What exactly makes small quantity PCB production costly compared to large quantity PCB production?
Firstly the manufacturer needs to check your uploaded board for any irregularities. This is done by hand by engineers, so will cost a fair bit. If it is checked, the manufacturer needs to send your uploaded board to the place where production happens. Each batch of boards all need to be tracked, need their own place in the chemical baths, and need their own setups for the drilling and milling machines. I can imagine swapping batches takes longer than continuing to the next board, so that adds to &quot;initial costs&quot;. At last you have packaging, individual packaging is a bit more expensive (per board) than packaging large batches.