Why Metal Prices Affect the Cost of Your PCBs

When you order Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), you’re not just paying for labour and technology,  you’re also paying for the metals that make them work. Two in particular, copper and gold, play an outsized role in determining the cost and reliability of your boards.

Copper: The Foundation of Every PCB

• Essential to function: Copper makes up the conductive pathways that carry signals and power across your board.
• Direct cost impact: When copper prices rise, PCB costs rise too, especially in designs that require thicker layers for high-power or high-current applications.
• Why it matters to you: If your design specifies heavy copper, your project is more exposed to copper price volatility.

Gold: Small in Quantity, Big in Value

• Used where reliability is critical: Gold is applied in tiny amounts to connectors, contacts, and bonding pads to ensure corrosion-free and highly conductive connections.
• Disproportionate effect on cost: Because gold is expensive, even small amounts can affect the overall cost of your PCB, especially in aerospace, medical, and telecom products.
• Why it matters to you: For high-reliability PCBs, gold price movements can affect material selection. In such cases, we may recommend other finishes to achieve equivalent conductivity and durability at a lower overall cost.
• If you’re in a high-reliability industry, gold prices may influence whether we recommend alternative finishes (like ENIG or palladium) to balance performance and cost.

What This Means for Our Customers

• Transparent pricing: We monitor copper and gold markets and adjust our pricing fairly, so you’re never paying more than necessary.
• Design optimisation: Our engineers can suggest design tweaks (like alternative finishes or optimised trace widths) that help reduce exposure to metal price increases.
• Supply resilience: We work with a broad supply base and apply risk-management practices to ensure you receive consistent, reliable PCBs, even in volatile markets.

Our Commitment

At Precision Electronic Technologies, we don’t just build PCBs, we partner with you to ensure your products remain cost-effective, reliable, and future-proof. By staying ahead of global copper and gold trends, we help you manage costs while maintaining the quality and performance your industry demands.