Sealed Unit Cost Calculator
Calculate your Sealed Unit Material and Labour Costs
This is an aid for manufacturers of Insulated Glass (IG) Sealed units to calculate material costs and factors in the labour costs in making the units. It also has a guide to achieving your target margin on your sealed units. Whilst we will always encourage manufacturers not to select products based on price alone, we appreciate that this will always be a driving factor in running a successful business. This calculator will allow you to generate comparative costs for producing sealed units taking all material costs into account. We hope this will assist in decisions relating to manufacturing methods used and the material components in making highest quality and highest performance IG sealed units. It will also allow direct price comparison on products sold in differing box quanitites.
PLEASE NOTE: The facts and figures quoted in this calculator are for guidance purposes only. Whist Elegant IG has taken all reasonable care in the compilation of the information contained within these calculators and all information on this website to ensure that it is accurate and current, we do not accept any liability for any inaccuracies or omissions.
Enter your individual IG component costs below to calculate your own sealed unit costs per unit you produce. As long as you enter a unit size, you can use one element of the calculator to calculate individual costs of each material item. Once you have entered all the figures, click the 'Calculate Costs' button. Your current sealed unit material costs per unit and guide unit selling prices will then appear in the summary to the right. There is also the option for you to add labour costs if required.
Enter the height and width of the glass size of your unit here. The calculator will only work if a unit height and width is entered here. Although this value is showing in meters, you can enter a figure to 3 decimal places to allow for accuracy to mm sizing.
Unit height (Metres)
Unit Cavity Size (mm)
Unit width (Metres)
Whether you buy in stillages or boxes of spacer bar of any type, as long as you enter the cost you pay per box and the total meterage per box, this will work out your cost per metre. The cost per sealed unit price is calculated based on the sealed unit dimensions you enter above. This does not account for deduction of the spacer from the glass size (usually 24mm depending on the spacer and sealant depth). In effect, this factors in an inevitable spacer bar wastage cost.
Stillage/Box Price
Stillage/Box Quantity (metres)
Cost per metre
Cost per sealed unit
The cost per sealed unit price is based on the standard cut and corner key method where 4 corner keys are used so a default figure of 4 corner keys is entered here. If manufacturing using bendable spacer bar, you can edit this figure to 1 or a number to suit the quantity of corner keys you use per unit.
Box Price
Box Quantity
No. of corner keys per unit
Cost per key
Cost per sealed unit
For Secondary Sealant Calculations, please read the notes below relating to calculating the number of Litres per block' and determining the 'Amount Deducted from the Bar'.
Block or Drum Price
Litres per Block or Drum
Price Per Litre
Amount Deducted from Bar (mm)
Expected Bond Area (mm)
Metre run per Litre
Cost per Metre
Cost per sealed unit
Slug or Pack Price
Kg Per Slug or Pack
Cost per Kg
Cost per linear metre
Cost per sealed unit
We have discovered a variance of as much as 20% in bulk density in comparison to our own desiccant product. This means that a desiccant can cost up to 20% more to fill per metre of spacer which is worth factoring into the overall cost of the desiccant you buy. To check this, simply pour 1kg in a volumetric jug and compare this volume to 1kg of another desiccant.
Please note that this is only one of the tests we recommend to ensure you are receiving a quality and cost-effective desiccant.
Box Price
Box Weight (Kg)
Bulk Density
Cost per Kg
Cost per sealed unit
*Desiccant costs estimated on filling 50% of the total Aluminium bar length. Please note that warm edge spacer tubes generally have a slightly smaller internal dimension so we recommend that you fill 3-4 sides of the spacer tube framework. Filling 3 sides of Warm Edge Spacer will be approximately the same volume of spacer bar as filling 2 sides of Aluminium bar.
Cost per square metre - Annealed
Cost per square metre - Low-E Glass
No. of sealed units your business produces p/week
No. of staff
Total Manpower Cost per Unit
No. of hours staff work p/week (each)
Wages per staff member per hour
Current Cost Per Sealed Unit (AUD):
Guide to selling price to achieve margins as follows:
Note: No wastage or energy costs included.