One Wax Gives Smooth Tops Without Rework While Another Is ₹30/kg Cheaper — How Do I Determine Which One Actually Costs Less at 1,000 Candles per Month?

₹30 a kilo is ₹5,520.00 a month — rework has to cost less than that

Put both sides in the same unit: rupees per month. At 1,000 candles a month, a 200 g candle at 8% uses 184 g of wax, so you buy 184.00 kg a month. Your ₹30 a kilo saves ₹5,520.00 a month — ₹5.52 a candle. That is the cheaper wax's whole advantage. If correcting its tops costs less than ₹5,520.00 a month, it is the cheaper wax; if more, the smooth wax is.

The break-even is tight. If every candle needs rework, the cheaper wax wins only if each correction takes less than 2.21 minutes at an example ₹150 an hour. If 25% of candles need it, the budget per corrected candle rises to 8.83 minutes. Below that share, the cheaper wax usually wins on cost — but at 1,000 candles a month, even a modest rework rate is several hours of someone's time, and that is capacity you may need.

Your ₹30 is used exactly as given and the candle size is this series' 200 g default; change it and the numbers scale. Then, because real gaps matter, the same maths is re-run below with two CSI waxes whose gap is about three times yours: Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 at ₹507.40 a kilo and Luxury Soy Wax Chunks at ₹599.00 (5 kg bags), ₹91.60 apart. That is ₹16.85 a candle and ₹16,854.40 a month — a much bigger budget for rework. Nothing here says either CSI wax gives smoother tops; that is what the production split measures.

The monthly break-even grid

The lead table crosses the share of candles that need rework with the minutes each correction takes, at an example ₹150 an hour, for 1,000 candles. Each cell is the month's rework labour and whether it is below your ₹5,520.00 saving. The last column is the most minutes per corrected candle the cheaper wax can afford at that share.

Read it from your own trial: find the row for the share you measured and the column for the minutes you timed. If the cell says "cheaper wax", the ₹30 is real money even after rework. If it says "smooth wax", the saving was paid out in labour. The labour rate moves every cell: at ₹100 an hour the break-even minutes rise by half; at ₹200 they fall by a quarter.

Re-run with real CSI waxes and real packs

Real pack prices change the picture in two ways. First, the real gap between two CSI container soy waxes is rarely ₹30. Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 is ₹507.40 a kilo flat from 1 kg; Luxury Soy Wax Chunks is ₹599.00 at 1 and 5 kg and ₹599.90 in the 10 kg bag. At 5 kg that is ₹91.60 a kilo, ₹16.85 per 200 g candle and ₹16,854.40 a month — 3.05 times your ₹30 budget. Second, at 184.00 kg a month you are past CSI's listed bag sizes, which stop at 10 kg for container soy; that quantity is quoted on WhatsApp and no volume discount figure is published.

Note the Chunks lines: the 10 kg bag is ₹599.90 a kilo, so 5 kg bags are cheaper; oddly, the 500 g bag is the cheapest of all at ₹598.00 a kilo, but nobody should buy 380 small bags a month. At this volume, ask for a quote rather than buying 38 bags online. When a bigger pack is worthwhile and whether a 100 kg price is worth tying up cash cover the buying side.

With these example results the cheaper wax saves ₹14,420.46 a month after rework and damage. In your ₹30 frame the same rework and damage (₹2,433.94) would take 44% of the ₹5,520.00 saving, leaving ₹3,086.06. Both still favour the cheaper wax — but in the ₹30 case a slightly slower correction or a higher labour rate flips it, while the real gap leaves room to spare. The size of the per-kilo gap decides how much rework you can afford. Pricing heat-gun minutes per candle shows how to time the corrections that feed this table.

The production split: measuring rework at your volume

At 1,000 candles a month you can afford a proper trial, and you cannot afford a wrong decision. The production split pours both waxes inside your normal production, alternating batches so neither wax gets the easy days, and treats the candles as stock. Before it, both waxes should already have passed a burn test with your wick and oil; this split measures surface rework, not burn safety.

The priced production split

100 candles, 50 per wax: 9,200 g of each wax, 9,660.0 g with a 5% pour-loss allowance (a working assumption), and 1,600 g of Mango Coconut (1,680.0 g). At this size the packs are production packs, and the candles that pass go into stock.

Mango Coconut is one of the oils with a genuine bulk step — ₹5.00 a gram at 100 g against ₹3.96 at 500 g and 1 kg — which is why 1 × 1 kg + 1 × 500 g + 1 × 100 g + 1 × 50 g + 2 × 15 g is the cheapest way to cover 1,680.0 g. Chunks are priced as two 5 kg bags (₹5,990.00); twenty 500 g bags would be ₹10.00 cheaper at ₹598.00 a kilo, and one 10 kg bag ₹9.00 dearer.

The decision rule, ending in a purchase

In your ₹30 frame, the example trial — 40% of candles reworked at 1.5 minutes, 1% damaged — leaves the cheaper wax ₹3,086.06 a month ahead, so on cost it still wins; it flips only if nearly every candle needs more than about 2.2 minutes, or if the 10 rework hours collide with peak production. With the real CSI pair and the same example rework the cheaper wax keeps ₹14,420.46 a month, and the purchase is Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 — at your volume, ask on WhatsApp for a quote on 190 kg a month rather than 19 listed bags. Either way, the month's rework hours go on the production plan.

The monthly view connects to the rest of the cluster. The cost-per-saleable-candle hub gives the per-candle formula behind these totals; the rejects post handles candles the rework cannot save; the consistency ledger prices the order buffer that a less predictable wax forces on you; the margin post shows when the hours matter more than the rupees; and the true commercial cost of a soy wax adds freight and wicks to the same sheet.

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