What drives the number
Setup. Plates are made, the press is brought to colour, the tooling is set, and the line is run until it is producing consistently. All of that happens before the first sellable tin exists, and it costs the same whether the run is five thousand or fifty.
Spread across a big run it disappears into the unit price. Spread across a tiny one it is most of the unit price.
Ours is 5,000 units, per size
Per size is the part worth reading twice. If you want three sizes, that is three runs, because each size is its own tooling and its own setup.
Colour is different. Any Pantone is matched at no change to the minimum, so a colourway is not a separate run in the way a size is.
Why per size and not per order
Because the setup is per size. A press cannot be half configured for one tin and half for another, so two sizes are two setups no matter how they are invoiced.
This catches people who plan a launch as one big order across five sizes. It is five runs.
How to work with it
Launch narrow. One or two sizes done properly beats five sizes at the minimum, and you learn which one actually sells before committing to the rest.
Stock is held in five US warehouses, and which one an order draws from is settled when it is placed.
Hold one before
you specify it.
Tell us what you're packing and we'll send the formats that suit it.