MOCs, how much do they end up costing?

[psdillon]

I am currently suffering price shock after trying to source parts for a MOC I have designed... and I'm starting to think that MOCs with around 2,500 parts are costing their creators around $1,000 to $2,000 through bricklink

Is anyone willing to post pictures of their MOCs with their final price tags? It would really help to set expectations for myself and fellow newbies.

[Boettner Builds]

I'm piecing together a few MOC's, and don't EVER want to know how much I'm spending! It might take some fun out of it...

[Kristel]

I think $1,000 would be at the upper end of the scale for modular buildings with that many pieces. It might be quite different though if the mix of parts is different (e.g. for a technic model).

Have you had a look at Rebrickable? That site has MOCs listed and gives an indication of the cost to buy the parts from BrickLink and BrickOwl seller.

[paul_delahaye]

With this hobby it's best not to think about the cost.

[psdillon]

I think $1,000 would be at the upper end of the scale for modular buildings with that many pieces. It might be quite different though if the mix of parts is different (e.g. for a technic model).

Have you had a look at Rebrickable? That site has MOCs listed and gives an indication of the cost to buy the parts from BrickLink and BrickOwl seller.

Thanks for the Rebrickable link, exactly what I was after.

Do people spend a lot of time optimising their builds for price/availability of parts? I seem to hit a lot of parts that are $0.80 and up. My first MOC of 500 bricks cost me $150 after spending many days compromising on colour and structure to get the price down. I can't imagine the cost of those modulars that are full of sand blue tiles and other rare colours.

[Andy D]

I would say that for a 2500 piece MOC, $1,000 to $2,000 is quite a lot. Maybe you are using quite a few rare pieces or rare colors. My last MOC that I sourced from BL was only about 1000 pieces and I think it may have cost me $150. Originally I wanted to use a number of tan slopes both normal and inverted. As I recall some of the slopes were $0.75 each so I looked at using a redish brown instead and got the slopes for about 1/3 the cost. The MOC looks just as good and cost ne about 1/3 of what my original color scheme would have cost.

My key to keeping costs down is part and color substitution, it is all about he art anyway.

Andy D

Edited April 27, 2014 by Andy D

[Faefrost]

$1000 for a 2500 piece MOC seems a little steep. The MOC in my sig is just shy of $3000 pieces and cost me about $500. Mostly because it used some rare expensive pieces, and I budgeted badly and over ordered a lot. I really had not worked out how to efficiently use Bricklink.

Unless you are buying some really unusual rare, long out of production, never publicly released etc, parts it should be possible to do most of what you want for 10-15 cents/part average.

[psdillon]

The MOC in my sig is just shy of $3000 pieces and cost me about $500.

That's a really nice MOC, and wow that's a great price.

On Rebrickable, a lot their ~2500 piece modulars come out to $700-900 for only 90% of the parts. But yeah many are a lot cheaper.

I forgot to mention that I'm only using new parts - is that my problem?

Other than that, I must be doing something really stupid somewhere along the line. :)

Maybe you are using quite a few rare pieces or rare colors.

You got me thinking - I use a lot of windows and panels, which, including glass are often around $0.80. That really pulls the average part price up. Perhaps pricing should be not be compared by piece but by 1x1x1 units (so that a 1x4x6 door is worth 24 units, at a price of 3.3c per unit).

[Paul B Technic]

The price for some MOC's are just crazy, I think sometimes it is better to build something smaller / with less features at a more realistic price.

[AFOLguy1970]

I am currently working on a MOC which is estimated to fall a little short of 10,000 parts. It has a lot of windows, panes, and multitude of other parts. The PAB wall has helped out to some degree, and the balance is purchased through Bricklink and sometimes online PAB. I have not really kept a running total, but it is certainly in the hundreds so far with around 4000 parts. I designed the building in LDD and it is modeled after a real building. Most of the parts are common, however sometimes some of them are hard to come by in the US. One particular part has been giving me trouble, because it is only in high quantities in Europe. That means high exchange rates, longer shipping times, Paypal fees, and higher shipping costs. I ordered a large shipment of these bricks on March 12 and have yet to see the shipment. Yeah, it is probably lost. Now, I have to reorder them in addition to other lost parts from the shipment at a much higher cost. This setback and the fact that no one seller has everything you need causes me to spend a lot of money on shipping due to the multiple sources. After this MOC is completed, I think I am going to cut back on Lego spending a bit and start saving up for travel.

