Fifty pins to a hundred: $5.50 down to $3.50.

The steepest break here

Quoted for a 2.25 inch pin with a one-inch spinner:

Quantity	First quote	Revised
50	$6.15	$5.50
100	$4.15	$3.50

Doubling the order cut the unit price by more than a third.

Nowhere else in this library does the rate move that hard, and the reason is that at fifty pins you are barely buying pins at all — you are buying a mould, a set-up and a shipment, with fifty pieces of metal attached. Double the pieces and those fixed costs spread across twice as many pins while barely rising themselves.

This is why fifty is an awkward number to order. The fixed costs are the same as they'd be at a hundred, so each pin carries twice the share.

The spinner that didn't happen

Every quote in the thread prices a one-inch spinner. The pin that went into production doesn't have one — the final proof is marked, in capitals, NO SPINNER.

That is worth recording because of when it happened: before tooling. A spinner is a second moving part with its own mould and assembly. Designing it in, pricing it, and then deciding against it costs nothing at the proof stage. The same decision after the moulds are cut is a new order.

Design expansively while it's free. Commit late.

What shipped

100 pins, 2.25 inch, die struck soft enamel on dyed black metal, proof D1C. Quoted and ordered inside twenty-four hours against a mid-May delivery.

Where it came from

This one arrived through paid search — a Google Ads enquiry that became a purchase order the next day.

Why this one is here

Two things, both about small orders. The quantity break is steepest at the bottom, where most teams are shopping. And the time to explore an upgrade is before the mould exists, when changing your mind is free.