Why Chinese electronics factories quote high MOQs, which costs actually drive them, and what tactics genuinely work for getting lower quantities.
A 1,000-unit minimum order on a Bluetooth speaker assembly isn't a sales tactic. It's a reflection of how much it costs the factory to set up and run your job at a margin that keeps their lights on. Understanding that distinction is what separates buyers who negotiate effectively from buyers who waste time arguing about a number the factory can't move.
What MOQ actually represents
MOQ is a floor set by the factory's break-even math, not an arbitrary policy. For most electronics, the relevant cost components are:
- SMT setup: stencil fabrication, feeder loading, first-article inspection. On a standard surface-mount line, this setup work typically costs the factory $300–800 before a single board runs.
- PCB panelization: most boards run in panels of 4–12. If your quantity doesn't fill enough panels to justify the tooling overhead, the per-unit cost climbs steeply.
- BOM procurement: for components with their own MOQs (certain ICs, connectors, passives in tape-and-reel), the factory may need to buy more than they'll consume on your order. That leftover inventory is a cost they factor in.
- Quality control setup: programming jigs, functional test fixtures, burn-in racks. These are often amortized across the production run. Smaller runs mean less amortization.
A cable assembly or simple injection-molded enclosure has far lower setup costs than a PCBA with 80+ components. That's why MOQs vary so much across product categories — it's not policy, it's cost structure.
MOQ ranges by product type
These are rough real-world ranges based on what factories in Shenzhen and Dongguan actually quote:
| Product type | Typical MOQ | Primary cost driver |
|---|---|---|
| Simple cable / harness | 100–500 | Labor setup only |
| Injection-molded plastic enclosure | 500–2,000 | Mold depreciation + cycle time |
| Single-sided PCBA (few components) | 200–500 | SMT setup + PCB fab |
| Complex multi-layer PCBA (50+ BOM lines) | 500–1,500 | BOM procurement + setup + test fixtures |
| Consumer electronics with enclosure + PCBA | 1,000–3,000 | All of the above combined |
| Custom antenna / RF module | 2,000–5,000 | Regulatory testing amortization |
These ranges assume you're dealing with a factory, not a trading company. Traders can sometimes offer lower MOQs because they're aggregating orders across buyers — but you're paying a margin for that.
What's actually negotiable
Not everything in the MOQ is fixed. Here's what you can often move and what you can't.
Negotiable:
- Unit price vs. quantity trade-off: most factories will do lower quantities at a higher unit price. Ask directly: "What's your price at 300 units and at 1,000 units?" The cost difference tells you what the setup is actually worth to them. If the price jump is modest ($2–3/unit), the setup cost is low and the MOQ is partly a soft preference. If the jump is $15+/unit, the setup cost is real and pushing for lower quantity genuinely costs them money.
- Splitting across SKU variants: if you have two color variants or two firmware SKUs that share most of the BOM, you may be able to run 500 of each and have them count toward a combined MOQ. Not all factories will allow this, but it's worth asking explicitly.
- Phased delivery: factory produces MOQ quantity, ships you a portion, warehouses the rest until you're ready. This is more common than people expect — it solves your cash flow problem without changing their production math.
Less negotiable:
- Component minimum buys: if the IC you've spec'd has a manufacturer MOQ of 1,000 reels and you want 200 units, the factory's hands are partially tied. You can sometimes substitute components to avoid this, which is a conversation worth having with your engineer before you go into production.
- Tooling and mold runs: plastic molds have a minimum economical production run driven by the injection machine cycle time and labor. Asking to run 50 units from a mold you paid $8,000 to build is asking the factory to lose money on the production run itself.
- Regulatory testing amortization: if your product requires FCC or CE certification, those test costs ($3,000–15,000 depending on category) have to be recovered somewhere. At 200 units, they represent a large per-unit cost the factory can't make disappear.
How to ask the right question
When a factory gives you an MOQ that doesn't work, most buyers push back with: "Can you do 500 units?" That's a negotiation by guessing. A better approach is to ask: "What's driving the MOQ — is it the SMT setup, a component minimum buy, or something else?"
The answer tells you two things. First, it tells you whether the MOQ is movable. Second, it tells you whether this factory actually knows their own cost structure. A factory that can't articulate why their MOQ is what it is is one you should be skeptical of in general.
If the answer is SMT setup costs, offer to pay a setup fee directly in lieu of volume — some factories will accept a $500–800 setup charge and let you run 300 units. If the answer is a component minimum buy, ask for the exact component and MOQ so you can verify it; sometimes this is a soft constraint that disappears when you commit to reordering.
When lower MOQ is actually a bad deal
There are situations where successfully negotiating a lower MOQ backfires.