[dsoffers]

I have only built 1 MOC till now, 2479 parts which cost me 225,66€ (excl. shipping which was another 25-30€ in total as I bought from 7 different sellers), I even had to over-order some pieces as the cheapest Bricklink seller only sold them in groups of 10.

[Blondie-Wan]

I have a bunch of MOCs I've had percolating in my mind for some time, and I'm finally getting ready to start building them, and I hope to do so without actually investing in a bunch of new parts, for the most part, although I have bought or plan to buy some sets that contain a number of parts I intend to use. The most expensive one is the Haunted House, but it also costs more than all the other sets put together, and this is for several different MOCs I'm planning. I may make a Pick-a-Brick purchase or two with the intention of getting parts for these MOCs, but I'm talking about small purchases - say, a couple of cups' worth from a brick-and-mortar LEGO Store, so about $30. I'm in no financial shape to hit Bricklink or Pick-a-Brick or anything else and drop $1000 (or more!) on parts specifically for a single creation; that's more than I've ever spent at any one time on LEGO at all, in fact, even when buying a "large" order of multiple sets.

[TheLegoDr]

I think it depends on what you are MOCing. None of my MOCs have been very expensive at all. Granted, I tend to not order pieces individually and try to only use pieces I already have. That would save some money. Granted, I do have to buy the sets so that still takes up money. As in, I just bricklinked Cafe Corner and Green Grocer and the total tally for extra piece orders came in at around $50 since I used stuff from my own collection. Very few subsitutions from the originals...

Now I am currently working on a few different pirate ships so I'll have to order pieces for them. But if a color substitution can be made, it might be a good idea to try.

I've recently started wanting to pick up sets from when I was a kid that I didn't have. So to bricklink those sets I'll have to buy all of those bricks since I won't have a good chunk of them in my collection, but even then those aren't MOCs, so it is different.

I think the best bet is to build your MOC with whatever you have and then decide to order the exact number of pieces in the right colors to get the lowest amount spent. It doesn't matter if the MOC looks like a rainbow as long as you can picture how it should look with the right pieces.

[AgentRick]

Although I focus on Modulars/Trains, I try to not spend more than $300-400 for new bricks for a moc that will have 2000+ bricks. Basically, about half of Lego's usual $0.10 per piece ratio

[eileenkeeney]

I am currently suffering price shock after trying to source parts for a MOC I have designed... and I'm starting to think that MOCs with around 2,500 parts are costing their creators around $1,000 to $2,000 through bricklink

Is anyone willing to post pictures of their MOCs with their final price tags? It would really help to set expectations for myself and fellow newbies.

Do I include the cost of the pieces that did not end up in the final MOC, but were planned for use, and purchased, only to not really need the pieces in the final design.

[psdillon]

Do I include the cost of the pieces that did not end up in the final MOC, but were planned for use, and purchased, only to not really need the pieces in the final design.

Just the cost of pieces that you did use.

I think the best bet is to build your MOC with whatever you have and then decide to order the exact number of pieces in the right colors to get the lowest amount spent. It doesn't matter if the MOC looks like a rainbow as long as you can picture how it should look with the right pieces.

My plan, more or less is to purchase at least 2000 studs worth of white (and light bley) bricks, and lots of black-framed windows/doors, just so that my son and I have a decent inventory with which to build anything we like, and then swap out the colours as needed. I am into modern/contemporary architecture so white bricks actually work out well. Sourcing large white plates is hard though.

Edited April 29, 2014 by psdillon

[brickbuilder711]

So far, my CSX locomotive rebuilds are proving expensive, LOL... Those Flame Yellowish Orange (BLOrnj) 4x6 at .50 a pop sure are pricy. I would rate for any and all locomotives an average price to be about 60-80 USD per, considering the various sources of parts.

[eileenkeeney]

I'm piecing together a few MOC's, and don't EVER want to know how much I'm spending! It might take some fun out of it...

