Real minimum order quantities, by route.
MOQ is not one number — it is set by how much of the piece has to be made for you. Buy something that already exists and the minimum is low. Ask for your colour, your finish or your shape and it climbs, because a machine has to be set up and cleaned down for your order alone.
| Route | Realistic minimum | What that gets you |
|---|---|---|
| Stock component, undecorated | 500 pcs sometimes lower, by the carton | An existing bottle or jar in a stock colour — clear, white, black, amber. No printing. Fastest route to market and the cheapest per unit. |
| Stock component + screen-printed logo | 2,000 pcs | Your logo on a stock shape and colour. Printing set-up is a screen, which is inexpensive — the 2,000 comes from the decorating line, not the artwork. |
| Stock glass + sprayed custom colour | 2,000–5,000 pcs | Your colour on an existing shape. This is how almost all coloured cosmetic glass on shelf is actually made. |
| Moulded-in custom colour | 5,000–10,000 pcs | Colour through the material rather than on it. Requires a full material changeover and purge on the moulding line. |
| Electroplated, metallic or custom-colour closures gold, silver, champagne, chrome | 10,000 pcs | This is the threshold that surprises people most. Below 10,000, most factories stock closures in black and white only. Plating is a line that has to be set up for your tone alone. |
| Tubes (extruded to order) | 5,000–10,000 pcs | Tubes are not stocked the way jars are. Increasingly few tube factories will run 5,000 at all, so plan against 10,000. |
| Airless pump bottles | 10,000 pcs | Multi-component assemblies carry a higher floor than a simple bottle. Note: airless bottles exist only in plastic — the piston needs a wall with some compliance, so there is no glass airless. |
| New mould (your own shape) | 3,000–10,000 pcs plus tooling | Tooling for a closure runs roughly USD 3,000–10,000 as a one-off, and quotes vary by a factor of three between factories — always get three. |
| Folding cartons & rigid boxes | 2,000–5,000 pcs | Digital print reaches lower for simple folding cartons. Metallised board and speciality stock do not — below about 1,000 the printer cannot nest the sheet economically. |
| Labels | 500 pcs | The cheapest way to get colour and branding at low volume. For anything used in a shower, specify BOPP or PP synthetic film, not paper. |
| Shipping cartons | 100 pcs | Rarely the constraint. Dividers and inserts add a small tooling charge. |
What actually drives the number
The thresholds above are not arbitrary. Each one comes from a specific machine set-up that has to happen for your order alone, and the size of that set-up is what sets the floor. Knowing which is which lets you keep the parts of your design that are cheap and rethink only the parts that are expensive.
| Finish | What the set-up actually is | Effect on your minimum |
|---|---|---|
| Screen printing | A screen — made per colour, inexpensive, no tooling involved | Almost none printing is not what raises your MOQ |
| Hot stamping / foil | A die, cut once and reusable | Small — a modest one-off |
| Frosting | An acid-etch or sandblast pass on finished clear glass | Moderate |
| Sprayed colour | A spray line set up, run and cleaned down for your tone alone | Significant 2,000–5,000 pcs |
| Moulded-in colour | A full material changeover and purge on the moulding line | Large 5,000–10,000 pcs |
| Electroplating / metallic | A plating line configured for your specific tone | Largest 10,000 pcs |
| New mould | Steel cut for your shape | 3,000–10,000 pcs plus one-off tooling |
The practical consequence is worth sitting with: printing is cheap and colour is expensive. If your budget is tight, put it into the shape and the printed mark rather than into a bespoke colour or a plated cap — you will get a better-looking product at a fraction of the minimum.
Below 500 pieces, we are usually the wrong partner — and we would rather say so here than after an exchange of emails.
At that scale the freight from China outweighs the goods, and a packaging distributor in your own market who sells by the unit will serve you better, faster and cheaper. Buy a handful locally, get your photographs and your first customers, and come back when the volume is there. We will still be here.
Two ways to get under these numbers
The thresholds above are real, but they are not the whole story. There are two legitimate ways to land beneath them, and both are worth knowing before you compromise on your design.
Small quantities, without the usual compromises.
We tell you the number, then work under it
Every threshold in the table above is real. Our job is to find the route that lands your brief beneath it — stock shapes where they will do, a label instead of a sprayed colour, decoration batched across SKUs. Not to pretend the number does not exist.
Custom colour and print from 2,000
Most low-MOQ offers elsewhere are stock shapes in stock colours only. Because we work across a vetted factory network, a sprayed custom colour with a printed logo is reachable at 2,000 pieces per item — a fraction of what a single factory will quote you direct.
QC on every order — even small ones
Pre-shipment inspection is standard on every production run, whatever the size. A first order is often a brand’s first impression with its customers, so a small run gets the same check as a large one.
One relationship as you scale
No single Chinese factory makes bottles, jars, tubes, airless pumps and cartons well — those are five different manufacturing disciplines. Buying the range through one partner is what lets decoration be batched, colours be matched, and minimums be met together rather than five times over.
Twelve categories — and each has its own floor.
Every format below is available at low minimums. Pick a category to see specs, materials and options.
Frequently asked
Tell us your quantity — we'll find the low-MOQ route.
Share your format, target look and how many units you actually need to start. We come back within 24 hours with low-MOQ options and an indicative price.
Three things worth reading first.
- What eight China suppliers actually publish as their minimum order quantity — Dalica, Boyu, Gidea PAC, Topfeel Pack, UKPACK, Lisson, JingSourcing and Vella side by side, each figure quoted from that company’s own page. The published industry floor is 5,000–10,000 pieces per item, and this explains what moves it.
- Why a matched collection across bottles, jars and tubes is harder than it looks — a spray minimum attaches to the shape, not the colour, so six formats in one colour is six set-ups rather than one. Plus why two “white” components from the same brief can still fail to match.
- Sourcing partner, factory or trading company — which do you actually need? — eight questions that reveal which model a supplier really belongs to, including the honest case against using a sourcing partner at all.