A buyer comparing clear petg sheet price across three markets asked a fair question: why the same 3 mm sheet costs eleven per cent more in one quote than another when both are described as clear virgin. The answer was a paper mask, a 0.2 mm wider tolerance band, and a sheet format that produced 14 per cent more waste on his cut list.
Five lines inside a clear petg sheet price
PETG is a copolyester, and virgin clear resin costs more than PMMA per kilo. Recycled or reprocessed PETG is cheaper and less clear, with a faint grey cast that becomes visible at 4 mm and above.
Where a display is backlit, that cast is fatal; where it is a protective cover, it is irrelevant. The grade line is therefore the largest single swing in the price, and the least discussed.
Line two: thickness and tolerance
A nominal 3 mm sheet at 2.75 mm uses about 8 per cent less material. At 2 mm, the same proportional saving is a visible step between adjacent panels, so tolerance band and thickness have to be read together.
Weight per square metre is the check: about 2.6 kg at 2 mm, 3.9 at 3 mm, 5.2 at 4 mm. If the arithmetic implies a lighter sheet than that, the thickness is short.
Line three: masking, and what it costs later
A paper mask is cheaper per square metre and can leave adhesive residue that shows as a ghost pattern after forming. A PE film costs more and lifts clean. On a formed display part, the difference is often the difference between a sellable part and a rework.
That makes masking a false economy when it is chosen on price alone, which is exactly how it is usually chosen.
Line four: format and cut waste
Sheet formats are built around standard furniture. A 2050 x 3050 mm sheet cut into 1000 x 1500 panels wastes about 150 mm on each dimension; the same sheet cut into 1250 x 2450 wastes far less. The price per sheet is identical and the yield is not.
Bring the cut list to the quotation. Buyers who do routinely land five to twelve per cent below the ones who buy full sheets and cut in-house.
Line five: packing and freight
PETG is light and bulky. Film, interleaving, edge protection and a crate add cost that never appears in a per-kilo price. On a cut-panel order those packing lines can be fifteen to twenty per cent of the total, and they are the first thing a cheap quote omits.
Ask for the stacked volume and the crate count, then compare landed cost rather than sheet price.
Two order shapes that make PETG dearer
First, many colours in small quantities: each colour change costs setup and scrap. Second, very thin sheet in small formats, where handling dominates. Both are legitimate orders and both carry a premium that buyers often attribute to the material.
Consolidating colours and doubling the thickness band where the design allows usually recovers most of that premium without changing the product. For packaging and formed tray duties the same arithmetic applies, as set out in the PETG packaging note.
Where the part is a machine front rather than a display, the vending front note shows how cleaning chemicals change the grade choice.
Send thickness, sheet format and annual volume to oversales@rpplexiglass.com for a price with the mask and tolerance named separately.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a 2 mm clear PETG sheet weigh?
About 2.6 kg per square metre at 2 mm, 3.9 kg at 3 mm, 5.2 kg at 4 mm and 6.5 kg at 5 mm. Freight for PETG follows volume but the weight is useful for checking tolerance.
Why is PETG sometimes dearer than acrylic?
Copolyester resin costs more than PMMA, and PETG is often bought in smaller volumes with more colour changes. At equal thickness and volume the gap narrows to single digits.
Does cutting add much to the price?
Cutting itself is modest; packing and edge protection are the real additions. A cut display panel needs film, interleaving and a label, which can add fifteen to twenty per cent over a full sheet.