Garment Poly Bag Cost Guide: What Is Behind One Quote

Two suppliers can quote more than double for the same size of garment poly bag. The gap rarely comes from margin: it comes from five parameters — material, thickness, size, printing and quantity — plus whether plate costs are amortised. Understanding how a poly bag is priced saves more money than haggling, and stops a low quote turning into a batch that is too thin to use.

This guide breaks it down into six cost elements, material and thickness, sizing and cutting, printing, quantity and plate fees, six ways to cut cost without cutting quality, and the seven questions to ask before you order — ending with a spec sheet you can send straight to a factory. Figures are given as ranges and decision logic; the actual price depends on your spec, volume and lead time.

1. Six Cost Elements Behind One Quote

2. Material and Thickness: The Biggest Lever

OPP bags are stiff, clear and glossy — the usual choice for single-garment presentation and store hanging; PE and CPE are soft, tough and cheaper, the workhorse of e-commerce and inner packing; recycled grades (recycled PE, rPET laminates) cost a little more but meet brand sustainability targets and some market regulations.

Thickness is the most linear cost variable: going from 20 to 30 microns uses roughly fifty percent more material and the price follows. Most garment inner packing is fine at 20–35 microns; suits, coats and container exports that need moisture protection can go to 35–50. Do not add thickness just to make the bag feel substantial — spend it where it earns its keep, such as puncture and moisture resistance on long sea freight.

3. Sizing and Cutting: Save on Standard Film Widths

Bags are cut from film width and running metres, so a size that misses the factory's common film widths creates edge waste — and that waste ends up in your unit price. The practical move: reduce your folded garment sizes to three to five specs and pull them towards the widths the factory already runs, instead of ordering a bespoke exact-fit size for every style.

A common pattern: a 30×40 cm and a 32×42 cm bag differ by less than ten percent in price with no practical difference in use, yet the first may land exactly on a standard cutting multiple. Asking which sizes the factory already runs is usually cheaper than calculating to the millimetre.

4. Printing: Colours, Coverage and Solid Blocks

Printing costs step up sharply: every extra colour means another plate and another registration pass, and four-colour or full-coverage designs push both price and defect rate up. Brands with little information to carry often set a one- or two-colour logo band instead — cleaner and cheapest.

A frequent hybrid is print plus stickers: run a generic one-colour bag, or none at all, and put composition, size and care information on a self-adhesive label. Stickers avoid plates and suit small multi-SKU batches, but they look less premium, cost labour to apply and can be peeled off — worth remembering if the label carries compliance information.

One technical rule is easy to miss: the zip-lock track and heat-seal area must be kept free of ink, or the print film weakens the seal and you get leakers or stringing when the bag is opened. Marking the seal zone on the artwork costs far less than reworking a batch.

5. Quantity, Plate Fees and Price Breaks

Poly bags are a classic fixed-cost-amortisation product: plates, extruder start-up, cutter set-up and trial-run waste barely change with quantity. Comparing a few thousand pieces with tens of thousands, most of the unit-price difference comes from spreading those items, not from cheaper material.

The sensible approach is to order against a quarter or half-year of usage and take delivery in batches, rather than sampling price with a few hundred pieces. One more warning: once a quote is already close to raw-material cost, pushing further usually means thinner film, more regrind or less inspection — the money saved comes back as bags that tear on opening.

6. Six Ways to Cut Cost Without Cutting Quality

• Consolidate sizes: pull dozens of one-off dimensions into three to five that fit standard film widths.
• Cut printing to one or two colours and let stickers or the hang tag carry the multilingual information.
• Tier thickness by use: 20–35 microns for inner packing, thicker only for sea freight and tailored coats.
• Tier features by SKU: zip locks, vent holes and hang holes only where they are actually needed.
• Reuse existing plates: when packaging changes, update the label or add a sticker rather than remaking plates.
• Negotiate price breaks on half-year volume with batch deliveries: amortise the fixed costs without filling your warehouse.

7. Seven Questions to Ask Before You Order

1. Which material and thickness does the quote cover — in microns, not just 'thick'?
2. Are plate and die costs one-off or charged per run? Can old plates be reused, and is there a storage fee?
3. Where are the MOQ and price-break points — for example five thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand?
4. How many millimetres are left unprinted at the zip and seal? Whose template should the artwork follow?
5. Delivery and lead time: tax and freight included? What is the standard lead time, and what is it in peak season?
6. Which certificates or test reports come with recycled grades — recycled content, heavy metals, phthalates?
7. What does sampling cost and how long does it take? Is it credited against the bulk order, and does the sample use the same formulation?

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