When a villa owner in Riyadh, a contractor in Sydney, or a distributor in Dubai asks for the FOB price of aluminium windows and doors, the question sounds as though it should have one number attached to it. It does not. FOB — Free On Board — is a delivery term, not a product description. It defines who pays for what up to the moment the goods are loaded on board the vessel at the named port. It says nothing about which alloy you are buying, how thick the profile walls are, whose hardware turns the handle, or how many sealing layers stand between your living room and a dust storm.
Two suppliers can quote the same figure "FOB Nansha" for an aluminium casement window and be describing products with completely different service lives. That gap is the most expensive misunderstanding in this category, and it is why ALPES does not publish a flat price list. A passive-grade tilt-and-turn unit built to a K-value of 1.3 and a light-duty slider for a rental block share very little beyond the word aluminium. What follows is the same framework our export team works through with a buyer before a number is ever written down.
Before comparing quotations, be clear about the boundary. Under FOB, the seller carries the goods to the port, clears export formalities, and loads them on board. From that point, everything is yours — including the risk. The practical consequence is that an FOB number is only comparable with another FOB number when the named port matches, because inland haulage from a Foshan or Zhaoqing workshop to Nansha differs from haulage to Shekou or Yantian.
| Included in an FOB quotation | Your cost, not the factory's |
|---|---|
| Manufactured windows and doors to the agreed specification | Ocean freight to your destination port |
| Export-grade packing (crating, corner protection, moisture barrier) | Marine insurance |
| Inland transport from the production centre to the named port | Import duty, VAT or GST at destination |
| Export customs clearance and documentation | Destination port charges, terminal handling, brokerage |
| Loading charges on board the vessel | Inland delivery to site, unloading, installation, and any re-order of damaged units |
Buyers who budget only for the FOB figure are the ones who get hurt later. The landed number reliably carries a substantial uplift over the factory number, and a project that cannot absorb that uplift is a project that stalls at the port.
Per-square-metre comparisons published in sourcing guides are useful as orientation and dangerous as a contract. Here is what sits behind them.
Hardware is one of the largest single line items and the easiest place to make a silent substitution. ALPES builds with ROTO transmission boxes and anti-pry lock points, Winkhaus full hardware sets, CMECH handles tested to 30,000 cycles, and Wehag upgrades. A quotation that names a brand and one that says "German-style hardware" are not the same quotation, whatever the price suggests.
All ALPES profiles are 6060-T66, with thicknesses from 1.8 mm to 2.5 mm. Wall thickness drives structural performance and it drives aluminium tonnage, which is priced against the metal market. This is also why a serious quotation carries a validity window: the raw material cost underneath it moves.
The insulating strip is where a thermal window earns its name. ALPES uses PA66GF25 polyamide strips. Width matters as much as material: C116 runs 34 mm to 44 mm multi-chamber strips, while AW90 adds an insulation sponge on top of a multi-chamber strip. Wider strips mean more material, more machining, and a lower K-value — which is precisely why a "thermal break" label alone tells you very little.
Every additional sealing layer is material plus labour plus a tolerance requirement that has to be held on the line. C113 uses a triple-sealing defence with glass centreline, thermal break strip, and equal-pressure sealing strip aligned on the same axis. AW90 and SL155 use a dual-matrix eight-layer sealing system combining extended, composite, welded, threaded, and dense strips. SL126/182 runs continuous four-side sealing with sealant between the top track and frame. None of these are cosmetic.
Glass sash thickness across the range runs from 43 mm on SL112/167 to 90 mm on AW90. Heavier sashes need stronger reinforcement, thicker glass, and more careful handling and packing. Oversized panels push the cost further: SL155 handles a single sash up to 2800 x 2600 mm, and SL126/182 goes to roughly 2.5 m x 3.0 m. If your design sits at the top of that range — or beyond it — say so in the enquiry, because it changes reinforcement, glass build-up, and packing. See the dimensional guidance on sliding window maximum sizes before you freeze the elevation.
Ice Cream White, Aurora Gray, Starry Sky Gray, and Brown Coffee are the standard colours; custom matching is available and is a separate line. Injection-moulded structural adhesive, full glue-injection corner brackets, and CNC cutting to tight tolerance all add process time. So does export crating that is genuinely rated for a container voyage rather than a domestic truck.
Rather than starting from a price band, start from the specification sheet. The table below maps the published ALPES range against the variables above, so you can see where a given model sits before you ask anyone for a number.
