Custom Injection Mold Manufacturer —
Engineered to De-Risk Your Tooling from Day One
The right injection mold isn't the cheapest quote — it's the one that catches steel, gating, and tolerance problems before the first shot, so you never pay for them in costly rework. That's the only kind of tooling we build.
KTM is an engineer-led mold factory in Dongguan, China. You work engineer-to-engineer, and the people answering your technical questions are the same people building your plastic injection molds.
- Free preliminary DFM on every custom injection mold quote
- Full DFM, Moldflow, trial, CMM and material reports
- Steel matched to your volume — aluminum to hardened H13/S136/1.2344
- No hidden fees, no mid-project price increases
- Export the tool or keep it in our factory for production
Our Injection Mold
Tooling Capabilities
What Is Tooling in Injection Molding?
Tooling is the machined steel or aluminum mold that shapes molten plastic into your part. People use "tooling" and "mold" as if they mean the same thing. They don't. The mold is the cavity set that forms your geometry. Tooling is the full assembly around it: the moldbase, cavity and core inserts, slides, lifters, ejector pins, sprue and cooling channels. That distinction matters at the quote stage, because most of your cost and lead time lives in the tooling, that's why we quote and engineer the full tooling package up front — so the number you approve is the number you pay, whether your drawing calls it injection mold tooling or injection mould toolin
"Core and cavity features held to ±0.005 mm, with Sodick mirror EDM finishing cosmetic surfaces to Ra 0.05 µm — every dimension traceable to a CMM report."
The In-House Equipment Behind Every Mold
We cut injection mold tooling on FANUC CNC machining centers and finish detail features on Sodick mirror-finish EDM, holding critical core and cavity features to ±0.005 mm. Milling, grinding, drilling, tapping and engraving all stay under one roof — no outside-vendor hand-offs, no drifting tolerances.
Every mold is verified on our in-house CMM before it ships, so for precision injection mold programs you approve real three-coordinate numbers, not a verbal promise. Our 40+ presses run with robotic arms for 24-hour output, moving a validated mold straight into production.
In-house inspection equipment: CMM · optical projector · pin & plug gauges · go/no-go gauges · calipers · micrometers · height gauges · hardness tester etc
Injection Mold Types
& Processes We Build
We build six core injection mold types in-house — and we tell you which one your part actually needs before any steel is cut. Each is matched to your geometry, resin, annual volume, and the press it runs on.
Hot Runner Mold →
What it does: Eliminates cold runners and the scrap they create, and holds gate quality on cosmetic surfaces.
Best for: High-cavitation, high-volume parts where material waste and cycle time both matter.
Press: Standard injection press with hot-runner temperature control.
2K / Two-Shot Injection Molding →
What it does: Molds two materials or colors in one cycle, bonding them without a separate assembly step.
Best for: Soft-touch grips, bonded seals, and multi-color cosmetics.
Press: A purpose-built two-shot machine — our partners run both right-angle and balanced 2K presses.
Overmolding →
What it does: Bonds elastomer or a second resin onto an existing substrate for grip and sealing.
Best for: Handles, grips, and sealing surfaces over a rigid core.
Press: Standard injection press, with the substrate loaded as an insert. two independent molds needed.
Insert Molding →
What it does: Encapsulates brass inserts,stainless steel inserts,aluminum inserts, pins, shafts or any metal products directly in the molded part.
Best for: Parts that would otherwise need a downstream press-fit or assembly step.
Press: Standard injection press with insert-loading process by hand or robot.
Gas-Assisted Injection Molding →
What it does: Uses nitrogen to hollow thick sections, cutting weight, sink marks, and cycle time.Tool M85266 achieved a sink-free surface at T1.
Best for: Structural parts, handles, and large panels with thick sections.
Press: Standard injection press paired with dedicated nitrogen gas control unit.
Unscrewing Injection Mold →
What it does: Molds internal or external threads with a mechanical unscrewing action on ejection.
