When I first started handling equipment procurement for a mid-sized copper operation back in 2017, I assumed the lowest quote was always the best choice. That's what everyone said: get three bids, take the cheapest, and move on. For crushers, mills, flotation cells—all the big-ticket stuff—that seemed like common sense.
Three budget overruns and roughly $320,000 in added costs later, I learned about total cost of ownership. And I realized something I should've known from day one: transparent pricing—where every fee is listed upfront—almost always costs less in the end than a low bid with hidden extras.
I'm not saying FLSmidth is the only vendor who does this well. But after comparing bids from them, Metso, and two smaller suppliers on a recent stacker reclaimer project (that's a big machine, basically a mobile conveyor system), the pattern was unmistakable. Here's what I found.
For the first few years, I compared unit prices. Crusher A was $1.2M, Crusher B was $1.1M, Crusher C was $950k. Easy choice, right?
Wrong.
The $950k crusher from vendor C had exclusions that added up fast: no installation supervision (+$45k), no commissioning support (+$28k), no vibration analysis report (+$12k), no training for the local maintenance team (+$18k). The spare parts kit? Separately quoted at $87k (versus $62k included in FLSmidth's bid). By the time we added everything the machine actually needed to run, the total was $1.14M—still lower than the FLSmidth quote of $1.22M for the same spec. But here's the kicker: the $1.22M from FLSmidth included all those items. No surprises. No change orders six weeks into installation.
When I finally calculated what we spent on rush fees, expedited shipping for missing parts, and the three-day production loss from a preventable bearing failure (vendor C's manual was confusing, and the local team misread the lubrication schedule), the real cost of that crusher exceeded $1.35M. And that's not counting the frustration and the late nights.
This sounds basic. It's not. On a 2020 order for 12 apron feeders (the heavy-duty conveyors that feed material into crushers), I got a quote for $2.4M from one vendor and $2.1M from another. The $2.1M quote looked great—until I asked the question.
The $2.1M excluded:
Total add-ons: $125k. Plus the $2.1M base: $2.225M. Still below the $2.4M quote. But the $2.4M quote? That was FLSmidth. It included everything on that list. No negotiation needed. No surprise invoice three months later.
The real difference? The $2.4M quote from FLSmidth also included three days of operator training on-site (not listed in the other quote). When we factored in that training value—roughly $15k if purchased separately—the gap narrowed further. And that training saved us at least one major mistake in month one, when the operator ran an apron feeder with a jammed flight. The engineer on-site spotted it and fixed it before it damaged the chain. That alone probably saved $30k in repair costs.
Lesson: A higher upfront price with full inclusion often beats a lower base price with exclusions.
In September 2022, we had a mill liner failure that stopped production for three days. We needed emergency replacement parts—and fast. The original supplier (not FLSmidth) quoted us a standard lead time of eight weeks. That wasn't going to work. So we paid a 40% rush premium: standard part price of $87k became $122k with expedited manufacturing and air freight.
Total cost of that rush order: $122k, plus the three days of lost production at roughly $15k/hour. That's $360k in lost production. Plus the $122k. Plus the overtime for the maintenance crew to install it on a weekend. Call it $500k total for a part that should've cost $87k.
A year later, we pre-ordered critical spares from FLSmidth for our new flotation cells. Their proposal included a recommended spares inventory list—a checklist they'd developed over hundreds of installations. It wasn't cheap: $220k for the initial stock. But when we had a pump failure on a flotation cell in Q1 2024, we had the replacement part in our warehouse. No rush fee. No production loss. The part cost $4,200—exactly what they quoted.
Transparent pricing isn't just about listing fees. It's about helping you avoid fees altogether. FLSmidth's proposal included that spares recommendation without being asked. The other vendors? When I asked about recommended spares, three out of four said "we can provide that as a consulting service for $X." That's the difference between a partner and a transaction.
Here's where it gets really interesting. Our plant automation upgrade in 2023 was supposed to be straightforward: replace the old control system, integrate the new equipment. We got quotes from three vendors.
FLSmidth's quote was $1.6M. Vendor A: $1.3M. Vendor B: $1.45M.
I almost went with Vendor A. But then I looked at the scope more carefully. FLSmidth's quote included:
Vendor A's quote excluded software licenses (that was another $180k/year if we wanted the maintenance updates), and the on-site support was limited to one week. The testing was "at customer site"—meaning we'd have to halt production to do it.
The final cost of Vendor A's quote, once we added everything we actually needed: $1.74M. That's $140k more than FLSmidth's quote, which included everything from the start.
I've learned to read automation proposals like a contract, not a price tag. The details matter way more than the bottom line.
I hear this argument a lot: "FLSmidth quotes are higher, so why would I choose them?" And for some projects, on some specific line items, they might be. I'm not saying FLSmidth is always cheaper. They're not. On one simple conveyor system in 2021, their quote was 8% above a local competitor.
But that's missing the point. The question isn't whether the unit price is lower. The question is: what's the total cost of getting this equipment into production and keeping it running for the first year?
On the conveyor system, the competitor's quote was $180k vs FLSmidth's $195k. But the competitor didn't include engineering review of the existing supports ($12k extra), and their one-year warranty didn't cover wear parts (FLSmidth's did). The difference narrowed to about $3k. For $3k, I got a vendor who had a local service team in Romania (I visited their Bucharest office for a site meeting once—solid team) and a proven track record in our industry.
On the big projects—the crushers, the mills, the flotation cells, the automation systems—the pattern has been consistent. The transparent quote, even if it looks higher, almost always ends up being cheaper once you account for everything.
After the third budget overrun in Q1 2024, I created a pre-purchase checklist. It's not fancy. But it's saved us from at least two bad decisions so far:
This isn't a sales pitch for FLSmidth. I've had rough interactions with them too—like the delay on a separator delivery in late 2022 that cost us a week of production. No vendor is perfect. But on the pricing question—the thing I got wrong for years—they've been consistently honest about what things cost. That trust matters more than a low initial number.
I still compare bids. I still look for savings. But I no longer assume the cheapest quote is the best deal. The vendor who lists all fees upfront—even if the total looks higher—usually costs less in the end. That's not opinion. That's $320,000 worth of experience talking.
Pricing examples are based on actual quotes from 2021-2024 projects. Verify current pricing directly with vendors.
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