Bulk LLDPE pallet stretch film on Made-in-China lists US$0.99–1.95/kg across audited Diamond and Gold suppliers, with the median cluster sitting at US$1.10–1.50/kg for 500–1,000 kg MOQ orders recorded on 2026-05-16 and 2026-06-17 [S4][S8]. Hand-grade 1-roll MOQ lots range US$59.00–199.00 per roll on 2026-06-08 quotes, reflecting retail packaging and lower gauge conversion rather than raw resin cost [S7].
The market is a two-tier system: resin-priced bulk rolls (priced per kilogram, MOQ 500–1,000 kg) and converted retail rolls (priced per piece, MOQ 1 roll). The same base resin, LLDPE, ends up at roughly 5–10× spread between the two pricing logics depending on width, gauge, micron and country of dispatch. Understanding which tier a quote sits in is the first cost-control move for any procurement engineer, and the stretch film encyclopedia entry lays the material foundation underneath those numbers.
What the resin base costs and why LLDPE wins the SKU
LLDPE — linear low-density polyethylene — is a common base resin for pallet stretch film, and cast stretch film made from it is produced by a continuous cast extrusion process that yields good clarity, quiet unwind, and good cling [S3]. Thickness on active SKUs clusters between 12 µm and 50 µm, with 17 µm, 20 µm, 23 µm and 30 µm being the gauges most commonly quoted on Okorder and Made-in-China at 2026-06-10 [S5].
Per-kg pricing on bulk SKUs is set by C2-comonomer LLDPE film-grade resin, not by converter margin.
SKU bands: hand wrap vs machine wrap vs cast vs blown
Hand-grade stretch film for manual pallet wrapping on 2026-06-17 quotes ran US$1.35–1.85/kg at 1,000 kg MOQ and US$1.00/piece at 200-piece MOQ for small-format rolls [S9]. Machine-grade pallet wrap on the same source window was the lower band, US$1.10–1.50/kg at 500 kg MOQ for 17 µm and 23 µm LLDPE cast film out of Tianjin and Shandong [S4].
On per-roll retail SKUs, single-roll MOQ lots on 2026-06-08 ranged US$59.00–199.00 (Shanxi Dingxin) and US$120.00–130.00 (Guangzhou Color Card), a spread driven mainly by roll width, core diameter, length, and printed vs unprinted configuration rather than gauge alone [S7]. Clear-cover specialty SKUs, including 80-mer Australian-market export film, traded at US$0.99–1.09/kg at 1 kg MOQ from Qingdao Tongfenghe on 2026-05-09, showing that small-lot micron-controlled export film can come in below the bulk median when gauge is constrained and a single converter runs a tight product line [S8].
Cast vs blown is a real cost variable. Cast LLDPE film lines (2-, 3-, 5- and 7-layer as catalogued by XHD Machinery on 2026-07-02) deliver higher clarity, quieter unwind and tighter gauge tolerance, but require a capital cost that suppliers recoup in mid-band pricing [S6]. Blown film lines produce tougher, higher-puncture-resistance film at the cost of haze and gauge variation — for irregular pallet loads like bagged agricultural product or stone, blown is still specified; for warehouse-grade FMCG palletising, cast dominates the SKU list.
MOQ, freight and the three real price levers
MOQ is the dominant lever on this category. Hand-grade 30 kg MOQ SKUs at US$2.35–5.00 listed on 2026-05-12 sit at the small-business end, and 80-metre rolls at US$0.76–1.62 on the same day anchor the converted-retail tier [S10].
Freight and Incoterms are the second lever. Most Made-in-China quotes are FOB China main port (Tianjin, Qingdao, Shenzhen) and exclude delivery, customs duty and installation — the directory itself flags "prices are pre-tax, exclude delivery charges and customs duties" on CMP Srl's elastic pallet wrap listing dated 2026-05-28 [S1]. For a 40-foot high-cube container of 17 µm LLDPE cast film (roughly 18–20 tonnes), sea freight to North Europe or US East Coast in 2026-Q2 ran in the US$2,500–4,500 band — small in percentage terms, but enough to flip a sub-US$1.20/kg quote to over US$1.40/kg landed.
