What does PCB assembly of a prototype cost?
"Roughly what does it cost, 800 or 3,000 euro?" That is the question an engineer asks before uploading files, and the question most pages about PCB assembly do not answer. A from-price without a layer count or a part count says nothing, and a round number without a breakdown says nothing either. This article shows what the price of an assembled prototype is made of, what pushes it up, and which amounts we see in our own orders of the past year. How we build prototypes is on the page about PCB assembly in the Netherlands for prototypes. All prices are ex VAT.
What does PCB assembly cost: the four blocks
Every price for an assembled board, ours or anyone else's, is made of four blocks. If you compare quotes, you need to see them separately.
1. The assembly
This is the work: printing solder paste, placing the parts, reflow, hand-soldering the THT parts, inspection. The price depends mostly on the number of placements per board, the number of sides and how much goes by hand. This is the block where our work is. We earn nothing on the parts.
2. The components
We buy the parts at Digi-Key, Mouser, LCSC, Farnell, TME, RS, Arrow, Verical and Würth Elektronik, and you pay what the supplier charges us, with no markup.
Only what is in stock gets ordered. A part with a 12-week factory lead time we do not buy. We ask you for an alternative, or you send the part yourself. If it is still on an old board, we desolder it free of charge. The details are on the wiki page about parts and suppliers.
3. The bare PCB
You supply the bare board yourself, or we buy it per board from a fab in Europe or Asia, in whatever stackup your design needs. For a 4-layer 100 x 80 mm FR4 ENIG board, 10 pieces, the public calculators asked on 7 October 2026: JLCPCB $32.40, PCBWay $81.36, Multi-CB 229.70 euro, Eurocircuits 327.00 euro and Beta Layout 385.84 euro. The full measurement is in our comparison of PCB assembly in the Netherlands. The PCB part of a DeltaProto price follows that market. For an assembled prototype the board is usually the smallest of the four blocks.
4. Setup, stencil and NRE
This is the gap between the price on the web page and the price on the invoice. JLCPCB lists, as of September 2026, $8.18 setup and $1.53 stencil for Economic, $25.56 or $51.12 setup and $8.21 or $16.42 stencil for Standard, plus $3.07 or $1.53 per unique extended part, per order. On a revision you pay all of it again. At an EMS this is called NRE and sits as a separate line in the quote. At DeltaProto the price in the calculator is the price you pay: no setup or NRE line is added, the stencil belongs with the bare PCB, and there is no surcharge for small quantities.
What pushes the price up
Two boards with the same part count can differ by a factor of two in assembly price. These are the knobs:
- The number of unique parts, more than the number of placements. 120 placements of 30 different parts are less work than 120 placements of 90 different ones. Every unique part is an order line, a feeder or tray, and a check.
- Double-sided SMD. Two stencils, two reflow passes, and the first side goes through the oven upside down.
- BGA and 0.5 mm pitch. Routine, but more time at paste printing and at inspection after reflow.
- Connectors and other THT parts go by hand, and that is time per pin.
- Scarce parts. What is not in stock is not in the price but is in the schedule, see block 2.
- Lead time. The median customer picks 10 working days. 5 working days is possible, and costs more.
Getting a prototype PCB built: why 2 boards are not half the price of 4
Part of the work we do once per order, not per board: going through the BOM, ordering the parts, the stencil, setting up the machine, the first board that gets extra attention. That part is the same size for 2 boards as for 20.The table below shows that: these are the assembly prices our calculator gives today for a reference board (0603 passives, 40% unique parts, 8% THT, double-sided from 150 placements), in euro ex VAT, without parts and without the bare PCB.
| Boards | Placements per board | Assembly, 10 working days | Assembly, 5 working days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 50 | – | – |
| 2 | 150 | – | – |
| 2 | 300 | – | – |
| 5 | 50 | – | – |
| 5 | 150 | – | – |
| 5 | 300 | – | – |
| 10 | 50 | – | – |
| 10 | 150 | – | – |
| 10 | 300 | – | – |
| 20 | 50 | – | – |
| 20 | 150 | – | – |
| 20 | 300 | – | – |
Your board differs from the reference board: more unique parts, a BGA, more hand work, a different lead time. It is not a quote.
Five boards with around 120 placements: today the calculator gives 840 euro of assembly at 10 working days. The parts and the bare PCB come on top at cost.
Two boards with 300 placements come to 850 euro of assembly and twenty of the same board to 3,890 euro: ten times the boards, nowhere near ten times the price.
That is the 20 to 200 board middle ground: field test, pilot run. At an EMS that is the expensive zone: too few boards to spread the setup over. With us there is no setup to spread. From a few hundred identical boards that turns around, and then an EMS is the better choice.
The second sample: the item that is not on the quote
More than 90% of our customers change something after the first sample. Nobody counts that when comparing quotes, and yet it is the largest hidden item. Ask any PCB assembly partner what a revision costs. At a web shop the answer is a new order with setup, stencil and extended-part fees all over again. At an EMS it is an engineering change order: a new quote, possibly new NRE, and a new slot in the schedule.
We build one First Proto first, and you test it. You put the changes on the List of Change and we build the next sample from it, within the same order, with the parts already on the shelf. Three samples per order are included, more if you need them, each with its own revision. If you are nearly there, you send the sample back with the free return voucher and we modify it instead of building it again. In our lab, sample 2 is not a failure. And if the First Proto is right the first time, we send a cake.
The week that is on no invoice
The most expensive item is nowhere in this table. A startup spending 100,000 euro a month loses about 25,000 euro per week of waiting, per iteration. Saving 500 euro on the assembly and waiting a week longer for it is an expensive saving. The arithmetic is in what a week of waiting for a proto PCBA costs. So count the cost per iteration, not the price per board. A prototype PCBA that ships on working day 5 or 10 from our lab in Amsterdam or Enschede is in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany the next working day, with no customs and no import duties inside the EU.
Upload your Gerber, BOM and centroid to the calculator and read where your board lands. No account, no sales call.
Frequently asked questions
Are there setup or stencil costs?
No. The price in the calculator is the price you pay, with no setup or NRE line, also for a next revision inside the same order. The stencil belongs with the bare PCB.
Do I pay a markup on parts?
You pay what Digi-Key, Mouser, Farnell or one of the other suppliers charges us, without markup. You can always send your own parts, as long as they are clearly labelled.
What does a second sample cost?
Three samples per order are included, each with its own revision via the List of Change. If you need more, we build more.
Is there a minimum order quantity?
Two boards. There is no surcharge for small quantities. From a few hundred identical boards an EMS is the better choice.
How accurate is the price from the calculator?
About 95%. You upload Gerber, BOM and centroid and read the price in seconds. The offer follows within hours, after an engineer has looked at your files and asked about anything that is unclear. If you want an NDA before you send files, ours is on the downloads page.