My New Wick Costs Less but Has More Variation Between Pieces — How Should Reject Rate Factor Into the True Commercial Cost?

The invoice price is not the cost of a usable wick

A wick with more piece-to-piece variation creates cost in three places, and only one of them is on the invoice. First, some wicks fail your goods-in sort and are thrown away or returned, so the price of the good ones rises. Second, someone has to do that sorting, and a more variable lot needs a bigger sample and more careful inspection. Third, and most expensive, some faulty wicks will slip past inspection into finished candles. Each of those escaped wicks can turn a whole candle into a reject or a complaint.

So the right comparison is not ₹ per wick. It is ₹ per wick that ends up in a good, saleable candle, including the share of failed candles the wick causes. This page walks through that calculation step by step, with the reject rates written as your own measured figures and a worked example using CSI prices to show the method. Any rate you choose is a suggested starting point; the only reliable figures are the ones you record from your own deliveries.

Three layers of cost to add to the price

Layer 1 is simple arithmetic. Layer 2 depends on your own time and rate, so it is left for you to fill in. Layer 3 is where cheap, variable wicks usually lose the argument, because the cost it multiplies is not the wick but the entire candle.

Worked example: a variable wick at 10% below ₹5.90

Take a 70 g votive candle in the CSI Clear Glass Votive Jar 70 gram, at ₹318.60 for ten, so ₹318.60 ÷ 10 = ₹31.86 per jar. You pour Natural Soy Pearl Wax, bought at 10 kg for ₹4,248.00, so ₹424.80 per kg, and Citrus Lemon at ₹2,832.00 per kg, at 8% of total candle weight. A 70 g candle holds 70 × 0.08 = 5.6 g of oil and 70 − 5.6 = 64.4 g of wax. Wax costs 0.0644 × ₹424.80 = ₹27.36; oil costs 0.0056 × ₹2,832.00 = ₹15.86.

Your current wick is an Eco Candle Wick, Thin (C1), at ₹5.90. The cheaper wick you are considering is 10% below that: ₹5.90 × 0.90 = ₹5.31, a saving of ₹5.90 − ₹5.31 = ₹0.59 per wick. The finished candle with your current wick costs ₹27.36 + ₹15.86 + ₹31.86 + ₹5.90 = ₹80.98 in materials.

Now suppose your own records show that your current wick has a goods-in reject rate of 1% and the cheaper one 6%. These are example figures for the method, not measured data; replace them with your tallies. Layer 1 gives:

Half the headline saving has already gone. The cheaper wick still looks ahead by ₹0.31 per usable piece. Layer 3 decides whether that survives.

Each wick that escapes inspection and fails in a candle costs roughly the whole candle: ₹80.98 in materials, before labour, label and box. Divide that by the ₹0.31 saving: ₹80.98 ÷ ₹0.31 = 261.2. In other words, if more than about one candle in every 261 fails because of the cheaper wick, the saving is gone. That is an escape rate of under 0.4%, far below the 6% of wicks you are already rejecting at goods-in. With a lot that variable, a few escapes are very likely.

Scaling the example to a 1,000-candle run

Put the same figures across a run of 1,000 votives. The net Layer 1 saving is 1,000 × ₹0.31 = ₹310.00. Now suppose just 1% of the accepted cheaper wicks still misbehave in the candle, ten candles in the run. Those ten failures cost 10 × ₹80.98 = ₹809.80 in materials. The run ends ₹809.80 − ₹310.00 = ₹499.80 worse off than if you had paid more for the consistent wick, before counting the time spent sorting 6% of the lot or dealing with any customer who received a faulty candle.

Layer 2 is your time, so price it yourself

A variable wick also asks more of the person at the goods-in bench. You may need to inspect more pieces per delivery, sort whole packs rather than sample them, and repeat comparison burns more often. Write down the minutes each delivery actually takes for both wicks for a few months, multiply by your own hourly cost, and divide by the number of usable wicks in each lot. That figure belongs in the comparison even though no supplier will ever print it.

Measuring variation so the numbers are yours

The calculation is only as good as the reject and escape rates you feed it. Build them from goods-in records, not impressions.

If you cannot yet measure an escape rate because you have not burned enough candles, you do not know the true cost, and the cheaper wick has not earned a place in production. Treat it as quarantined until you do.

Turning true cost into a buying decision

Consistency has a value that the invoice never shows. It lets you run smaller goods-in samples, trust your wick charts and spend your time on production instead of sorting. Include it honestly. The same logic applies whichever way the comparison runs: if a CSI wick turned out to be the variable one in your records, the numbers would argue against it, and you should follow them. For questions about a specific CSI wick lot, message +91 7397976926 on WhatsApp with your tallies and photos, and keep the answer in your lot file.

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