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There are a few main driving factors that can significantly change the cost of a caster. The biggest changes happen if you are going to customize a caster for an application, so there’s a few items to keep in mind to help you stay close to what the standard is as possible.
Every caster manufacturer has a standard line of swivel sections and swivel bearing designs that allow swivel casters to rotate. So if you have to customize that, it can be a very expensive modification to make to a caster. Swivel section designs have been around for years. They have had a lot of strenuous testing done, and the engineers know the limits of these sections, so if you can stay within the parameters of a standard swivel section design, that can help control the cost of your caster. Here are some requirements of heavy duty swivel sections.
The next component is your wheel design. So again, companies tend to have standard castings made for common wheel sizes. These castings are generally made out of gray iron and the process is pretty straightforward. You have a pattern, you pour liquid metal into the pattern and you get a near net casting. If you can keep your design within the standard casting that the casting company has, that is another way to control costs. If you have to go to something like a billet of steel or a chunk of steel, it will dramatically increase the cost of the casters versus using a standard caster wheel stock.
The next thing is urethane. Higher load-carrying urethanes tend to be more expensive. Standard urethane basics include 85 or 95, a durometer urethanes that are used in general applications. Used in many factories, those tend to be pretty cost effective, but as soon as you have to start carrying very heavy loads at high speeds, that’s where you get into specialty materials which then cost four or five or six times as much as a standard urethane.
There are commonly used bearings in the Caster industry, along with bearing manufacturers in general. If you stay with one of those, and if the caster manufacturer has them in stock, the chances are that you’ll have a pretty standard price for that bearing. Once you start getting into customized or nonstop bearings, you can change not only the cost but also the lead time by a significant amount.
And then the last thing to consider would be different options. So you can add brakes, locks, toe guards, and floor wipers, so every option they add there can also change the cost of caster .And depending on how customers the caster is, it also then changes the cost of those add ons as well.So those are the main items that consider so you have your swivel section designs, your wheel casting design, your urethane type, bearings, and options So for those, even with the standards there is some customization that can be done but for the most part you can stay within you know currently available items you’re you’re more likely to control the cost of your caster. 
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