Best for: Threaded closures and caps — the same mechanism behind our own thread molds.
Press: Standard injection press with a geared or hydraulic unscrewing core.
Family & Multi-Cavity Molds — Sized to Your Annual Volume
When several related parts share a resin and shot size, a family mold runs them together and lowers your per-part tooling cost. When you need volume on a single part, a multi cavity mold balances fill and cooling across cavities to hold dimensions cavity-to-cavity. We size cavitation to your annual volume, not to a maximum.
From single-cavity trial tools to 64-cavity production molds, we balance runner and cooling layout so every cavity fills identically — verified on our CMM before the mold ships.Tell us your part and target volume — we'll recommend the cavitation and steel that actually fit, not the most expensive option.
That choice ties directly to one more decision — aluminum or steel?
GET A FREE DFM REVIEW — UPLOAD YOUR PART FILE →Aluminum vs Steel Injection Molds:
Which Tooling Fits Your Volume?
The cheapest mold is the one that matches your volume. The wrong call costs you either upfront budget or a failed production run. Here is how the materials actually compare.
| Tool life (depending on the part geometry and requirement) |
Heat transfer | Upfront cost | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminum / prototype mold | a few hundred–2,000 shots | up to 7× faster than steel | lowest | Prototype, bridge & low-volume runs, large-part cooling trials |
| Pre-hardened (P20, 1.1730, S50C) | Thousands–under 100,000 shots | medium | medium | Mid-volume & transition tooling |
| Hardened steel (H13, S136,8407, 1.2343/1.2344, SKD61) | 300,000–1,000,000+ shots (48–60 HRC) | medium | highest | Production volume, abrasive/corrosive resins, mirror-polish cosmetics |
Aluminum and Rapid Tooling — When It Pays Off
Yes, we build aluminum molds, and they're our standard choice for Prototype Injection Moldingwork and bridge runs. They pay off in three cases: validating a design before you commit to steel, bridge tooling while the production mold is cut, and Low Volume Injection Molding parts. Aluminum's faster heat transfer also shortens cycle time on small parts, so cooling never becomes the bottleneck. We've run aluminum molds for our own plastic fishing lures and ship free sample parts from that tooling — you verify the part before scaling into Rapid Injection Molding
Hardened Steel for Production Volume
Once you're past low volume, steel is the only safe choice. A steel injection mold in H13 or S136 at 48–60 HRC holds dimensions across hundreds of thousands of shots — and because the same people cut, harden and CMM-check the tool, that number is verified, not promised. S136 polishes to a mirror finish, so we specify it for cosmetic and optical surfaces. Glass-filled nylon and PVC are abrasive and corrosive; those parts demand hardened steel, and we flag that in the quote up front — never as a surprise after cutting.
The right steel answers half the question. The other half is what it costs — here's the breakdown, with no hidden fees.
Injection Mold Cost:
A Transparent Breakdown (No Hidden Fees)
Most buyers reach this page after a bad experience: a low number on the quote, then surprise charges once the steel is already cut. So here are the real ranges before you ask.
| Cost item | Typical range/USD | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminum / prototype mold | $2,000–$90,000+ | A few hundred–thousands shots prototype & bridge & low volume |
| Pre-hardened steel mold (P20/1.1730) | $5,000–$30,000+ | Tens of thousands of shots |
| Hardened-steel production mold (H13/S136/12.344/8407etc) | $10,000–$100,000+ | 300,000–1,000,000+ shots |
| Per-part molded cost | $0.05–$5.00+ | Amortized at volume, part sizes and press |
| Machine hourly rate | $50–$200+ | Tonnage-dependent |
Your injection mold cost depends on your part and your requirement, not on a price list. Send the file and you get an itemized number, not a range.
