COVALYZE ANALYTICS · TARGET PRICE CALCULATOR
What a part is allowed to cost, built from the way it is made. Send a CAD file and four inputs, and get it costed by every process, country and order quantity that could apply.
The Target Price Calculator is where COVALYZE Analytics turns a CAD file and a paid price into a target price. Behind it sits the DARIN should-cost method: material, machine, labour, setup, overhead.
One real STEP file, put through COVALYZE twice: once as a part milled out of solid stock, once as an investment casting. Rotate it, change the process, the country and the order quantity, and the cost structure changes underneath.
Figures are the unedited output of a COVALYZE example tenant for this one STEP file, calculated on 31 August 2026. Material prices are recalculated monthly and machine, labour and energy rates differ by plant, so the rates behind these totals are not published here and the totals move when yours are used. The part title is anonymised; geometry and cost figures are not.
Milling buys nothing up front and therefore hardly gets cheaper with volume. Casting starts at the price of a mould and then falls away as the mould is divided across the run. The point where the two curves cross is the quantity from which the other process is cheaper, and it can be calculated rather than debated.
At 1,000 pieces the same part is 94% cheaper cast than milled in Germany, a difference of 597.64 € on every piece. Figures are the unedited output of a COVALYZE example tenant for this one STEP file, calculated on 31 August 2026. Material prices are recalculated monthly and machine, labour and energy rates differ by plant, so the rates behind these totals are not published here and the totals move when yours are used. The part title is anonymised; geometry and cost figures are not.
Three of the four are already in the CAD file. From those, COVALYZE derives the rest: which operations the part needs, how long each one takes, what is bought once per production run, and what changes when the quantity or the country does.
What we need from you
No material note was found on a 2D drawing, so steel stood in as the default. The application says so rather than hiding it, and one correction from your engineer moves every figure below.
Read from the solid model: 835.1 cm³ of material in the finished part, 6.56 kg net. Volume and envelope are what decide how much has to be removed, or how much has to be poured.
Total surface area, which sets the finishing pass, the deburring time and the surface treatment. On a milled part the finishing pass is the single largest block of machine time.
One component, no assembly. Where a BOM has levels, the assembly method comes in here and each level is calculated and rolled up in turn.
What COVALYZE derives from it
Which operations the part needs, in order, on which machine.
Machining and handling time per operation, from the geometry.
What is bought once per run and then divided across the batch.
The same part costed at every lot size, so the quantity effect is visible.
The same part costed in each production country.
Consumption per piece, and the emissions that follow from the country mix.
A calculation on your parts replaces every assumption on this page with your materials, your machines, your labour rates and your quantity structure.
Most disagreements about a target price are really disagreements about which of these three someone means. They answer different questions, they need different data, and only one of them is a position you can take into a supplier meeting.
What do others pay for something like this?
What does this part cost to make?
What is this part allowed to cost us?
Used together they check each other. A benchmark far below your should-cost means the calculation needs review. A benchmark far above it means the whole category has been priced without anyone asking why.
These are the two results the example STEP file produced in the application, in one session. One field changes between them: the confirmed manufacturing process. Everything downstream follows from it, including the raw stock (29.69 kg of solid against 7.45 kg of near-net blank), the whole process chain, and a tooling line that only one of them carries.
Screenshots from a COVALYZE example tenant. The part title is anonymised; the geometry, masses and cost figures are the unedited output.
Two routes
Both routes end at a target price that holds up. Which one fits depends on your data, and most categories end up using both, because each one checks the other.
From your own data
From first principles
A prediction from your own data and a calculation from first principles are the strongest evidence you can hold at once. When the two agree, the number is hard to argue with.
Where a category already holds enough comparable parts, the second route opens. A model fitted across that category returns what each technical feature is worth, and predicts what each of your suppliers would charge for a specification you type in. This is the difference between asking a supplier for a price and knowing roughly what the answer should be before you ask.
Screenshot from a demonstration tenant with pseudonymised supplier names. Feature prices are specific to a category and to the data behind it. They are not industry averages and they do not transfer between customers, which is why the platform reports the quality of the fitted model alongside every prediction.
A target price on its own is a claim. What makes it work in the room is the line underneath it: which cost element explains the gap, what the alternative would be, and which question to ask first.
The calculation names the element that explains the difference. Each of the five levers acts on a different one, and each has its own page.
The same method as the example above, run on real portfolios: should-cost straight off 3D geometry, order quantity as the cost driver nobody had quantified, and target costs derived from the part rather than negotiated down from last year's price.
One documented part comes back within a business day: the process chain, the full cost breakdown per country, the quantity at which a different process takes over, the gap to what you pay today, and every assumption named so your supplier can challenge a specific one.