Published rates for the jobs we are asked for most, and an honest account of what makes one quote three times another.
You have a quotation in front of you and no reliable way to tell whether it is fair. That is the normal starting position for anyone buying laser engraving in Kenya, because most suppliers will not put a number on a page until you have called, explained the job, and waited. So you end up comparing two figures with nothing underneath them.
Here are the rates, and more usefully, here is what makes one quote three times another.
What you are paying for
Laser engraving is not printing. Nothing is deposited on the surface. The beam removes or alters a fraction of a millimetre of the material itself, which is why the mark cannot be peeled, washed off or scrubbed away. That permanence is the entire product. It is also why the price behaves differently from a print job: the machine time per item barely changes with quantity, but the setup does.
On metal there are two different ways to make that permanent mark. Engraving carves the design into the surface. Annealing, which the laser maker Keyence describes as pulling the carbon in the metal up to the surface, leaves a dark mark with no depth at all, and it only works on ferrous metals. Ask which one you are being quoted for, because a deep engrave takes more passes, and passes are machine time.
Compare totals, not item prices: ask what the setup charge is, and whether the supplier is coming to you. A quote of KSh 18 an item against KSh 25 an item is meaningless if the first one needs your 400 chairs delivered to a workshop across town and back.
The rates
These are published prices, not a starting position for a negotiation:
- On-site asset tagging: from KSh 20 an item. Chairs, desks, computers, kitchen equipment. The lowest per-item rate on the list, and by volume the work we do most of.
- Animal ear tags: from KSh 25. Wholesale, for livestock numbering.
- Security seals and cable ties: from KSh 25 each, engraved with your own company details.
- Aluminium asset tags: from KSh 50. A separate plate fixed to the asset, instead of a mark cut into it.
- Door tags and floor signs: from KSh 400.
- Engraved keyholders: from KSh 200.
- Trophies and awards: from KSh 3,500, depending on size and quantity.
- Granite and memorial engraving: from KSh 6,000.
The four things that move the price
Material. Anodised aluminium and coated metals mark fast and clean. Bare stainless takes longer per item. Granite is slower again. The difference is machine time, and machine time is most of the cost on a small run.
Quantity, but not the way you expect. Going from 50 items to 500 does not cut the per-item price tenfold, because each item still needs its own pass under the beam. What it does spread is the setup: the jig, the artwork, the test piece. Below about 50 items, setup is the bill.
Whether the assets move or we do. Moving 400 office chairs is a fortnight of logistics. Leaving them where they are and walking in with the machine is an afternoon. This is the difference that makes the biggest single change to a total, and it is the one most quotes leave unexplained.
How ready your artwork is. A vector file with your logo and a clear numbering scheme goes straight to the machine. A logo lifted off a website has to be redrawn first, which is real time, and it is charged.
Reading a quote without being an expert
Ask three questions and most of the fog clears. Is the setup charge separate, and what is it? Does the price include coming to us? What is the minimum, and what happens to the price just above it? A supplier who cannot answer those in a sentence each has not costed your job. They have quoted a rate card.
The third question is the one that catches people out. Price breaks are steps, not slopes. If the break sits at 500 and you order 480, you pay the small-run rate on all 480, so the last 20 items can cost more than the previous 100. Ask where the step is before you finalise a number. The cheaper order is quite often the larger one.
Be realistic about the artwork, too. "We will send the logo" usually means a PNG pulled off a website at 400 pixels wide. That has to be redrawn as a vector before a laser can follow it, and the redraw is charged whether it happens at your end or ours. If somebody in your organisation has the original file from whoever designed the logo, finding it is the highest-value ten minutes anyone can spend on this quote.
A company-wide tagging exercise is priced differently from a batch of items, because the sequence and the counting matter more than the rate. The guide to the small engraving jobs covers how those runs are organised. And if you are wondering whether it is cheaper to own the machine, that calculation is worked through in the machine buyer's guide.
Sources: Keyence, the three most common types of laser marking (read 14 Oct 2026).
Common questions
Is there a minimum order for laser engraving?
Not for the shop. A single trophy or one keyholder is a normal order. On-site work is different: sending an engraver across Nairobi for six chairs costs more in travel than the marking is worth, so small on-site jobs are usually grouped with something else or quoted with the trip included.
Can you engrave something I already own?
Yes, and most asset work is exactly that: your chairs, your laptops, your cutlery. Bring it in, or the engraver comes to you. What matters is the material: metals, coated surfaces, glass, granite, wood and most plastics mark well. Untreated soft plastics and some painted finishes do not.
How long does an engraved mark last?
As long as the item does. The mark is cut into the surface, not added on top, so it survives washing, sunlight, solvent and ordinary abrasion. This is the whole reason asset registers move from stickers to engraving: a sticker on a chair leg is gone within a year of mopping.
Do you charge to travel outside Nairobi?
Nairobi delivery and site visits are included in the quote. Travel to other counties is charged at what it costs us, and that figure is written into the quote, never added afterwards. On-site engraving has run across East Africa, so the answer to "can you come here" is usually yes.
