In what cases will there be charged extra?

Extra costs for FR-4/Aluminum/Copper Core/Rogers/PTFE Teflon PCBs

With the aim of continuously providing high-quality products and services, JLCPCB has been optimizing the production process and improving the technology. In addition, it is committed to meeting the diverse needs of customers.

In order to provide the customers with excellent service and to maintain sustainable production, extra costs will be charged for special processes and requirements, depending on the actual situation.

Basically, all the prices are based on the online calculator when you select the corresponding options according to your Gerber file, but there are some exceptions. For specific designs and some special processes, or if you did not select the correct options during placing orders, there may be extra costs required during the file review process. Here are the cases that will incur extra costs.

1. Different Designs in One Gerber File

If there is more than 1 design in your file, an extra cost will be applied. You can calculate this cost on our website by selecting the appropriate number of designs. Please note that if your order needs SMT, then the SMT panel will also be charged with different design fees.

Wondering what cases will be regarded as different designs? Please check here: https://jlcpcb.com/help/article/different-design-in-your-pcb-files

2. V-Cut on Small-Sized Boards

When dealing with PCB boards of small dimensions, applying v-cuts for panelization can be challenging due to the narrow spacing, making it difficult to achieve one-time fast cutting. It is inconvenient and inevitable to adjust tool spacing and make multiple cuts, which significantly increases production time and labor costs.

For orders where the dimensions of single boards in the panel are less than 15mm on either side, an extra charge for V-cut will be applied.

Cost for V-Cut on Small-Sized Boards:

3. Routing Fee

An excessive number of slots will increase the routing path, which in turn will lead to higher costs. Especially for slots within 1mm in width, they can only be processed with small-size milling tools. In this case, the knife needs to be rotated at a high speed and the speed of feed is slower, which increases the wear of the knife and greatly reduces production efficiency. Based on this situation, a routing fee will be added.

- If the width of the slot is 0.8~1.0mm and the slot path reaches 80m per square meter, the Routing Fee will be charged.

- If the width of the slot exceeds 1.0mm and the slot path reaches 120m per square meter, the Routing Fee will be charged.

- If there are some slots with a width≤1mm and some＞1mm, the routing fee will be charged  according to the price for slots of 0.8~1.0mm. So it is recommended to widen them above 1.0mm.

(1) Dimension:10*10cm; Routing path: 0.789m/cm² (78.9m/m²)    

The routing path refers to the total length of the slot

knife travel during molding.

(2) Dimension:10*10cm; Routing path: 1.1988m/cm² (119.88m/m²)

The routing path refers to the total length of the slot

knife travel during molding.

4. Small Size Holes

Smaller holes are more difficult to produce and cost more to drill than larger holes, resulting in more stringent requirements for the metallization of the hole walls. Tests such as "4-Wire Kelvin Test" are often required for quality assurance. And the position of smaller holes is also likely to deviate. Furthermore, it also seriously reduces efficiency. Therefore, the cost is higher than that of standard holes (with a diameter of ≧ 0.3mm).

Please kindly note that, if the option of via is selected correctly, the cost will be added when quoting. If it is not selected according to the Gerber file, the cost will be charged as a supplement when reviewing.

5. ENIG in a Large Area

The more copper surface area exposed, the larger the area of ENIG will be. Then the cost of it will be much higher than covering a smaller area.

So when the area of ENIG reaches 60%, an extra cost will be charged.

- Explanation of the interval of the ENIG area:

70% of the ENIG area refers to the range from 70% to 79.999%, i.e. 70% ≤ x < 80%.

- Explanation of the ENIG area:

The ENIG area refers to both the area of the top and bottom sides which need to be ENIG.

For example, ENIG covering the whole top side is 100%, and covering the whole bottom side is another 100%, the final ENIG area we calculate will be 200%.

Exposed copper area of the top layer: 15%

Exposed copper area of the bottom layer: 77%

Dimension：210*85（mm）

Quantity: 10 pieces

ENIG area：15%+77%= 92%

Cost: $23.57*(0.21*0.085*10)=$4.21

Exposed copper area of the top layer: 71%      

Exposed copper area of the bottom layer: 72%

Dimension: 105*95 (mm)  

Quantity: 10 pieces      

ENIG area: 71%+72% = 143%

Cost: $47.14*(0.105*0.095*10)=$4.7

6. Removing the Bur and Round the Corner

For PCB with a very small size, it is hard to make the boards with a very smooth edge, so we need to remove the bur and round the corner so that it will look better. But since the size of it is very small,  it will take a very long time to do that. So there will be an extra cost for that.

For the board with a size of 1.5cm-3cm on one side, the extra fee is $0.02/pcs.

For the board with a size smaller than 1.5cm on one side, the extra fee is $0.05/pcs.

7. Board Fee

Basically, the basic cost for the PCB consists of the engineering fee and the board fee. For a single PCB that is within or equal to 102*102mm, there is a special price charged only. But when it is panelized (i.e. PCB has V-Cuts or routed lines with or without mouse bites between boards), it will turn into its original cost of Engineering fee+board fee. So we may ask you to pay for the extra cost of the board fee when it falls into this category.