I am not sure I want to know either. I did once look and see how much I had spent on BL, in a 6 month window, and it was a LOT more than I would have estimated. But I do keep an eye on my actual bank account balance, and it was never in trouble.

I suspect the fire station I just built contains over $300 worth of pieces, with over $1000 worth of pieces not used due to re-design. But many of these pieces I will use when I build the train station and town hall.

Only a few pieces were really expensive.

I did make some design choices where I decided to not use a piece due to the price of the piece. But in one case that just caused me to later decide it was worth the cost to use the more expensive piece, so I bought several hundred of both the unused piece and the piece I eventually used.

In other cases, it did save me money.

I did notice the BL prices getting pushed up as I was trying to aquire some quantitites of some specific parts. Fortunatly for me, by the time the price of the dark red flat hinge had pushed up too far, I already had all that I needed. The same is true for the dark red technic 1x2 brick with 2 holes. I needed only a few of these.

I have decided that going forward, I am going to try to design around the parts I either already have, or parts I find at the Lego Store in the PAB bins.

Trying to stay Lego Pure also tends to push the price up.

Should I really be paying so much for a part in the color I need, or just buying a can of paint that works on plastic?

I was really tempted to just paint some 1x1 plates dark green when the price each was almost $2. Then the piece showed up in the PAB bins in LegoLand Germany, and the price of the part is now reasonable.

Edited April 30, 2014 by eileenkeeney

[MKJoshA]

...I really had not worked out how to efficiently use Bricklink...

Any tips you'd like to share with the rest of us? I just spent $60 (pennies compared to some of you, I know) on an order I had expected to cost under $30. Now, I did pick up some minifigure pieces and those always jack up the price. But besides avoiding those is there anything else I could have done to bring that price down?

[TheLegoDr]

^Short of scouting a few different stores with the bulk of the pieces you need and comparing overall cost there. Were you hoping for it to be under $30 or did you actually research all of the pieces you want and the average price on bricklink?

Some sellers may have lower prices, but fewer pieces you need OR the opposite can be true. Sometimes paying a little more for pieces can work out better in the long run because of availability or shipping, or some other reason.

[PocasNuckie]

$1000 for 2500 pieces can only mean you are using some rare stuff (the kind of stuff I usually run away from),

As you asked for info on our own MOC's, here's a short list of the number of pieces and parts cost for the 7 Mosaics I have done so far.

1 - 10700 pieces / ~490$

2 - 9200 pieces / ~630$

3 - 16400 pieces / ~980$

4 - 12300 pieces / ~490$

5 - 12300 pieces / ~575$

6 - 6200 pieces / ~350$

7 - 7900 pieces / ~650$

[dvsntt]

In the ones I have built, I find (after shipping and associated costs) my average price per part is $.25. That is my last model that was about 4000 parts cost me $1000 to obtain all the parts.

[Boettner Builds]

I think i'm going to keep tabs on the MOC I'm currently working. (just for fun) So far I'm $100 in, and have barely scratched the surface in bricks I need for it.

[MKJoshA]

^Short of scouting a few different stores with the bulk of the pieces you need and comparing overall cost there. Were you hoping for it to be under $30 or did you actually research all of the pieces you want and the average price on bricklink?

Some sellers may have lower prices, but fewer pieces you need OR the opposite can be true. Sometimes paying a little more for pieces can work out better in the long run because of availability or shipping, or some other reason.

It really was just me wanting it to be under $30. I didn't actually run any previous calculations besides the "oh, it should be about that much" thoughts. There were a couple specific pieces I needed in higher quantities so I went through the first few shops that had those plus the other pieces I needed and ended up shopping from 2 stores totally $60 between the 2. I guess the only thing I could have done better was shop around more but that would have taken so much more time and I already had put a couple hours into it.

[Boettner Builds]

I guess the only thing I could have done better was shop around more but that would have taken so much more time and I already had put a couple hours into it.

Time vs. money

I have yet to buy anything off of Bricklink, but I do look alot. When the time comes for me to bulk buy, I'm going to go with which ever store has the amount I need for the cheapest price. One order, one shipping cost.

To me, that makes the most sence.