| Model | Profile / thermal | Frame / sash | Hardware | What drives its cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C120 Outward Opening | 1.8-2.0 mm, K 1.6 | 119 mm / 62 mm | ROTO | Integrated mesh sash, injection-moulded structural adhesive, square cavity |
| C113 Outward-Open | 1.8-2.0 mm, PA66GF25 | 113 mm / 57 mm | CMECH | Full glue-injection corner brackets, triple sealing, 8 mm profile section |
| C116 Outward-Open | 1.8-2.0 mm, K 1.7, 34-44 mm strips | 116 mm / 81 mm | Wehag option | Widest insulation strips in the casement line, 304 stainless heavy-load hinges |
| TS130 Side Press | 1.8-2.0 mm, PA66GF25 | 130 mm / 55 mm | ROTO side-pressure | 200 kg pulleys, eight-point locking, dual push-pull and swing mechanism |
| AW90 Passive / Tilt-Turn | 1.8 mm, K 1.3, strips + sponge | 90 mm / 90 mm | Winkhaus (ROTO C-Slot option) | Dual-matrix eight-layer sealing, 360-degree locking, 240 h salt spray, 5,000 N shear |
| SL155 Sliding Door | 2.2-2.5 mm | 155 mm 4-track / 54.5 mm | Multi-point locking | 20-wheel 400 kg pulley system, opening up to 7.5 square metres per sash |
| SL112/167 Heavy-Duty | 1.8-2.5 mm | 112 / 167 mm / 43 mm | Stainless locking | 220 kg sash capacity, 45 mm ｄｒｏｐ track, optional 85 mm water barrier |
| SL126/182 (96 mm sash) | 2.0 mm, 3.0 mm local reinforcement | 126 / 182 mm / 55 mm | Lift-slide gear | Lift-and-slide operation, single sash to 2.5 m x 3.0 m, patented eave waterproofing |
| SL126/182 (75 mm sash) | 2.0 mm, 3.0 mm local reinforcement | 126 / 182 mm / 55 mm | Multi-point, precision-cast casings | 27A inert-gas-filled insulating glass, 38 mm slim pressure-line-free frame |
Read left to right and the pattern is obvious: the models that sit at the top of the range are not more expensive because of a brand premium. They are more expensive because they contain more metal, wider polyamide, more sealing layers, heavier hardware, and more process steps. If you are buying wholesale casement windows for a multi-unit development, that map tells you exactly which levers to pull and which to leave alone.
Part of the spread you will see in the market is genuine: different factories carry different overheads, and a factory-direct enquiry removes the distributor margin that sits inside a retail quotation. Part of it is not genuine at all. Three questions usually separate the two:
The same discipline applies to doors. When you compare a price glass sliding door quotation, check whether the roller load rating, track height, and number of sealing layers are stated. A 400 kg twenty-wheel pulley assembly and an unspecified roller are different products that happen to look alike in a showroom.
Specification is not the only thing that moves a factory price. Volume, tooling, and scheduling do too. Before you accept any figure, get these four answers in writing:
That last one matters more than buyers expect. A quotation with no validity window is a quotation that can be withdrawn the moment metal moves, and a lead time quoted from order date rather than from drawing approval is not a lead time at all.
Most of the delay in getting an accurate aluminium window price comes from an enquiry that is missing information. Send this and you will usually get a firm figure on the first pass:
| What to send | Why it changes the price | Red flag in the reply |
|---|---|---|
| Opening schedule with sizes and quantities | Sets cutting yield, reinforcement, and packing | A single blended rate per square metre with no size breakdown |
| Opening method and configuration | Tilt-and-turn and lift-slide carry more hardware per unit | "Standard operation" with no method named |
| Glass build-up and any acoustic or safety requirement | Drives sash weight, which drives reinforcement and handling | Glass described only as "double glazed" |
| Hardware brand preference | One of the largest single line items | Brand named in the brochure but not repeated in the quotation |
| Destination market and applicable code | Wind load and energy requirements change profile and glass specification | No question asked about your local standard |
| Named port and required Incoterm | Inland haulage differs by port; the term defines the risk transfer point | "FOB China" with no port named |
It would be dishonest to pretend that factory-direct wins on every axis. A local fabricator can usually attend site the same day, speak your language, produce compliance paperwork in your local format, and carry spare parts in a van. For a small replacement order or a single unit that has failed, none of that is trivial, and a cheaper factory price does not cancel it out.
The counterweight is traceability. A factory-direct order leaves a record — the drawing, the profile batch, the hardware set — that lets a single sash be reproduced to the original specification years later, rather than forcing a whole elevation to be replaced to match a discontinued section. If your project will be maintained over a decade or more rather than handed over and forgotten, that record is worth putting in the contract. Ask, in writing, what is retained and for how long.
| Buyer | Spend your money here first | Where you can economise |
|---|---|---|
| Homeowner / villa | Thermal performance and branded hardware you will touch every day | Standard colours instead of custom matching; fewer oversized panels |
| Contractor / developer | Wall thickness, test reports, and packing rated for container handling | Rationalise opening sizes to improve cutting yield and cut lead time |
| Distributor / agent | Consistent specification across repeat orders so replacements match | Consolidate shipments to spread freight and clearance costs |
The honest answer to "what is your FOB price" is that it depends on which of the nine systems above you are buying, in which configuration, in what quantity, to which port. ALPES runs two production centres in Foshan and Zhaoqing across a 100,000 square metre base, and every quotation is built from the specification rather than from a rate card — which is slower to produce than a price list and considerably more useful once the container lands.
Send the opening schedule, the glass and hardware you have in mind, your destination market, and your named port. You will get a price that states what it includes, what it assumes, and how long it holds. Reach the export team through the ALPES contact page, or browse the current window and door ranges to build a shortlist before you enquire.