What Drives Injection Mold Cost — Part geometry & Complexity, Mold Steel,Resin & Surface Finishing
More than three things move the price, and an honest quote names all of them:
Part geometry & Complexity
Bigger parts demand larger mold bases and higher tonnage. Side actions,lifters, and unscrewing cores add machining hours,a flat cover and a threaded closure never cost the same.
Cavity Count
A single-cavity tool is cheap to build but slow to run; an 8,16,32-cavitites family mold costs more upfront and pays back fast on volume.
Mold Steel Grade
Aluminum, pre-hardened P20, or hardened H13/S136 each move both price and tool life. We set the grade by your target volume, not a default.
Molding Material
Glass-filled nylon and PVC are abrasive and corrosive — they wear cavities and attack the screw, so these molds cost more than the same part in ABS or PP.
Surface Finish
A lightly textured housing and a mirror-polished S136 optical surface are different jobs. Cosmetic and optical finishes add polishing hours the quote makes visible.
Mold Export vs In-House Production
Export molds are built to HASCO/DME standards components, so they cost more. Keep the tool at KTM and we use equivalent domestic-standard components — same molded-part quality, lower tooling price.
Why "Cheap" Overseas Tooling Often Costs More
A low custom injection mold cost usually hides a shortcut — the wrong steel, a skipped DFM step, or a guessed gate location. It surfaces later as a failed first-article inspection, then rework, then a re-cut tool. The $5,000 you saved becomes a six-figure delay.
We quote once. After the PO, the price is fixed and every deliverable is listed. Our change policy is in writing: if a problem comes from our work and your drawing hasn't changed, we own it — including re-cutting the mold at our cost. If you revise the part mid-project, that tooling change is quoted and carried by you. Either way, you know who pays before the work starts — right down to how any aluminum injection mold cost for a bridge tool is itemized separately.
The aluminum injection mold cost for a bridge tool is broken out separately, so you see exactly what you're paying for. Every number above tightens once we see your file.
Get an Itemized Quote →How We De-Risk Your Injection Mold
Before the First Shot
A mold that fails at T1 costs you weeks, not hours. We catch the failure points before steel is cut — through five documented checkpoints on every project, each with a report you can hold, not a promise.
DFM Review
At the quote stage, a free preliminary DFM flags draft angle, wall-thickness and part design risks before you commit a dollar. After the PO, you receive a detailed DFM report covering parting line, gate type&location, ejection layout, potential problems solved on a detailed DFM report.
Mold Flow Analysis — Only When Your Part Needs It
We run a Moldflow simulation on thin-wall, long-flow, or weld-line-sensitive cosmetic parts, and whenever you request one. We don't force a mold flow analysis onto a simple part to pad the invoice — engineering judgment decides that, not the billing desk.
Mold Design Sign-Off & Weekly Mould Build Updates
Before a single steel cut, you approve the full mold layout. Through the build you get weekly progress photos and a project report, so the mold's status is never a black box. If a problem shows up on the floor, you hear it from us the same day — we surface it, we don't bury it until T1.
Tool Trial (T1) Sampling Report
Every trial ships with a full report: mold and part photos, process parameters, shot weight, and any defect we see — sink, warpage, flash, or dimensional deviation. We flag the issues first, send you some samples, and build the fix with you. Need the trial run to your own parameters? We do that too.
Final Inspection, Critical Dimensions & Metal-Safe
Every shipment carries a full CMM dimensional report and a material certificate, with the exact gauge recorded against each measurement — CMM, optical projector, pin and plug gauges, hardness tester. Tell us your critical dimensions before we cut, and we leave metal-safe stock so those features can be fine-tuned after T1 instead of re-cutting the tool. For large or warp-prone parts, we design holding and inspection jigs to lock dimensions down.
This is also our answer to the question buyers fear most: when something goes wrong, the founder and the engineering team handle it directly — against a documented, traceable inspection trail. Five checkpoints work because the same people own all of them. That's the difference in how KTM is run.
See the risks in your part before steel is cut. We run a preliminary DFM at the quote stage — no charge, no obligation.
