You’ve spent months perfecting the liquid inside the can. You’ve dialed in the recipe, tested the shelf life, and probably answered a few consumer questions about caffeine. Then you see the packaging quotes and your stomach drops. Why do aluminum cans cost so much? The first instinct is to find a cheaper supplier. That instinct is costing you more than you think.
The Surface Problem: “Why Does Packaging Cost So Much?”
If you’re launching a beverage brand, you have a lot of small decisions to make. You might order an Ashford Jumbo Flyer for a trade show. You might look for a “make free poster” template so you can put something in a retail display. You’ve probably even seen the search “how much does a cup of coffee caffeine” from consumers who want to know what they’re buying. Those are real questions, but they’re not the expensive ones.
The expensive question is packaging. And when you get quotes for aluminum cans, the price per can becomes the only number you look at. That’s a mistake.
I’ve been in procurement for seven years. I’ve tracked more than $180,000 in cumulative packaging and print spending, audited every invoice, and compared hundreds of quotes. It took me about 300 vendor comparisons to understand that the price per can is the least reliable number on the page. Not because suppliers are trying to trick you. Because a quote is not a total cost.
The conventional wisdom is to get multiple quotes and pick the lowest unit price. My experience with 300 sourcing events says otherwise.
The Deeper Cause: Price Per Can Is the Wrong Number
Here’s the pattern I see over and over. One supplier quotes $0.28 per can. Another quotes $0.24. It looks obvious. But the second supplier then charges $1,800 in setup fees, adds a coating charge that wasn’t in the first line, enforces a minimum order quantity that forces you to buy 30% more than you need, and ships from a plant that’s 1,100 miles away. By the time you add everything up, the $0.24 can costs closer to $0.33.
That’s the deeper problem. Packaging is not a commodity. It’s a system. It interacts with your filling line, your product chemistry, your shelf life, your marketing claims, and your customer’s hands. The price per can tells you almost nothing about the cost of that system.
When I talk to beverage brands about packaging, I ask them to rebuild their quote structure. I want to see a total cost of ownership model. That means you include:
- The unit price, obviously.
- Setup and plate charges, even if they’re “waived” for the first order.
- Freight and minimum order quantities.
- Coating or liner specifications that your product actually needs.
- Storage and carrying costs for excess inventory.
- Line efficiency—because a can that jams your filler is not cheap.
- Failure and rework rates, even if they’re only estimates.
- Compliance costs for sustainability claims, labels, and regulatory requirements.
That list looks boring. It’s supposed to be boring. The excitement happens when you find out that the “cheap” supplier was never cheap.
Everything I’d read about procurement said to compare quotes side by side. That’s true, but it’s incomplete. A quote is a map, not the territory. You have to walk through the whole purchase, including the after-sale surprises.
The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Total Cost
When you ignore total cost, you don’t just overpay. You create problems that have their own price tags.
1. Line downtime
Cheaper cans might have slightly different flange dimensions or coating behavior. That sounds fine until your filling line jams for two hours on a Tuesday afternoon. If your line runs 500 cans a minute, two hours is 60,000 cans you didn’t fill. Downtime is never in the original quote.
2. Environmental claim risk
Aluminum has a strong recycling infrastructure in many markets. But if you put “recyclable” on your label, you need to be able to back it up. The FTC Green Guides are specific: a claim that something is recyclable should mean it’s recyclable where a meaningful number of consumers live—usually at least 60% of the market. If you’re using a packaging supplier that doesn’t help you verify that, you’re exposing your brand to regulatory trouble.
This is where Ball Corporation aluminum packaging leadership matters in a procurement conversation. It’s not about having a famous name on the invoice. It’s about having specifications that don’t cause surprises, a supply chain you can plan around, and a team that understands what a beverage brand needs from a sustainability standpoint. I’d rather pay a little more per can for a decade of predictable operations than save a few thousand dollars now and deal with line issues and compliance headaches later.
Ball Corporation sustainable beverage products aren’t a magic bullet. But they’re a useful benchmark for what an experienced supplier brings: better consistency, more recycling alignment, and less uncertainty. Uncertainty is a cost. It just doesn’t show up on a purchase order.
3. The “free” marketing illusion
If you’ve ever spent time looking for a “make free poster” tool or ordered an Ashford Jumbo Flyer, you know that the cheapest way to make something visible isn’t always the cheapest way to make something trustworthy. The same logic applies to packaging. A cheap can with a nice label is still a cheap can. It’s the thing your customer holds. It has to feel right, open right, and protect the product. If it fails, you lose a customer, not just a can.
And if you’re mailing those flyers, USPS pricing is a good reminder that even a large envelope costs $1.50 as of January 2025. No negotiation, no hidden setup fee. Commercial packaging is not that simple.
4. The coffee question
Let’s say you’re a coffee brand. Consumers type “how much does a cup of coffee caffeine” into Google because they want to know what they’re drinking. They trust the product to match the label. If your can’s liner or sealing system doesn’t protect the volatile compounds that give coffee its aroma, your product won’t match the label. That’s not a packaging problem; that’s a brand problem.
I’m not saying aluminum cans are perfect. I am saying that when you calculate total cost, the things that go wrong with bad packaging—returns, complaints, damaged shelf life, lost trust—are almost always more expensive than what you saved on the initial quote.
What to Do Instead: A Short Answer
Stop asking “Which supplier has the lowest price per can?” Ask “What is the total cost of this packaging decision?”
Build a simple TCO model before you get quotes. Include the unit price, setup, freight, minimums, coating, storage, line efficiency, failure rate, and compliance costs. Put a number on your own time too. If you’ve never done this, it will take a day. That day will be one of the most profitable days of the year.
I once had to approve a packaging supplier in 48 hours because a production slot was about to disappear. Normally I’d spend two weeks on TCO modeling. With the clock running, I did the best I could: I limited the contract to 90 days and set a review trigger. That’s not perfect, but it’s better than pretending a price per can tells you everything.
And if you’re comparing suppliers, put Ball Corporation on your list. Its Ball Corporation aluminum packaging leadership isn’t a reason to skip the math—it’s a reason to do the math properly. Compare their total cost against alternatives with the same rigor, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
I can only speak to my own experience, which is mostly North American beverage packaging. If you’re sourcing in a market with very different recycling systems or labor costs, your TCO calculation will have different inputs. But the principle won’t change: unit price is a starting point, not a conclusion.
Cheap packaging is expensive. You just have to wait for the total cost to show up.