8. Orders with Special Process

Suppose the orders do not include the standard options or do not have parameters commonly chosen by customers, for example, 1 layer, 1.6 thickness, Red, HASL(with lead), 1 oz copper, In that case, it will take longer to accumulate enough such orders to combine them into the same big panel for production. An extra charge will be applied if your orders fall under this special process category, you will receive a warning when placing your order, and the extra cost will be automatically calculated.

9. Too Many Drilling Holes

A large number of drill holes will increase the operation time of the drilling machine and consumption of the drilling tools, which will greatly increase the cost of drilling. Therefore, for orders with over 150,000 drill holes per square meter, an extra cost will be applied.

10. Small Boards

For circuit boards with small dimensions (≤3cm on either one side), the difficulty of positioning and controlling dimensional tolerances is increased during the production process. At the same time, it is easy to be mistakenly sucked by vacuum equipment, which leads to a high rate of scrap.

If the order is a batch order and the delivery format is "Single PCB", it will further increase labor costs and reduce overall production efficiency.

Therefore, for boards whose either side is 3cm or less with a delivery format of "Single PCB", an additional charge will be applied according to the smaller side dimension of the following rules.

11. Expediting Fee for Panel Boards (Prototype orders)

For expedited orders where the delivery format is panel boards, as there are more steps to process the boards,

besides the original expedited fee, an additional fee of $15.71 per design will be charged.

12. Multiple Expedited Fee (Prototype orders)

For areas of 0.5㎡ or less, the expedited fee will be the same as the one calculated on the website. However, for orders exceeding 0.5㎡, an additional expediting fee will be charged according to the following rules:

- For 0＜area≤0.5 square meters, the expedited fee will be the original expedited fee.

- For 0.5＜area≤1.0 square meter, the expedited fee will be twice the original expedited fee.

- For 1.0＜area≤1.5 square meters, the expedited fee will be three times the original expedited fee.

- For 1.5＜area≤2.0 square meters, the expedited fee will be four times the original expedited fee.

Similar rules are applied to numerous other areas.

13. Too Many Test Points

The number of test points in a PCB design depends on the number of PIN points. As the number of PIN points increases, testing time increases accordingly. As a result, labor costs and testing costs will increase. Therefore, once the number of test points per PCS/SET reaches or exceeds 8,000, we will charge the corresponding fee according to the following rules：

14. Difficulty process

For high-precision requirements of unconventional processes (e.g. extreme production processes such as  trace widths and spacing, solder ring sizes, or oversized boards), due to the difficulty of the process, the defective rate will increase accordingly in the production process. Besides, the production preparation will take longer than the conventional ones, and the corresponding testing will be added to ensure the quality. Therefore, the cost will be increased.

- If the length of the board reaches or exceeds 60cm, the extra charge will be $31.43 per design for the prototype and $31.43 per square meter for the batch order.

- If the trace width or spacing of multi-layer boards is 3.0-3.5mil, extra cost will be charged for the difficulty of the process: 20% of the order amount for 4-8 layers, and 30% of the order amount  for 10 layers and above.

15. Large Board Fee

If the board is too large, the labor and materials used will increase significantly. When the area of one board exceeds 650 square centimeters, an additional charge will be added every 50 square centimeters.

Additional Cost Specification for Stencils

Generally, the stencil price is calculated by the stencil size. For instance, a stencil with a size of 37x47cm is $8.86, but here  are several situations which will cost you an extra fee:

1. Polishing Process

Grinding polish is for free, but electro-polishing will cost you an extra $7.25 per stencil.

2. Thickness

There is an extra cost for special thickness. The charge details are as following table according to thickness and dimension.

3. Extensive Apertures

For standard thickness stencil: There is an extra fee when there are more than 5000 spots on your stencil. It will cost you an extra $1.5 per 1000 spots more than 5000 spots. The following examples for reference:

Extra $1.5 for a stencil with 5001~6000 spots.

Extra $3.0 for a stencil with 6001~7000 spots.

etc.

For 0.3mm thickness stencil: We will charge an extra fee when there are more than 500 spots on your stencil. It will cost you an extra $4.3 per 500 spots more than 500 spots, see the following examples for reference:

Extra $4.3 for a stencil with 501~1000 spots.

Extra $8.6 for a stencil with 1001~1500 spots.

etc.

4. Irregular Apertures

There will be an extra fee for the stencil with irregular apertures like irregular polygons and other strange shapes. Since it is more difficult to produce and has a higher scrap rate, we will charge you extra fee according to your design complexity. Generally, it is higher or equal to $7.5 per stencil.

5. Stencil Cutting

For the stencil with a size of smaller than 28*38cm and need to be cut into several sheets. It will cost you extra fee to cut the stencil, the price is calculated by the size of your small sheets. For example, it is $1 per 5X5cm sheet, $2 per 10x10cm sheet, $3 /PCS for the stencil size of bigger than 10x10cm.

6. Stencil Panelization

1) If you panel the paste file by yourself, it will be free of charge of less than 5 deisgns. If there are 5 or more designs, an extra cost of $4.2 will be charged.

2) If you want JLCPCB to panel the paste files for you, an extra cost of $4.2 per design will be charged for more than 2 designs. For example, if there are 3 designs in total, then an extra cost of 4.2$ will be charged, if 4 designs, 8.4$ will be charged, etc.