PCB vendors – prices incl. shipment costs

There are PCB vendors who claim funny prices for their pcbs – most notably

https://www.seeedstudio.com/fusion.html :
$4.90 for 10pcs 100x100mm 2 layer

https://jlcpcb.com/ :
$2 for 10pcs 100x100mm 2 layer
$33 for 10pcs 100x100mm 4 layer

but they certainly compensate with high shipping costs

Is there any experience with the shipment costs of the above vendors – for example to EU (basically it does not matter where)?

PS: you may get the shipment costs after registering/files upload, what I would rather avoid without knowing the “real” costs.

PPS: you may share your experience with other vendors as well (as it seems the pcbs are getting the most expensive part of your designs)..

At the beginning of the summer, I’ve used http://allpcb.com for 10pcs at $4.99, but since I’ve needed it shipped quickly to Canada by DHL, shipping cost $25, and when parcel arrived, DHL custom broker service charge me an additional $15 charge. Total became US$45.

I have used DirtyCheapPcb multiple times, https://dirtypcbs.com/store/pcbs , but not since they changed to be oart of Dangerous Prototypes.

i never had any problem with the boards, and. know one company I did some freelane work for, was using them for small scale production, and didnt complain to me about board quality issues..

However, they are much more expensive than other companies, and they may have put their prices up when changing ownership a year or more ago.

Like Martin, I think I normally paid for express shipping, as the boards were for a commerical project, and I could not wait a month for them to arrive.
However, I did mot get stung for any addition charges by the courier at my end of the delivery.

Its interesting to see the price of a 4 layer board.

I looked at the price of 4 layer boards a few days ago, when investigating if it would be economic to produce a BluePill sized board with a F405 on it.
But the prices for 4 layer boards where 10x the price of a 2 layer, which was a bit of a surprise to me, as companies I worked for 20 years ago, where happy to use 4 layer boards, and I was hoping it had become a bit more mainstream ( and not exeptionally expensive) now, but it doesnt look like the cheap PCB plants have the facility to do that, and perhaps sub-contract it elsewhere.

Last PCB order I made to Seeed was in May this year.
10 off 30.5mm x 61.0mm boards cost me £3.66 and shipping another £7.20 to the UK. Amazing value as far as I’m concerned.

Here is a fair price comparison site for PCBs:
https://pcbshopper.com/

Kinda single-operated website from a guy that developed scripts to automatically fetch the prices from many vendors, not taking a commission upon redirection.

[martinayotte – Sat Sep 30, 2017 3:08 pm] –
At the beginning of the summer, I’ve used http://allpcb.com for 10pcs at $4.99, but since I’ve needed it shipped quickly to Canada by DHL, shipping cost $25, and when parcel arrived, DHL custom broker service charge me an additional $15 charge. Total became US$45.

Hi Martin,

Here in EU, both UPS and Fedex are charging undue 30€ for custom broker service automatically, even if the parcel has full custom designation code on every article (like Digi-Key), DHL used not to charge for it, unless the parcel was actually inspected, which is seldom.

In most EU the VAT and custom charges do not apply when the declared shipment (from outside the EU) value is <=~22E (the exact value depends on the country, though)..

In France, the VAT is not due if it is < 5€. Above that, you take your chances… If controlled, you may have to pay the VAT, which is collected by the carrier.

However, if the carrier has the exact custom code for each part in the shipment, they should not charge additional fixed (30€) custom fees, which is what both UPS and Fedex are doing on top of the VAT collection.

I found this site very handy to have an idea of the real cost: https://pcbshopper.com/

I’m currently using Elecrow, and for now I’m satisfied (another batch is on the way…). Using the low price shipping it takes about 20/21 days… (but I’m just playing, so 21 days is absolutely ok for me… )

EDIT:
Last batch took only 15 days using cheapest shipment (and 2 free PCB)!

I’ve been using OSH-Park (http://oshpark.com) for my PCBs. Ordered a board today. 1.39 x 0.95 inches. They ship 3 for $6.55. May not be as cheap as some others but I’ve never had an issue with their service and have used them for years.

Last few years I have used: https://www.itead.cc/open-pcb/pcb-prototyping.html
Been happy with the quality. Once ordered you can monitor the production stage they are at.

If you want more than 10 pieces you can panalize the design as long as it does not have copper joining each design and no break-outs. They will rout out the 10 boards according to the true board edge you specify but you can use a top overlay to mark out where you want to further cut between boards and do it yourself. The extra boards boards may have a different design as long as the rules are observed.

Itead is currently my vendor of choice, the only quite annoying point is they do not (v-)cut with the 50x50mm offering. With a 20x20mm board you get 10pcs only, that gets costly