Close is good enough
Order 20% more or less than the answer and your total cost barely moves. So round up or down to something practical: a full box, a full pallet, a full container. Nobody has to order 1,847 pieces.
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Order quantity (EOQ) calculator: how much to buy at once
Order little and often and you spend your life on paperwork and freight. Order a year's worth in one go and your cash sits on a shelf gathering dust. This finds the sweet spot in between: how much to buy per order, how often that means ordering, and what the two together cost you a year.
Your figures
How many of this product you expect to sell or use in a year. Last year's figure is fine if nothing much has changed.
What placing one order costs you in effort: the buyer's time, the paperwork, unloading and checking it in. Most companies land somewhere between 50 and 200 euro.
What one unit costs you delivered into your warehouse, freight and duty included. Your purchase price, not your selling price.
What it costs to keep a unit on the shelf for a year, as a percentage of what it cost you: money tied up, space, insurance, damage and going out of date. Most businesses use 15 to 30%.
Economic order quantity
1,348
Economic order quantity
Units to buy per order for the lowest total cost.
- Orders per year
- 22.2
- Days between orders
- 16.4
- Holding cost per unit per year
- 3.96
- Ordering plus holding cost
- 5,340
How often you would be ordering at that quantity.
The rhythm that works out at.
EUR it costs to keep one unit on the shelf for a year.
EUR a year for this product, both costs together.
A one-page summary with your figures, the method and what the answer means.
Order quantity is only half the cost picture
The rest sits in handling: receiving, putting away and picking each order line. That is where most of the money moves.
Work out your handling costHow this works, in plain English
In plain terms: every order costs you something to place and receive, so fewer, bigger orders is cheaper on that side. But stock costs money to keep sitting there, so smaller orders is cheaper on the other side. The economic order quantity, EOQ for short, is the amount where those two costs together are at their lowest.
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Two things worth knowing
Real life beats the formula
A bulk discount, a shelf life, a supplier minimum or a seasonal peak all outrank this answer. Use it to open the conversation with purchasing, not to end it.
Questions people ask
What holding rate should I use?
Commonly 15% to 30% of unit cost per year, depending on capital cost, storage, insurance and how quickly the product loses value. Perishable or fashion stock sits at the top of that range or above.
Does EOQ still apply with a minimum order quantity?
If the supplier's minimum is above the EOQ, the minimum wins and the EOQ tells you how much that constraint costs you in holding cost.
Other calculators
Pallet and loading metre calculator
Loading metres, floor area, volume and trailers needed, from your own pallet sizes and stacking height.
Volumetric weight calculatorDimensional weight, real weight and the chargeable weight your carrier actually bills.
Warehouse space calculatorSquare metres for a given number of pallet positions, including aisles and support space.
These sums get easier when the data is already right
Loading metres, stock levels and order points are only as good as the stock data behind them. That is what a warehouse management system keeps accurate, every movement, without anyone maintaining a spreadsheet.