How much does inspection, verification and quality control cost per unit?
Confidence 4/5 Established practice
Unit cost for inspection, verification and quality control:
Roughly USD 100–350 per inspector-day in China for an agency inspection. Our own buyer attendance is included in the sourcing work rather than billed separately.
Sources
- Pre-shipment inspection scope, pricing and AQL sampling — QIMA and SGS published service definitions
- ISO 2859-1 sampling procedures — ISO
- Supplier verification practice — QIMA supplier qualification guidance
What goes wrong with inspection, verification and quality control
- Inspecting only at the end, when design and material choices are already locked in.
- Accepting a factory's own report as independent verification.
- Skipping inspection because the order is small; small orders are where a total loss is most painful relative to turnover.
- Not defining what a defect is before the inspection, which makes the report unactionable.
- Booking an inspection after the goods are already packed and the container is loaded.
Related questions people ask
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