production + 6 days print = 31 days quoted, × 1.3 = 40 days committed. Confirmed in the second week of January it touches Chinese New Year, so 40 + 15 = 55 days ex-works, then 18–25 days on the water to Los Angeles and 5–10 days at each end. Realistically that is stock in a US warehouse in late April. The same order confirmed by the first week of December ships before the holiday. The full ten-node model behind these figures is on the China production calendar, and the sixteen-format table is on the lead time index.
Private mould: when the maths works
A private airless mould is RMB 25,000–70,000 (≈ USD 3,500–9,700) per component, and an airless set is several components: body, sleeve, cap, sometimes the piston. Budget USD 10,000–25,000 for a full set, paid 30/40/30 with the 40% tied to design sign-off, rated for about 800,000 cycles, owned by the brand and held in custody by the partner factory. Over a first run of 10,000–30,000 pieces that is USD 0.35–2.50 of tooling per bottle before amortisation. The mould earns its place when a proprietary shape is the brand's signature or annual volume is heading well past the first run; below that, a stock body with a sprayed sleeve and a printed mark reads as custom at a tenth of the tooling. The eight cost lines behind a mould quote, and the ownership clauses to write in, are on mould cost and ownership.
Reading an airless quote
- Per component, not per bottle. Ask whether the 10,000 applies to the body, the pump, the sleeve and the cap separately, and whether they come from one plant or three.
- Assembled or loose. An airless quoted loose leaves you assembling a piston and pump group on your filling line; confirm assembled and tested.
- Which lead time. "25 days" usually means node 7 of ten. Ask for the date after order review, with the buffer, and whether sampling is inside it.
- Which tests. The numbers a partner factory should sign against are the −0.08 MPa / 15 min leak test, ≤8 priming strokes, dose within ±15% per stroke and ≥1,500 actuations; see why airless bottles fail QC and the airless and pump specifications.
Before any deposit, run the supplier through how to evaluate a China packaging supplier; the inspection gates that apply to the run are on our QC standards page.
Where this sits in a skincare range
Airless earns its cost when the formula is oxygen-sensitive (vitamin C, retinol, peptides). For a thin serum or oil that does not need a pump, a dropper bottle starts at about 500 pieces and 7–10 days from stock. Planned together, the range shares one decoration programme and one calendar — see skincare packaging solutions; formats and finishes for the airless line are on the airless bottles page.
Vella is a Guangzhou-based beauty packaging solutions provider, a sourcing partner that routes each component to vetted partner factories operating to ISO 22716 / GMP, quotes the stock, decorated and private-mould routes side by side with the real minimum per component, and commits to the buffered date rather than the factory-gate one.
Common questions
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