I Found Cheaper Candle Jars but Their Dimensions Vary More Between Units — How Do I Determine Whether the Saving Is Worth the Additional Production Risk?

Why a few millimetres of glass cost money

Your approved wick was chosen for a particular inside diameter. When jars in a delivery vary, some are wider than the jar you tested — the wick may not reach the wall, and the candle tunnels. Some are narrower — the same wick may run hot, with a taller flame and a hotter jar. A cheap jar that varies a lot pushes cost into three places: time spent measuring and sorting, extra wick testing at the extremes, and failed candles when a jar slips through.

Inside diameter is not the only dimension that moves. Height and inner volume change how much wax reaches your fill line, so a jar that is a little taller or wider holds more wax at the same visual line — and a customer comparing two candles on a shelf will notice uneven fill levels long before they notice a millimetre of glass. Base thickness changes how the last centimetre of wax behaves and how hot the base gets. Rim shape changes whether your lids fit. A supplier whose jars vary in one dimension often varies in others, so a variable diameter is a reason to look harder at the whole jar.

None of that shows up on the jar invoice. The saving does. So the task is to put a rupee figure on the variation and set it against the saving, per delivery. The goods-in measurement is what makes both numbers real.

A worked example on 500 jars

Use CSI's matte 200 ml jar as the price reference: a pack of 10 costs ₹708.00, so each jar is ₹708.00 ÷ 10 = ₹70.80 and 500 jars cost 50 × ₹708.00 = ₹35,400.00. Suppose the cheaper jars are, hypothetically, 20% less: ₹70.80 × 0.80 = ₹56.64 each, or 500 × ₹56.64 = ₹28,320.00. On the invoice, the cheaper jars save ₹7,080.00 per 500.

To price failures, cost a finished candle in a cheaper jar. For the arithmetic, assume a 200 g fill at this series' 8% convention; weigh a filled jar of your own to confirm your real fill. Wax: 184 g of CSI 464 at ₹5,074.00 per 10 kg is ₹93.36. Oil: 16 g of Jasmine at 16 × (₹3,923.00 ÷ 1,000) = ₹62.77. Wick: a thin Eco wick at ₹5.90. Jar: ₹56.64. Total: ₹218.67 per candle.

Now the variation costs, with illustrative assumptions you should replace with your own goods-in data:

Under these assumptions the cheaper jars still come out ahead by ₹3,258.63 per 500, ₹3,258.63 ÷ 500 = about ₹6.52 per jar, rather than the ₹70.80 − ₹56.64 = ₹14.16 the invoice suggests. Before counting your measuring and sorting time, which you should price at your own hourly figure.

Where the saving disappears

The weakest line in that table is the one you least control: candles that fail after pouring. Goods-in rejects and wick tests are known costs. Escapes are not, and each one throws away the whole candle.

Keep the wick testing and goods-in rejects as above, and the saving left to absorb escapes is ₹7,080.00 − ₹1,312.02 − ₹1,416.00 = ₹4,351.98. Divided by ₹218.67 per failed candle, that is 19.9 candles — about 4% of 500. If more than roughly one jar in 25 gets past your sorting and fails, the cheaper jars lose money. At 3% escapes, 15 × ₹218.67 = ₹3,280.05, and the net saving shrinks to ₹1,071.93.

That tells you where to spend effort. Good goods-in measuring turns unpredictable escapes into predictable rejects. A jar you set aside at the bench costs ₹56.64. The same jar filled, cured, labelled and returned by a customer costs far more than ₹218.67.

There is a middle path that some makers use deliberately: accept the spread, sort every jar at goods-in into a narrow and a wide group, and qualify one wick for each. It works, but it has its own costs. Every delivery must be fully measured, not sampled; two wick sizes must be stocked and tracked; and the production sheet must record which group each candle came from. For a small workshop that time often costs more than the jar saving, so price it before you choose it.

The goods-in measurement that makes this work

You need a vernier caliper, a notebook and about an hour for a 500-jar delivery. The routine below is a suggested starting point; tighten or relax it once you know how a supplier's jars behave.

Deciding whether the cheaper jar is worth it

After two or three deliveries you will have real numbers for the three variation costs: how many jars fall outside range, how many wick tests the spread forces, and how many candles fail after pouring. Put those into the table in place of the assumptions. If the net saving per jar stays clearly positive and your escape rate stays well below the break-even, the cheaper jar is worth it. If you find yourself stocking two wick sizes and sorting every delivery, count that time honestly — it is often what tips the decision back.

Ask the cheaper supplier two questions and record the answers: can they tell you the inside diameter range they aim for, and will they replace jars outside it? A supplier who replaces out-of-range jars removes one whole line from your cost table. For CSI jars, ask on WhatsApp (+91 7397976926); our pages do not publish an inside-diameter tolerance, so the answer should be recorded like any other supplier's.

The saving on the invoice is real. So is the cost of variation. The only way to know which is bigger is to measure at goods-in, delivery after delivery, and let those numbers decide.

Where this page fits

CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page covers the goods-in check for the question above; these go deeper on the rest:

Three things to buy for this job

Frequently asked questions