Dies · molds · patterns · core boxes · tool-life amortization
Every process that needs a die, a mold, a pattern, or a core box — casting, injection, forging, die casting — prices its tooling through the same block-and-machining model in Partimation, with a clearly labeled area-estimate fallback until your shop's rates are in. See the tool cost and the piece price together, amortized over the tool's real life, before you commit to steel.
Free to start · no credit card · your files stay yours.
The problem
The die or mold is one number, the piece price is another, and nobody puts them on the same curve to show where the tool actually pays for itself.
A sand pattern, an injection mold, and a forge die are different tools, but molders and foundries alike often hand over a lump-sum tooling number with no way to check it.
Undercuts add slides, lifters, or core boxes to a tool — and that's usually a verbal add, not a line item you can push back on.
What you get
Whether it's a forge die, an injection mold, a permanent-mold die, or a sand pattern with core boxes, Partimation prices the tool through the same block-and-machining model, so the numbers are comparable across processes.
When your shop's die-block and machining rates are set, tool cost comes from a real block size and removal hours; until then, an area-based estimate stands in — clearly marked as the fallback, never presented as the real number.
Every tool carries a life — shots for a mold, pieces for a forge die — and that NRE is spread across the curve so you see cost-per-part at your real quantity, tooling included.
An undercut that needs a slide, a cavity that needs a core box, a flow path that needs a second gate — each one adds its own costed line, not a verbal markup.
How it works
Upload the model — Partimation screens the processes that fit.
Die, mold, pattern, or core box, sized to the part and its cavity count.
Block-and-machining pricing where rates are set, a labeled estimate otherwise — slides, cores, and extra gates itemized.
Tool life spread across the should-cost curve, with the crossover quantity visible.
Pricing
Priced for a single buyer checking a tooling quote and a shop running dies at scale alike. Tool-cost breakdowns are unmetered — run as many parts as you like.
EUR and GBP prices exclude VAT, added at checkout where it applies. Early adopters keep their price as the suite grows.
Run it your way
Sign in and price a tool from any browser. We run the compute, ship the updates, and keep your data yours — the shared model only ever learns from your own jobs to calibrate your rates.
Infrastructure and anyone under NDA can run the whole thing on their own hardware. Licenses and updates are signed files — it never phones home, so an air-gapped install stays air-gapped.
FAQ
Dies, molds, patterns, and core boxes all price through one block-and-machining tool-cost model, reused across HPDC, permanent-mold, injection, and forging. Tool costs from different processes end up comparable to each other rather than four vendors' four conventions. When a molder's number and a foundry's number sit on the same basis, you can tell which one is out of line.
Tooling is amortized into the per-piece should-cost curve rather than handed over as a lump sum. Every tool carries a life — shots for a mold, pieces for a forge die — and that non-recurring cost spreads across the curve, so the cost-per-part at your real quantity already has the tool in it.
The quantity where one tooling investment overtakes another is solved in closed form and shown as an exact crossover. Tool cost and piece price sit on the same curve, so the payback quantity is read off a number instead of argued about. A die that looks expensive at 200 pieces and cheap at 5,000 stops being a matter of opinion.
Tool-cost lines carry the same confidence band and named basis as every other line in the quote. For a buyer, that turns a tooling conversation into a specific one: push back on the stated basis and on the quantity the tool is amortized over, rather than on a lump figure with nothing named behind it.
Get started
Price a real tool free in your browser, or book a walkthrough set up for your shop's die-block and machining rates.
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