Magnet Pricing Explained: What Drives NdFeB Cost

A finished custom NdFeB magnet passes through more than a dozen process steps: alloy melting, jet milling, aligned pressing, sintering, machining, coating, magnetizing, inspection, and packaging. Each step contributes to the unit price. The proportions vary by part, but a representative breakdown for a mid-volume custom sintered NdFeB part looks like this:

Two takeaways follow directly from this structure. First, material dominates — which is why grade selection and part volume (in cubic millimeters, not just count) matter so much. Second, machining is the largest controllable cost — which is why tolerances and geometry are where design decisions move the price most.

NdFeB alloy is roughly one-third rare earth metal by weight — primarily neodymium and praseodymium (traded together as "NdPr"), with dysprosium or terbium added to high-temperature grades. These elements trade on commodity markets with real volatility: NdPr oxide has moved more than 2× within single twelve-month windows in the past decade.

What this means for your pricing

• Quotes have validity windows. A magnet quote is typically firm for 30–90 days because the supplier is carrying rare earth price exposure. Expired quotes get re-priced, in either direction.
• Long-term agreements often index to NdPr. Multi-year automotive and industrial programs commonly include a raw-material adjustment clause tied to published oxide prices. This protects both sides and is worth asking for on high-volume programs.
• Heavy rare earths are the expensive ones. Dysprosium and terbium — used in SH/UH/EH grades — cost many times more per kilogram than NdPr. This is the root cause of temperature-class premiums (next section).
• Supply is geographically concentrated. The large majority of NdFeB refining and magnet production capacity is in China, which affects lead times, tariffs, and supply-chain risk planning more than unit price alone.

Grade affects price along two independent axes — and buyers routinely underestimate the second one.

Axis 1: energy product (the number)

Moving from N35 to N52 increases the energy product about 50%, achieved through finer process control and higher alloy purity. The price premium from N35 to N52 is moderate — typically tens of percent, not multiples.

Axis 2: temperature class (the letters)

Moving from no suffix to SH, UH, or EH requires adding heavy rare earths (Dy/Tb), the most expensive inputs in the entire magnet. This is where premiums get large:

*Indicative ranges; actual premiums move with heavy rare earth spot prices. Temperature ratings assume a favorable permeance coefficient.

Sintered NdFeB is too hard and brittle to mill or turn — every surface is diamond-ground or wire-EDM cut, and material removal is slow. Machining cost scales with:

• Ground surface area. More faces, more grinding passes.
• Tolerance tightness. Standard is ±0.05 mm (±0.002"). Each tightening step adds cycle time and scrap: ±0.025 mm typically adds 15–30%; below that, cost rises steeply.
• Fragile geometry. Thin walls (<1 mm), high aspect ratios, sharp corners, and small holes raise handling scrap — which is priced into every good part shipped.
• Non-standard shapes. Arcs, wedges, and complex profiles require custom fixturing or wire EDM time.

Coating is a smaller slice of unit cost than material or machining, but the differences between options are real — and some coatings carry minimum-lot charges that dominate at low volume:

Coating choice also interacts with scrap: plating very small or very thin parts has higher handling loss, and some geometries can't be barrel-plated and must be racked — a labor adder worth asking about on unusual shapes.

Whether your part needs tooling depends on how it's made:

• Machined from standard blanks — no tooling. Typical for prototypes, simple discs/blocks/rings, and low volumes. Higher per-unit machining cost, zero NRE.
• Die-pressed to near-net shape — requires a pressing die (typically a four-figure NRE, more for complex profiles). Justified when volume is high enough that reduced grinding pays back the die.
• Custom magnetizing fixtures — multipole and true radial parts often need application-specific magnetizing coils, a separate NRE line.

Why MOQs exist

Every production lot carries fixed costs: furnace scheduling, machine setup, coating-line minimums, first-article inspection. On a 100-piece order those costs may exceed the value of the magnets themselves; on 10,000 pieces they disappear into the unit price. MOQs are the supplier's way of keeping fixed cost per unit sane — and they are often negotiable if you accept a lot charge instead.

Magnet pricing falls with volume for structural reasons, not goodwill:

• Setup and inspection costs amortize across more parts
• Full furnace and coating-line loads run at better efficiency
• Material is purchased in larger, better-priced lots
• Tooling (if any) amortizes to pennies per part

A typical price curve for a custom part looks like this — indicative shape, not a quote:

The practical implication: always request quotes at multiple quantity breaks, including your realistic production volume — even if the first PO is small. It changes sourcing decisions and reveals where the curve flattens for your specific part.

Landed cost is more than the unit price on the quote:

• Tariffs and duties. Rare earth magnets imported into the U.S. from China have carried substantial and changing tariff burdens in recent years. Confirm whether quoted pricing is DDP (duties paid) or whether tariffs land on you — and ask what happens if rates change mid-program.
• Air shipping rules. Magnetized material is regulated air cargo (UN 2807 considerations); shipments must meet field-strength limits at the package surface, sometimes requiring shielding that adds packaging cost. Unmagnetized shipment with domestic magnetizing avoids this entirely for some parts.
• Compliance documentation. RoHS/REACH declarations are routine; full-material disclosures, conflict-minerals reporting, and PPAP packages carry real labor and are typically priced into programs that require them. State these needs at RFQ, not after award — see our RFQ preparation guide.
• Stocking programs. For steady-usage parts, blanket orders with scheduled releases or domestic safety stock convert shipping and tariff volatility into a predictable line item.

Ranked roughly by impact, here is where real savings come from:

Everything in this guide converges on one point: the quality of your quote depends on the quality of your specification. A complete RFQ — dimensions and tolerances, full grade with temperature class, magnetization direction, coating or environment, quantities and breaks, and documentation requirements — gets you firm pricing quickly, with no padding for unknowns.

We've published a step-by-step companion guide with a copy-paste checklist: How to Prepare an RFQ for Custom Magnets. For material selection questions, see NdFeB vs. SmCo vs. Ferrite vs. Alnico, and for fundamentals, Magnets 101.