Private label costs: what branding adds per box and per container
By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert ·
Ask a supplier what private label costs and you will usually get a per-tonne branding premium. We do not have one to give you, and that is not evasion — it is what our price list says. The number that does move is the packaging specification underneath the brand.
The honest cost delta
Our published grid quotes every grade twice: once for full packaging and once for bulk. The gap between those two columns is 80 USD a tonne, and it is the same 80 on all five grades — Diamond through Regular, the cheapest grade and the dearest. That is the whole of what packaging costs on our price list.
What the two columns actually contain is set out in full on the pricing page. In short: full is a 10 kg master kraft K150/M125K150 B-flute, up to 3 colours, holding a 1 kg inner duplex 250 gsm E-flute, varnished, CMYK; bulk is the same master carton with the lined bags inside and no inner box. Same charcoal, same grade, same ash band.
Now the part buyers do not expect. Printing your brand on that inner box adds nothing on top. The print surcharge is carried inside the quoted price rather than billed as an extra, so a box with your artwork on it and a plain box of the same format are quoted at the same figure. Packaging design is offered free with an order and the dielines come with it. No plate fee line, no artwork setup line, no branded-versus-unbranded price pair — branding is not an axis our price list is built on. On a house design taken from stock there is no print step at all, and the delta above still applies unchanged, because what it prices is the box existing rather than the printing on it.
Per box, at a 1 kg inner format, 80 USD a tonne is about 8 US cents. That is the answer to "what does private label add per box" on our numbers: the box costs 8 cents, and your name on it costs nothing.
A full container, at our two columns
Per-tonne figures mislead on containers because a container is not a fixed number of tonnes. A 20 ft cubes out before it weighs out, so what it holds depends on how densely the shape packs; a 40 ft weighs out first and carries the same tonnage whatever is in it. Multiply the packaging line by the tonnes actually loaded:
| Equipment | Shapes | Binding constraint | Payload | Packaging line, whole container |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 ft | Cube 25 and 26 mm | Volume-limited | 20 t | 1,600 USD |
| 20 ft | Cube 27 and 28 mm | Volume-limited | 19.5 t | 1,560 USD |
| 20 ft | Hexagonal, stix, octagonal, flat/brix | Volume-limited | 18.5 t | 1,480 USD |
| 40 ft | Every shape | Weight-limited | 26.5 t | 2,120 USD |
Read the last column as what boxing the load costs against shipping it bulk, at the payloads the factory actually achieves. It is arithmetic on two first-party figures and nothing else — no freight, no destination charges, no plates. Shapes absent from the table are absent because no payload has been measured for them, not because they cannot be boxed. What is above is the packaging leg, which is the leg private label gets blamed for. The fully itemised version — freight, the DG surcharge, insurance and the lines we deliberately leave empty — is a branded 20 ft container costed end to end.
What the market quotes, and why it differs
Supplier explainers in this category do quote a branding premium, and those figures are worth seeing before assuming ours is the same measurement dressed differently. By source class and date, naming no supplier:
- An Indonesian supplier packaging guide, dated 6 January 2023, prices inner-box printing at 1 to 1.5 USD per kilogram, puts a full-colour master label at 9 USD a tonne, and adds about 60 USD a tonne for a double-wall master carton.
- A competitor specification-and-price page, dated 17 March 2026, gives the gap between bulk and inner-box packaging as 120 USD a tonne and says it can reach 250.
- Two separate pages, dated 17 and 18 January 2024, put the inner box at about 100 USD a tonne, and explain the setup pressure behind it: an inner box has to be printed for around 18,000 units in a 20 ft container and 26,000 in a 40 ft.
Those conventions do not agree with each other and we have not harmonised them: a spread of about 100 to 250 USD a tonne across dated pages is information about the market's reporting, not a market rate. Worth knowing before comparing any of them with anything — what reads as several independent sources often is not. Two of the figures above sit on pages belonging to one supplier, and a third source cited in the same research turned out not to exist as a domain at all.
The reason ours is a different shape is structural rather than competitive. A per-tonne branding premium prices the act of putting your name on a box; our grid prices two packaging specifications, with the printing already inside both. That is not a claim to be cheaper. It is a reason to ask any supplier which of the two they are quoting you.
Where costs actually hide
Three places, none of which is the printing.
Design count. The minimum is two tonnes per SKU — about 2,000 inner boxes and 200 master cartons at a 1 kg format — and it applies per shape, per size and per packaging variant. Five designs is not five times the artwork; it is five times a minimum that has to fit inside one container. That arithmetic has its own page, the per-SKU MOQ mechanics.
The calendar. A new design takes about two weeks at the printing house, a repeat ten working days, against production of 15 working days for a 20 ft and 20 for a 40 ft. It overlaps rather than stacks, but a design finalised late moves a vessel booking, and a moved booking is the expensive kind of delay.
Reprints. Artwork approved and printed is artwork paid for in board. A corrected barcode or a changed net weight after the run is a fresh minimum rather than an amendment — the practical argument for settling compliance text and unit counts at dieline stage, not at proof stage. What is left on each box once those costs have landed depends on your channel, and margin math for a charcoal brand sets out the inputs rather than a band.
Cost questions buyers ask
What does private label actually add per box?
Nothing for the printing itself — the print surcharge is inside the quoted price, so a printed inner box and a plain one of the same format are quoted the same. What costs money is having an inner box at all rather than shipping bulk, and that is 80 USD a tonne, or about 8 US cents on a 1 kg box.
Why is your branding delta lower than the numbers I see elsewhere?
Because it is measuring something different. Supplier explainers quote a branding or inner-box premium as a separate per-tonne line, typically somewhere between about 100 and 250 USD a tonne depending on the page and the year. Our two prices are packaging specifications, not a base price plus a branding charge, and the print is already in both.
Do I pay a plate fee or an artwork setup charge?
Not as a separate invoice line. Packaging design is offered free with an order, dielines are supplied, and the printing surcharge is carried in the quoted price. Setup economics are real — they are why the two-tonne per-SKU minimum exists — but they surface as a minimum quantity here rather than as a fee.
What makes the per-container figure move?
Payload, and payload depends on shape. A 20 ft container fills by volume before it reaches its weight limit, so a denser cube loads more tonnes than an extruded shape; a 40 ft weighs out first and carries the same tonnage whatever the shape. Multiply the packaging line by the tonnes actually loaded, not by a nominal container size.
Are these prices a quotation?
These prices are indicative and dated, not an offer. A binding figure comes on a proforma invoice against your shape, size, packaging and destination.
Our figures accurate as of August 2026. Basis FOB Tanjung Priok, USD per tonne. Prices valid September 2026 · reviewed monthly. These prices are indicative and dated, not an offer. A binding figure comes on a proforma invoice against your shape, size, packaging and destination. Third-party conventions are quoted with the dates their own pages carry and are not endorsed, reconciled or updated by us.
Cost your design
Send the shape, the size, the inner format and how many designs you want, and you will get the packaging line applied to your actual load rather than to a nominal container. If you have a dieline already, send that too — it settles the format question in one step.