Gauge and width are the third lever. The AS/RS system price & cost guide covers how automated warehouses drive film specification, since a fully automated wrap cycle has tighter pre-stretch and gauge requirements than manual wrapping.
Who should and should not buy direct from Chinese converters
Direct-from-converter sourcing fits operations using more than 40 tonnes/year of stretch film and able to take 18–20 tonne container loads. Below that volume, a regional distributor typically delivers at lower effective landed cost because freight consolidation, warehousing and damaged-roll claims are absorbed by them [S1][S4].
Direct sourcing is the wrong move for: (a) single-site buyers under 10 tonnes/year — the MOQ and freight break the savings; (b) operations needing fast reactive supply, since 35–45 day ocean transit plus 14-day production lead time kills service-level agreements; (c) any pallet load that demands audited, lot-traceable resin (food or pharma grade) — most bulk-quoted Diamond suppliers on Made-in-China are not FDA-EFSA-evaluated for direct food contact on the listing [S4][S8]. The 2026 pricing window showed no audited food-grade LLDPE stretch film in the US$0.99–1.95/kg tier; that SKUs sits separately at US$3.00–5.00/kg on specialist EU and US lines.
Failure modes and constraints that change the price equation
Three failure modes drive most stretch film disputes: (1) load shift on transit due to insufficient pre-stretch or wrap count, (2) film tear at pallet corners when down-gauged below 15 µm, and (3) cling failure in cold-chain (below 5 °C) or hot-transit (above 40 °C) conditions [S3]. Each pushes the buyer back up the gauge table or to a higher-cling formulation, both of which raise per-pallet cost.
Pre-stretch ratio is the single largest hidden cost driver. On the equipment side, the linear bearing price & cost guide is relevant for the carriage rollers in stretch-wrapper carriages, since pre-stretch consistency depends on rubber-covered roller condition.
Standards, specification and the audit trail
There is no single global stretch film standard; specification is normally built around ASTM D4649 (film tensile and elongation), ASTM D5458 (load retention), ASTM D5459 (pallet stretch wrap test) and the European EN 13592 (plastic films for pallet wrapping). Buyers writing a procurement spec should anchor it on gauge tolerance (±5% is industry-typical), width tolerance (±2 mm), elongation at break (≥250% hand, ≥300% machine) and cling-to-self (≥150 g/inch), with lot-level COA required from the converter [S3][S5].
Sigma Stretch Film, the North American manufacturer profiled on 2026-07-03, runs six production facilities across the US and Canada with 30+ years of production history and emphasises load-stability engineering and waste reduction over headline price — a useful benchmark for what a vertically-integrated domestic supplier offers versus the Chinese converter SKU matrix [S2]. Their pricing is not publicly listed, but the engineering-support model competes on total-cost-per-pallet, not on per-kg resin cost, and is worth comparing against any direct-from-China quote once freight, MOQ penalty and rejection rate are loaded in.
For buyers running a full packaging line, the plastic pallet price & cost guide is the natural cross-reference: stretch film specification depends on pallet dimensional tolerance and corner radius, and a 600×800 mm vs 1,200×1,000 mm pallet changes both wrap count and gauge requirement on the same load weight [S1].
Trackable signals for the next 90 days: (1) whether LLDPE C2 film-grade resin shifts outside the US$1,000–1,200/tonne band it has held through 2026-Q2, which would reset every per-kg quote on this list; (2) MOQ creep on Diamond suppliers, as several 2026-05 listings moved from 500 kg to 1,000 kg MOQ on the same SKU; (3) any new 7-layer cast line commissioning in Shandong or Vietnam, which historically tightens gauge tolerance and drops mid-band pricing 5–8% within two quarters of start-up [S6].
For component-level specifications, see linear guide, and crossed roller guide.