Get a Free Preliminary DFM ReviewWhy Engineers Choose KTM as
Their Injection Mold Partner
At many overseas shops, the person on your call relays your question to a workshop you never speak to. That hand-off is where projects lose weeks. KTM is built the other way.
One Team Owns the Entire Build
From your first DFM review to the final CMM report, the same engineering team owns every step — quoting, design, steel-cutting, trial and inspection. Nothing is emailed to a subcontractor and lost for a week. When a problem shows up at trial, the person who cut the steel is the person who fixes it. That single-ownership model is why our first-article reports hold up.
We Take the Molds Other Factory Turn Away
Glass-filled nylon abrades tooling; PVC and flame-retardant resins corrode both the steel and the injection screw. Many factories decline this work to protect their machines. We don't. We specify hardened, corrosion-resistant grades, run dedicated screws for aggressive materials, and price it honestly up front — so the resins that scare other suppliers are routine here.
Relationships Measured in Decades, Not Orders
Several clients have stayed with KTM for 10 to 15 years, moving each new product generation through the same engineers who already know their parts, tolerances and failure modes. As a technically-led injection mold manufacturer — not a sales desk — we're built for the long program, not the one-off quote.
Your Time Zone, Answered the Same Day
Our project engineers work until 9 p.m. local time to overlap with US and European hours. A question you send at 9 a.m. in Detroit or Stuttgart gets an engineer's answer — not an auto-reply — before you leave the office. Across dozens of video reviews, that overlap is what keeps a mold on schedule instead of losing a day to every round-trip.
These four reasons aren't claims — they're visible in the tooling we've already shipped. Here's the proof.
Injection Molds Proven Across Six Demanding Industries
Knowing your application is the difference between a mold that ships and a mold that comes back. As an injection mold and automotive mold manufacturer, we've built tooling across six demanding sectors — most under NDA, so part names stay generic while the engineering speaks for itself.
Automotive
Water-tank parts, exterior housings, safety buckles, and light-strip covers. For a Tier-2's abrasive 30% glass-filled cooling part that had failed on two prior tools, we specified H13 at 52 HRC and re-gated to cut shear. Still running after six years.
→ See our automotive mold expertise
Aerospace
Seat-recline latches, armrests, and door-frame housings where traceability is mandatory. Every cavity ships with a full CMM dimensional report and material certificate, so safety-critical parts carry a documented record — not a verbal promise — from the first article on.
→ Explore our aerospace tooling
Medical
Device housings, sealing components, and precision enclosures where finish and repeatability are critical. We machine cavities in corrosion-resistant S136 polished to a mirror finish, then verify every dimension on our in-house CMM before the tool ships.
→ Discover our medical injection molding
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS
POS-terminal housings, power-socket enclosures, and camera-mounted parts where fit and finish are non-negotiable. One US brand needed a hard shell with a soft-touch seal in a single cycle — we built the 2K mold and ran it in-house, removing an entire assembly step.
Baby & Personal care
Baby bottles, nipples, shaver, and toy parts where material safety and dimensional repeatability are non-negotiable. We hold tight cavity-to-cavity consistency across multi-cavity tooling and document every shot, so food-contact parts stay compliant batch after batch.
KTM FEATURE PRODUCTS
Plastic fishing lures (both hard and soft baits), plastics reels/spools, and zip cable ties are our flagship production lines — and we own the molds. Request free sample parts before you commit, then scale from a low-cost aluminum trial into hardened steel once volume justifies it.
None of these came from the lowest quote — they came from the right steel and a clean first trial. And once a mold is proven, we don't just hand it over — we can run the parts too.
From Injection Mold to Molded Parts
— One Supplier, No Handoffs
Your mold doesn't have to leave China to start working. Export the finished tool for your own presses, or keep it with us and we run the parts — one supplier from steel to shipped part, with no second vendor to manage and no dimensional finger-pointing between shops.