When a factory drops their MOQ significantly without a corresponding price increase, it often means they've moved your job to a smaller, lower-tier production line with less experienced operators. For simple cable assemblies this usually doesn't matter. For complex PCBAs with fine-pitch components, it does.
It also means your order gets deprioritized when the factory is busy. A 300-unit order generates $15,000 in revenue for the factory. A 3,000-unit order generates $150,000. When capacity is tight, which one do you think ships first?
If your goal is early-stage validation or a pilot run, those trade-offs are probably acceptable. If you're trying to establish a reliable supply relationship, constantly fighting for below-MOQ runs keeps you at the bottom of the priority stack.
MOQ negotiation scripts that actually work
Most buyers try to negotiate MOQ by pushing back on the number: "1,000 is too many for us — can you do 500?" The factory says no, the buyer says please, nothing changes.
What works is making the economic case:
Script 1 — Setup fee offset: "I understand your MOQ is 1,000 units because of setup costs. What if I paid a $600 setup fee separately, and you ran 300 units at the standard unit price? Your setup cost is covered and I'm not asking you to absorb it." Many factories will accept this, especially if your product has a relatively simple SMT lineup.
Script 2 — Future volume commitment in writing: "For this first order we need 500 units to validate the market. If quality is as spec'd and demand is there, we commit to 2,000 units within 90 days and 5,000 units in month 6. Can we do the 500-unit pilot at the 1,000-unit price?" A signed letter of intent carries weight — the factory is taking on risk, and a concrete downstream commitment changes their calculus.
Script 3 — Component transparency: "Can you tell me which components have their own minimum buy requirements? If I can substitute any of those with parts available in smaller reels, we might be able to get your BOM cost to work at lower volume." Factories respond well to buyers who understand the problem rather than just complaining about it.
Script 4 — Blank inventory: "Instead of shipping me 500 units now and making 500 later, can you produce the full 1,000 but ship me 500 today and hold the rest in your warehouse? I'll call off the remaining 500 within 90 days." This is common in mature supplier relationships and gives the factory their full production run. You pay for the first 500 now; the remaining inventory sits with the factory against a purchase order for the balance.
MOQ by factory tier
The factory tier often matters more than the product category.
Large EMS factories (Foxconn, Luxshare, BYD Electronics, Flextronics) have high minimum production orders — typically 10,000–50,000 units. They are not the right partner for early-stage buyers. However, their tier-2 component suppliers sometimes accept direct orders from small buyers, and those factories have the process discipline of a tier-1 supply chain.
Mid-tier factories (50–500 employees, 4–12 SMT lines, established export history) are the sweet spot for most buyers in the 500–10,000 unit range. MOQs of 500–2,000 units are typical here. These factories have enough process capability to handle reasonably complex products and enough financial stability to deliver reliably, but they are still flexible enough to work with smaller volumes.
Small factories and workshops (under 50 employees, 1–3 SMT lines or manual assembly) can sometimes handle 100–300 unit runs. But the trade-off is process consistency — small runs with manual handling have higher defect rates than automated lines running at scale. For early prototyping, this is fine. For production intent, the consistency issue compounds over time.
The correct approach is to match factory tier to your current volume while having a clear plan for which factory tier you will graduate to when volume scales. Staying with a small workshop at 5,000 units is a mistake. Moving to a large EMS at 300 units is also a mistake.
MOQ vs. MQL — the metric that matters more
Most buyers focus on MOQ (minimum order quantity). The metric that matters more is MQL — minimum quality level — which is a function of how many defects you can tolerate at your volume.
At 300 units, a 2% defect rate means 6 defective units. If each defect costs you $30 in replacement cost, that's $180. Manageable.
At 3,000 units with the same 2% defect rate, you have 60 defects. $1,800 in replacement cost, plus the time managing warranty claims, plus the reputational cost if bad units reach customers.
This means that negotiating MOQ down without negotiating quality standards up is incomplete. As volume grows, the quality contract — IPC-A-610 class specification, AQL level, inspection stages — needs to become more formal even as unit economics improve.
Getting to the right factory for your volume
Part of the MOQ problem is finding factories whose natural production scale actually matches yours. A factory built to run 50,000-unit orders on automated lines is structurally wrong for a 500-unit pilot, regardless of what they quote. Finding factories matched to your volume tier is one of the core things our Sourcing & Supplier Matching service handles — it's not just about finding someone willing to make your product, but finding someone for whom your volume is a normal job.
For a real-world example of MOQ negotiation in practice, the EU startup Bluetooth speaker case involved negotiating first-order quantities down from a factory's standard 3,000-unit MOQ to a 5,000-unit run split across two SKU variants — using the exact techniques described above.
For more on the full sourcing process, including how to evaluate suppliers before you commit, see our complete electronics sourcing guide. If you are sourcing in the consumer electronics category specifically, MOQ dynamics are covered in that industry guide as well.
