Why “Designing to Cost” Can End Up Costing You More

This one’s mostly for clients, especially if you’re developing a new product and watching the budget closely (which is completely fair).

If you’ve ever kicked off a product design brief with something like “we’re aiming for a $30 retail” or “the BOM needs to be under $4 FOB,” you’re not alone. Price matters. Costs matter. Profit margins matter. Especially in physical products, where mistakes are expensive.

But here’s the thing: when cost becomes the starting point, rather than value, usability, or product-market fit, it can actually end up costing more. In time. In redesigns. In missed opportunities. In lost customers. In unsold product (ouch).

Let’s look at why you need to be really, really… really careful designing to cost.

1. Premature Cost Targets Kill Good Ideas

When a project begins with a hard cost ceiling before we’ve even explored the best version of the product, we risk designing for constraints, not for solutions. And often, that means stripping out the very things that would have made the product desirable, competitive, or differentiated.

We end up with a product that might hit a target price... but falls short in the market. Consumers don’t love it. Don’t buy it. Or it reviews poorly. And suddenly, you’re back at the drawing board, but with less runway.

2. You End Up Optimising the Wrong Things

Chasing a price point too early can lead to micro-decisions that sound good in isolation but backfire in the bigger picture. Choosing a cheaper material that fails in the field. A simpler mechanism that increases failure rates. Fewer fasteners, which makes assembly harder. All because the focus was on shaving cents instead of solving problems.

When we design first for the user, and then refine for cost, we make smarter trade-offs. Trade-offs that protect performance and reputation.

3. You Risk Tooling Too Soon

Here’s a classic - a product is cost-engineered from day one, tooling is kicked off early to save time, and surprise - the first batch underperforms or fails in testing. Why? Because the team never built in budget (in time or cost) for proper prototyping, testing, or design validation.

Now, we’re pointing fingers, questioning every decision and everyone involved. We’re getting into expensive rework. Possibly new tooling. Maybe a total redesign, if we’re lucky (though if a product fails, the confidence to back a total redesign seldom exists).

When you skip steps to hit a price, you usually pay for it later - in time, stress, and hard costs and in opportunity costs.

4. It Limits Exploration and Innovation

Some of the best ideas come from the freedom to test, prototype, fail, and refine. But if every idea has to be cost-justified before it’s tried, we shut that door. Early constraints create safe, predictable outcomes, and in product design, that’s rarely what gets noticed or remembered.

I’m not saying we ignore cost. Far from it. But design is an iterative process, and cost should be an output of good design, not a restriction placed on it from the outset.

5. The Real Cost Isn’t What You Think

A cheaper product that doesn’t sell is more expensive than a pricier one that flies off shelves. Take a minute to re-read that. It’s so important. A design that does not resonate with your customers costs more in support, returns, bad reviews, and loss of sales than a well-developed version that takes 6 months longer to launch or cost X dollars more at shelf.

You may have hit your target cost, but at what cost?

So What’s the Alternative?

Start with the best version of the product. Define what makes it great. Define what problem it solves. Really understand how it should feel, behave, and be used.

Then, once the design vision is clear, we can design it, cost it, refine it, and optimize it. Maybe we shift from CNC to injection moulded. Maybe we simplify a part count, or move from overmoulded rubber to a clever snap-fit. There are generally always ways to hit price targets intelligently, without compromising the core of the idea.

But we have to know what we’re trying to protect first.

In short: Designing to cost from day one may feel safe, but it can limit creativity, delay progress, and cost more in the long run.

Designing for value, and then engineering toward cost, leads to better products, happier users, and smarter investments.

If you're working on a new product and trying to balance design quality with cost-effectiveness, that’s exactly where I can help. Let's build something people want and that makes sense to manufacture.

(And if you’ve ever had a project derailed by cost-cutting too early, feel free to vent, I’ve been there too.)

---

Lucas Lastman.

Freelance Industrial Designer Melbourne | Design-First, Cost-Savvy | Long-Term Value Over Short-Term Savings

‍