Guides / Choosing a Supplier
How Many Shops Should See a Large Part RFQ
September 26, 2026
The instinct on a large, expensive part is to get as many eyes on it as possible. Send the drawing everywhere, see what comes back, pick the best number. On a standard machined part that instinct is mostly harmless. On a large part it usually works against you.
Why the standard-part logic breaks down
Sending an RFQ to fifteen general machine shops for a bracket costs nothing but time, because almost any of them can quote it and the ones that cannot simply ignore the email. Large parts do not work that way.
Most shops cannot run the part at all. A part that needs a floor type boring mill or a table rated for 20 tonnes disqualifies the overwhelming majority of machine shops before price ever comes up. Sending the drawing wide does not create competition, it creates a stack of declines and a handful of real quotes buried inside them.
A drawing sent too wide reaches shops that will quote anyway. Some shops answer RFQs outside their real capability because a quote costs them little and they would rather guess wrong than miss a possible order. Their number is not comparable to a shop that actually has the table and the crane for the part, and it is very hard to tell which is which from a quote sheet alone.
Every extra quote is a cost, not a free option. You have to review the drawing questions, chase down details each shop asks for separately, and compare quotes that answered different sets of assumptions because nobody was working from the same clarified drawing. Five quotes from shops that can genuinely run the part beat fifteen where ten are noise.
What actually moves the price
Past a small number of genuinely capable shops, more quotes rarely move the number further. The price on a large part is set mostly by:
- Machine time, which depends on the part envelope and material, not on how many shops bid
- Setup count, which is fixed by the part geometry and the shop’s fixturing, not by competition
- Shop utilization at the time of quoting, which shifts week to week regardless of how many shops you ask
A fourth or fifth qualified quote occasionally finds a shop with unusual spare capacity willing to price aggressively. A tenth qualified quote almost never does, because the shops capable of the work are a short list and you have already reached most of it.
What qualifying a shop before it quotes actually filters
The useful work happens before the drawing goes out, not after the quotes come back.
- Table size, spindle reach and travel against the part envelope. See when a part outgrows a machining centre.
- Rated table load and crane capacity, which together set the real weight a shop can handle. See table load and crane capacity.
- Material experience. A shop that runs mild steel all day is not necessarily set up for duplex stainless or nickel alloy.
- Certification and documentation capability, if the part needs material traceability or third-party inspection.
- Realistic lead time against the machine class the part needs, not a generic quote turnaround.
A drawing that only reaches shops that clear all five is worth more, quote for quote, than one blasted to fifty and hoping the qualified ones reply.
The practical number
A useful target is a small number of shops, matched on table size, spindle, crane capacity and material experience before the drawing is sent. Enough to see real price variation and to have a backup if one shop’s capacity changes, not so many that comparing them becomes a job of its own. This is also why heavycnc.com caps a single request at 3 matched shops rather than broadcasting it: fewer quotes, but every one from a shop that can actually put the part on the table.
What to do if the first round comes back thin
If none of the matched shops can take the schedule, or the quotes come back far apart, the answer is to widen the search deliberately, not to blast it everywhere. Go back to the same qualification criteria and check the next tier of shops against them, rather than lowering the bar on what “qualified” means.
Frequently asked questions
Is more quotes always better?
No. Past a small number of qualified shops, extra quotes mostly add noise and slow response time, because you still have to read, compare and follow up on every one of them.
What if none of the first few shops can take the job?
Go back out to more shops. The point is not to artificially limit the search, it is to send the drawing to shops that can actually run the part before asking for a price.
Does a small number of quotes mean a worse price?
Not if the shops were qualified before they saw the drawing. A wide blast to unqualified shops produces a wide spread of prices because half of them are guessing at a part they cannot really run, not because competition was thin.
Need a quote for a part like this?
Send the drawing with the envelope and finished weight. We match you with up to 3 shops that take parts this size and reply within 24 business hours.
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