What powder coating costs — and what actually drives the price

The first surprise on a coating quote: a thick, heavy bracket and a big thin panel can cost the same to coat, because powder coating is priced by the surface area the powder has to cover — both faces plus the edges — not by how much the part weighs. A small part with a lot of folded, hollow, many-holed surface can cost more to coat than a plain plate twice its size. So the number on the quote tracks the geometry, and a handful of choices around it move it up or down.

These are the levers behind every coating quote. Four of the five are design/ordering choices — which means most of the price is in your hands, not the coater’s.

A coating line spends real time on a colour change — purging the gun, swapping powder, cleaning down — and that setup gets charged whether you coat one part or a hundred. Ten brackets in the same RAL, coated in one run, share that setup; ten brackets in ten colours pay it ten times. So the single biggest thing you can do for the price is to standardise the colour across the job and order the coated parts together, not in dribs and drabs.

Any RAL is possible, but not every RAL is the same price. A colour the line already stocks goes straight on; a special-order RAL means buying powder in for the job, often with a minimum quantity, and any leftover is your cost. Finish matters too: a standard matt or fine texture is the baseline, while metallics, special effects and very high gloss cost more — the powder is dearer and the application is fussier. Texture also earns its keep by hiding minor surface marks, so a textured finish can save on prep.

Two costs hide below the colour. First, masking: any thread, bearing face, earth/ground point or mating surface that must stay paint-free is masked by hand before coating and cleaned after — it’s labour, and a part covered in masked features can cost more to prep than to coat. Design it out where you can (see the DFM note), or tell us exactly what must stay clean. Second, pre-treatment: an indoor part needs a basic clean, but an outdoor or corrosive-environment part needs a proper chemical pre-treatment (phosphate or nano-ceramic) for the coating to actually last — right-size it to where the part lives rather than paying for marine-grade prep on an indoor cabinet.

Over-specifying is a real cost. Match the spec to the part’s life — we’ll flag it if what you’ve asked for is more (or less) than the job needs.

None of these change what the part is — they change what it costs to finish it. Most of the saving is decided before the part is ever made.

1. 01 Standardise the colour One RAL across the job, coated in one run — the single biggest saving.
2. 02 Pick a stock RAL and a standard finish Skip the custom match and the metallic/special-effect powder unless the part truly needs them.
3. 03 Design out the masking Coat-then-tap threads, keep earth points to a defined pad, avoid paint-free faces where you can.
4. 04 Right-size the pre-treatment Don’t pay for outdoor/coastal prep on a part that lives in a dry cabinet.
5. 05 Order the coated parts together A full batch amortises the setup; trickle orders pay the colour-change each time.

Coating is one line on a fabrication quote here — we cut, fold, weld and finish, so you get one price and one delivery. To price the coating accurately alongside the metalwork, five things settle it.

1. 01 Quantity and part size How many, and roughly how big — area and batch size set most of the price.
2. 02 The colour (a RAL number) And whether it has to be an exact match or a near-enough stock colour will do.
3. 03 The finish Matt, satin, gloss, texture, metallic — each sits at a different price.
4. 04 Where the part lives Indoor, outdoor, wash-down or coastal — this sets the pre-treatment and powder.
5. 05 What must stay paint-free Threads, bearing faces, earth points — so we can mask them (or design them out).