The Cost Stack Behind a Casting Price
Start with finished casting weight, then add gating, risers and runners to get pour weight. Divide finished weight by pour weight to get yield, which for sand castings often lands somewhere between 40 and 75 percent depending on geometry and alloy. Metal cost is pour weight times melt cost per pound, including melt loss, alloy additions and the energy to hold and pour.
Then add molding labor or mold line time, core making, shakeout, cleaning room hours (grinding, cut-off, blast), inspection, heat treat, machining, and freight. Last comes tooling: pattern, core boxes and fixtures amortized across expected volume. The estimator's real skill is knowing which of these lines is wrong on this particular part.
- Finished weight, pour weight and yield percentage drive metal cost
- Molding method matters: green sand, no-bake, shell, investment, lost foam, permanent mold
- Cleaning room hours are the most underestimated line on complex castings
- Outside processing such as heat treat, impregnation and plating is quoted separately and passed through
Where Quotes Go Wrong
The common failure is quoting the first good casting rather than the average casting. If a job runs at 8 percent scrap on the pattern shop's trial but the quote assumed 3 percent, every unit sold carries a hidden loss. Other repeat offenders: ignoring the extra core count a thin wall requires, forgetting that chaplets, chills and pads change both yield and cleaning time, using a single melt cost for ductile iron, gray iron and steel, and missing minimum lot charges on short runs where setup on the mold line dominates.
Another is stale labor rates: the cleaning room rate quoted two years ago may be nowhere near current wages. A quote is only as good as the actuals feeding it.
Using Historical Actuals Instead of Memory
Your ERP or job system already holds the answer: actual pour weights, scrap by defect code, labor hours by work center, and tooling cost per part number. The estimator's problem is finding similar jobs fast. If your system is JobBOSS, E2 Shop System, Global Shop Solutions, Epicor, Infor SyteLine or a foundry-specific package, the similar-part search is usually a manual filter on part family or customer.
A retrieval layer can instead match on alloy, weight band, molding method and geometry notes, then surface the three closest past jobs with actual cost per pound, actual yield and actual scrap, each with a link back to the source record.
- Pull actual yield, not theoretical yield, from the last runs of similar parts
- Show scrap rate by defect code for the closest comparable jobs
- Show actual cleaning and finishing hours per casting
- Flag when a customer's last quote was won or lost and at what price
Try it here, free
Casting Cost Per Piece and Quote Price Estimator
Build a casting quote from as-cast weight, casting yield, melt loss, metal and process cost, scrap rate and pattern amortization, with a yield sensitivity sweep.
What an AI Quoting Assistant Drafts
A private AI assistant reads the RFQ package: the print, the notes on alloy and specification (ASTM A48, A536, A216, A356 or customer spec), the inspection requirements such as radiography or dye penetrant, and the annual usage. It extracts those requirements with citations to the page, finds comparable historical jobs, and drafts a cost buildup with every line traceable to a source. The estimator reviews, adjusts, and approves.
Nothing writes back to the ERP without a human click. Because castings drawings often come from defense, energy or medical customers, running the model on your own hardware keeps the drawings inside your boundary.
When This Is Not Worth It
If you quote fewer than a handful of new castings a month, or most of your volume is repeat part numbers with stable pricing, a well-kept spreadsheet and a disciplined estimator are enough. The payoff shows up when RFQ volume exceeds estimator capacity, when quotes wait days before anyone opens them, or when the person who knows the cleaning room best is about to retire. Start by measuring quote turnaround and the gap between quoted and actual cost on your last twenty jobs.
If that gap is small and turnaround is fast, you do not have a quoting problem.
Frequently asked questions
How do foundries calculate the price of a casting?
Most calculate pour weight times melt cost per pound, add molding, core, cleaning and finishing labor, add outside processing and inspection, then amortize tooling over expected volume and apply overhead and margin. Yield and scrap assumptions are the biggest swing factors, so good shops base them on actual history rather than theory.
What yield should I assume when quoting sand castings?
It depends on geometry, alloy and gating design, and sand castings commonly fall in a wide band from roughly 40 to 75 percent. Do not guess from a rule of thumb. Pull actual pour weight versus finished weight from your last runs of similar parts and use that.
Can AI replace the casting estimator?
No, and it should not. It can read the RFQ, find comparable jobs and draft a buildup, but a person who understands gating, shrink and the cleaning room should review every number before a price goes out. The gain is hours saved on searching and data entry.
Should I quote tooling separately from piece price?
Usually yes, especially when the customer owns the pattern or die. Separate tooling lets the customer see what they are buying, keeps piece price comparable across suppliers, and avoids burying a tooling write-off inside a unit price if volume falls short.
If your estimator spends days finding comparable castings and pulling actual yield, we can show a private pilot that drafts the buildup from your own job history for review.