Most first quotes for a private-label supplement are wrong, and it is rarely the supplier's fault. The factory receives four lines — “60 capsules, collagen, private label” — and has to guess the fill weight, the assay, the bottle, the carton and the market. Every guess becomes an assumption in the price, and every assumption becomes a change order later.
A product brief fixes that. It is one page that tells a factory exactly what to quote, so the number you receive is the number you pay.
The fields that actually move the price
Nine details decide almost the entire cost of a run:
- Dosage form — capsule, softgel, tablet, gummy, powder, drop or liquid. Each one carries different setup and minimums.
- Fill weight and active content — not the same thing. A “1000 mg capsule” usually means 1000 mg of total fill, of which the active may be 200 mg on a carrier. State both.
- Assay or standardisation — “collagen” is not a specification. “Hydrolysed marine collagen, 90% protein, 5 g per serving” is.
- Count per pack — 60 or 120 capsules changes the bottle, the label area and the carton.
- Pack type — bottle, jar, doypack, stick pack, sachet, tube, vial or blister. Include cap style and whether a desiccant is required.
- Artwork status — do you have print-ready files, or do you need the dieline and layout designed?
- Target market — the US, the EU and the Gulf each require different label panels and units.
- Documents required — COA per batch, specification sheet, MSDS, allergen statement, halal or organic certificates.
- Volume and date — first order quantity, expected annual volume, and the date you need goods on the water.
Write the specification, not the benefit
“Immune support gummies” describes a marketing position. It does not describe a product a factory can cost. “Vitamin C 250 mg and zinc 10 mg per gummy, pectin base, 3 g piece, mixed berry, 60 gummies per bottle, sugar-free” does.
Keep the benefit language for your own listing. Keep the brief in numbers, ingredients, units and pack dimensions.
Send the label rules with the brief
Label requirements differ by market, and getting them wrong is the most expensive mistake in a first run because it is discovered after printing. For the United States, a dietary supplement label needs a Supplement Facts panel with nutrient values and % Daily Value, an ingredient list in descending order of weight, net quantity, and the DSHEA disclaimer prescribed by 21 CFR 101.91. The EU uses a nutrition declaration instead, and the Gulf states commonly require Arabic and English on the same panel.
You do not need to write the panel yourself. You do need to say which market the product is for, because it decides the layout, the wording and the artwork approval loop.
A brief you can copy
- Product: name as it will appear on the label
- Form and fill: dosage form, total fill weight, active ingredients and their assay
- Serving: servings per container and daily serving size
- Pack: container type, count or net weight, cap, closure, carton
- Label: market, panel requirements, artwork ready or to be designed
- Quality: tests required and documents needed per batch
- Commercial: first quantity, annual forecast, target ship date, destination port
What happens after you send it
A factory that can produce the form in-house will come back with a formulation proposal, a packaging proposal and a sample timeline rather than a single price. Ask for the sample before the price is finalised — you are judging taste, swallowability, colour and label fit, none of which a spreadsheet shows.
With a complete brief, we return a quotation and a sample plan within one working hour: samples in 3–5 days, production in 7 days after artwork approval, MOQ 500 units per SKU, and a COA with every batch.
The three mistakes that cause requotes
- Quoting a form the factory does not run. A gummy quote from a capsule house will always come back as a resale price, not a manufacturing price.
- Leaving the pack undefined. Bottle, carton and label are a large share of unit cost. “Standard bottle” is not a decision.
- Changing the brief after sampling. Every change after tooling or printing restarts part of the setup cost.
One page, written once, removes all three.