What Actually Drives the Price of Aluminium Foil per Tonne
Two suppliers quote the same alloy, the same gauge and a different number. Here is the cost structure behind an aluminium foil quotation, line by line, so you can compare offers properly.
When quotes for what looks like identical foil come back far apart, the difference is almost never the supplier being generous or greedy. It is the specification. A foil quotation is built from several independent cost blocks, and small changes in any of them move the tonne price.
The metal: LME plus a conversion premium
Every quote starts from the aluminium ingot price, which is set daily on the London Metal Exchange and is the same reference for every mill in the world. Nobody controls it and nobody can hold it for long. What differs between suppliers is the conversion premium, which covers the energy and labour of rolling the ingot down to foil gauge. That premium is where most of the real difference between quotes lives.
Alloy and temper
Common alloys such as 8011, 1235 and 1050 are rolled continuously and are the cheapest to buy. Specialty alloys and tight tempers mean more rolling passes, more annealing and more testing, so they carry a higher conversion cost. If your specification says H18 where H24 would work, you may be paying more for a foil that also forms less well.
Gauge and width
Thinner foil is not cheaper than thicker foil by weight in the way most buyers expect. Below a certain gauge, rolling speed drops, breakage rates rise and the number of passes increases, so the cost per tonne can climb even though you are buying less metal. Width works the same way: slitting a jumbo roll down to a narrow width creates trim that has to be recycled, so narrow widths carry a premium over standard widths.
Surface, lacquer and interleaving
Mill finish foil is the base product. Bright finish, one-side matte, lacquered, laminated and printed foil each add a process step and a rejection risk. Interleaving with paper or film adds material cost and slows winding. These options are often worth paying for, but they should be quoted as separate line items so you can see what each one costs you.
Packing and pallet configuration
Export packing is frequently underestimated. Eye-to-sky wooden pallets, moisture barrier wrapping, edge protection and cartons all add cost, and so does the labour of building them. Ask whether the packing you were quoted is the packing the container will actually arrive with, because upgrading it later is expensive.
Order size and container utilisation
A single-container order is not priced like a five-container programme, and it should not be. Setup, slitting patterns and testing are spread across the tonnage, so larger and more repeatable orders carry a lower cost per tonne. Container utilisation matters just as much: a loading plan that fills the box properly can be worth more than a small discount on the metal.
Freight and Incoterms
FOB and CIF quotes are not comparable until you add your own inland costs and insurance to the FOB figure. Check which port is used, whether the quote includes the loading plan, and who pays for what if the container is delayed. Ocean freight also moves week to week, so a quote that is several months old is only a rough guide.
How to compare two offers
Put the specifications side by side before comparing the numbers: alloy, temper, gauge with tolerance, width with tolerance, core diameter, surface, interleaving, packing, quantity, Incoterm and port. In our experience most price gaps of ten to twenty percent disappear once the two specifications are lined up, and the ones that remain are genuine differences in conversion cost or order size.
We quote line by line against a written specification, so you can see exactly what each element costs. Start from our aluminium foil roll range for converter and industrial supply, or food and household foil for retail-ready material, and send your specification for a costed quotation.