There is no fixed price for a digital product passport for aluminium, and that is not because no one wants to say so. The amount is made up of a number of components that differ per company: how many product groups you offer, how your data is currently recorded, and how many links in your chain will subsequently need to supply data for the same passport.
What is established is the structure of the amount. A passport is compiled from the data of the manufacturer or importer, hosted for ten years, and linked to a QR code as a data carrier. Each of these three components takes time or capacity, and that time, together with the number of products, determines the amount you ultimately see.
Where the amount comes from
Compiling a passport begins with data collection: alloy, origin, recycling percentage, processing history and the other fields that the regulation will subsequently request. At one company, that data is already in an ERP system or quality file, at another it must be retrieved from certificates, supplier declarations or internal records. That difference in starting situation is the first and often greatest cost factor.
Then comes the hosting. A passport must remain accessible during the useful life of the product, and the regulation works with a retention period that for aluminium is practically applied as ten years. This is not a one-off action but an ongoing obligation, and that timeframe counts towards what a provider such as alupas.eu charges for it.
The third component is the data carrier itself: the QR code that is placed on or with the product and that refers to the passport. Technically this is the smallest component, but it must match the physical form of your product, whether that is a profile, a casting or packaging aluminium.
What mainly determines the price
The number of product groups and variants weighs the heaviest. A company with one composition and one dimension has a different task than a company with dozens of alloys and profile shapes, even if in both cases it is aluminium.
The quality of your existing data weighs almost as heavily. If origin and composition are already recorded in a structured way, compiling the passport is mainly a matter of transfer. If that information still needs to be obtained from suppliers or retrieved from paper files, it takes more time, and time is the core of the amount.
A third factor is the number of links in the chain that supply data. Whoever has raw material, alloy and processing in one hand themselves supplies all the data in principle. Whoever purchases semi-finished products and processes them further is dependent on what a supplier provides for part of the passport, and that requires coordination that does not happen automatically.
Finally, it matters whether you request the passport separately or want to link it to existing software. Linking to an ERP or quality system saves time in the long run, but initially requires coordination with your software provider about which data is supplied automatically and which remains manual.
Costs outside the passport itself
In addition to the amount that a provider charges for the passport, there is the time that your own organisation puts into it: collecting data, assigning internal responsibilities, and making arrangements with suppliers about who supplies which data. This is not a cost item that appears on an invoice, but in practice it does count towards the question of what a passport costs you in total. In the knowledge bank per subject you will find more about which data the regulation precisely requests and from whom.
When you see the price for your own situation
Because the amount depends so heavily on your product range and the state of your data, a general amount has little value. A concrete overview of rates and what they include can be found on the pricing page with the breakdown per component. Would you like to see roughly where your company stands before looking at pricing rates? The product scan with an indication in a few questions provides an initial direction.
What is not yet fixed
The delegated act that sets out the precise requirements for the aluminium product passport has not yet been published; it is currently expected around 2027, with an obligation that could take effect around 2029. As long as that text is not available, it is also not clear which data will be exactly mandatory and how comprehensive the passport must be. This also indirectly affects costs: the more mandatory fields, the more work in preparation. As soon as the act is published, this will be updated here and on the page about where our information comes from updated.
Would you like to know how your own situation roughly looks before you want to see an amount? The free quick-scan provides an initial indication in a few questions, without requiring you to have an account.