Why nobody publishes a fixture price list
A custom fixture is not a product with a specification sheet. It is a one-off engineering deliverable whose cost is set by the geometry of your part, the machine it goes on, the tolerance it has to hold and the number of parts you will run. Two parts that look similar on a drawing can differ by a factor of four in fixture cost because one is machined from bar and the other arrives as a rough casting with 4 mm of stock and a 1.2 mm draft angle.
What can be published is a band. The bands below are what Liuzhou Dongben Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd. quotes in 2026 for fixtures built to export standard, FOB China, single quantity, with a full drawing package. They are indicative — a firm number needs a drawing — but they are honest, and they are enough to decide whether a project is worth pursuing.
The 2026 price bands
| Fixture type | Typical price (USD, FOB China) | Lead time | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soft jaws plus machined sub-plate | 300 – 900 | 1–2 weeks | Under 500 parts a year, simple 2.5D geometry |
| Manual dedicated fixture, single station | 1,200 – 3,500 | 3–4 weeks | 500–2,000 parts a year, tight tolerance, low volume change |
| Manual multi-station (4–8 stations) | 3,000 – 8,000 | 4–6 weeks | Long cycle dominated by load time |
| Pneumatic dedicated, single station | 4,000 – 9,000 | 4–6 weeks | Operator ergonomics, fast load, clean air available |
| Hydraulic dedicated, single station | 7,000 – 16,000 | 5–8 weeks | Heavy parts, high clamp force, 2,000+ parts a year |
| Hydraulic multi-station or tombstone | 16,000 – 45,000 | 8–14 weeks | HMC pallet work, lights-out running, 10,000+ parts a year |
| 4th-axis trunnion fixture | 9,000 – 26,000 | 6–10 weeks | Parts needing three or four faces in one set-up |
| 5-axis dedicated fixture with zero-point base | 10,000 – 28,000 | 6–10 weeks | Complex geometry, simultaneous 5-axis finishing |
| Modular zero-point base plus custom jaws | 6,000 – 15,000 | 5–8 weeks | Mixed part families, frequent changeover |
Three things these bands exclude, and every one of them has ended a project: the hydraulic power unit where the machine has no integrated hydraulics (add 2,000–6,000 USD), on-site commissioning outside China, and air freight. A 40 kg hydraulic tombstone fixture ships at roughly 900–1,400 USD by air and 220–400 USD by sea, which is a 3 to 6 percent swing on the total and a 5-week swing on delivery.
Driver 1 — How many stations
Stations are the cheapest way to buy output and the most expensive way to buy a fixture. Going from one station to four roughly doubles fixture cost while roughly cutting load time per part by 70 percent. Below about 5,000 parts a year the second station usually does not pay back. Above 20,000 it is usually the only thing that matters. The exception is any part where the machine spends more time waiting for an operator than cutting — there, stations buy spindle hours, and spindle hours are the expensive resource.
Driver 2 — How the clamps are actuated
Manual clamping has no power unit, no valves, no seals and no failure mode beyond the operator forgetting. It costs roughly a third of an equivalent hydraulic fixture and remains the right answer for most parts under 2,000 a year. Pneumatic sits in the middle: fast, clean, limited force per clamp (typically 1–6 kN at 6 bar on a standard cylinder), and sensitive to air quality. Hydraulic delivers 10–40 kN per clamp from a small cylinder, holds force without a pressure drop, and is the only practical choice when clamps must be sequenced and confirmed for unattended running.
Driver 3 — The tolerance the fixture must hold
This is the driver that surprises buyers. A fixture locating on a machined surface to ±0.1 mm is a different object from one locating on a rough casting to ±0.02 mm. Position tolerance tightens the manufacturing route: jig boring instead of milling, stress relief between roughing and finishing, hardened and ground locating pins instead of commercial dowels, and a first-article dimensional report instead of a visual check. That chain typically adds 25–60 percent to the fixture price and is the single most justifiable add-on in the whole quotation.
Driver 4 — Part size and stock form
Envelope drives material cost almost linearly and machine time superlinearly. A 300 mm fixture body is routine; a 1,200 mm one needs a machine with the travel to make it, a way to turn it, and a crate that a forwarder will accept. Stock form drives the design more than the size: a bar-fed part can often be located on its own diameter, while a casting needs three datum targets chosen from the foundry's actual condition, which means someone has to look at real parts, not at the model.
Driver 5 — Material and heat treatment
Fixture bodies are usually 45 steel or a equivalent medium-carbon steel, stress relieved and blackened. Aluminium bodies cost less to machine and much less to move, and are correct for low-force work and for 5-axis fixtures where inertia matters — but they wear at the locating surfaces and should be fitted with steel inserts where parts are loaded ten thousand times. Cast iron is stable and damped and worth it on large tombstones. Stainless is almost never right: it galls, it moves after machining, and it triples the price.
Driver 6 — Documentation and inspection
A fixture shipped with a 2D assembly drawing costs one price. The same fixture with a full 3D model, a dimensional inspection report per critical feature, material certificates, a clamp-sequence description and a spare-parts list costs 8 to 15 percent more and removes most of the risk of a dispute three months later. For a first order from a new supplier this is not optional documentation, it is the point of the order.
What makes a quote jump 40 percent after you send the drawing
Four things, in order of frequency. The drawing shows a thin wall that will deflect under clamp force, so the fixture has to support it rather than squeeze it. The machine model turns out to have no spare M-code for clamp confirmation, so a relay box and an interface have to be engineered. The part is inspected on a CMM that needs to reach features the fixture covers. And the batch size is smaller than assumed, which turns a hydraulic proposition into a manual one — which lowers the price but changes the payback argument entirely.
How we quote
Liuzhou Dongben Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd. quotes in two steps. First a band, from the part envelope, the machine and the annual volume — usually within one working day and usually accurate to ±25 percent. Then a firm price against a drawing, with the payback calculation attached so you can see whether the fixture earns its place. When the arithmetic says a fixture will not pay back at your volume, we quote soft jaws and say so.