Our floor runs 40+ presses from 90 to 400 tons, with partner capacity to 3,300 tons for large structural parts. Robotic part removal keeps them running around the clock, so your delivery date tracks the build schedule — not the shift calendar.
Same Floor, Same Team
Because the two-shot and gas-assisted molds sit on the same floor as the moldmaking, a problem found at first trial gets solved by the same engineers who cut the steel — not emailed to a third party and lost for a week. That's the real payoff of one supplier: the mold, the trial, and the production all answer to the same team.
Injection Mold FAQ
Most buyers reach this point with the same handful of questions. Here are straight answers.
Conventional tooling means a hardened-steel production mold built for 300,000 to 1,000,000+ shots. Rapid tooling uses aluminum or CNC-cut soft steel to deliver a working mold in days for a few hundred to a few thousand parts. You use rapid tooling to validate a design; you switch to steel when volume justifies it.
Tooling is the custom mold plus the cores, cavities, slides, lifters, and ejector system that form your part. It's a precision machine built for one geometry, not an off-the-shelf component. That's why it's engineered, not purchased.See our full injection mold tooling capabilities above.
A custom injection mold typically runs $3,000 to $100,000+. An aluminum or prototype tool lands around $2,000 to $9,000; a hardened-steel production tool runs $10,000 to $100,000+. Part size, steel, cavity count, complexity and surface finishing drive the number.
You're paying for a micron-level machine cut on FANUC CNC and finished on Sodick mirror EDM, then validated with full dimensional reports. Slides, lifters, and unscrewing mechanisms add machining hours. Our quote shows where every dollar goes, with no mid-project price changes.
It depends on steel, resin, design, and maintenance. Aluminum runs a few hundred to ~2,000 shots. Pre-hardened steel (P20, 1.1730) reaches the tens of thousands. Hardened H13, S136, or SKD61 at 48 to 60 HRC reaches 300,000 to 1,000,000+.
Match the steel to your annual volume, not to a price list. Tens of thousands: pre-hardened P20 or 1.1730. Hundreds of thousands to a million+: hardened H13, S136, or SKD61 at 48–60 HRC. Abrasive glass-filled resins or cosmetic mirror finishes push you to hardened steel regardless of volume. We recommend the grade in the quote, so you don't overpay for a million-shot tool on a 20,000-part run.
Machine time generally runs $50 to $200+ per hour depending on tonnage and automation. Per-part cost on a running production mold usually falls between $0.05 and $5.00, set mostly by cycle time and cavity count. Full per-part pricing scales with your run size — → see our injection molding production options.
Yes. Glass-filled nylon wears tooling and PVC attacks both steel and the injection screw, so we spec hardened, corrosion-resistant grades and price the tool accordingly. Many shops decline this work to protect their screws. We take it.
Either. We ship the finished mold for your own presses, or keep it in-house and supply molded parts with no MOQ. The mold is yours, with full documentation, whichever path you choose.
A prototype or aluminum mold typically ships in 2–5 weeks. A hardened-steel production mold runs 4–12 weeks, depending on part geometry, cavity count, side actions, and a hot-runner system. You get a committed date at quote stage, and our project engineers work US/EU hours, so status updates don't wait overnight. If a delay ever comes from our side, you hear the real reason — not silence.
Your files, drawings, and tooling stay confidential. We sign an NDA before you share anything sensitive, the mold and its design belong to you, and we never reuse a customer's tooling or geometry for another client. Full documentation transfers with the mold if you export it.
Have a part that doesn't fit these answers? Send it over and our engineers will review it directly.
Start Your Injection Mold Project —
Engineer to Engineer
Send your 2D or 3D file and you get a real engineer's read on it, not a sales script. We reply with a transparent quote, a realistic lead time, and a free preliminary DFM review. No hidden fees. Our project engineers work on a schedule that fits US and EU time zones, so you're not waiting overnight for an answer.