The quick answer: 2026 bands
Read the five bands as four different businesses rather than one price list. The manual and basic converting class buys a rewinder-perforator, a cutter and a wrapper that an operator paces — output per shift is set by how fast people move logs and packs, so the equipment is cheap and the labour line is permanent. The automatic class costs roughly twenty times as much because it buys integration rather than speed alone: log handling, automatic wrapping and case packing linked so a finished pack leaves the line without being handled. That is also why the automatic band is so wide — at the bottom of it you are automating one step, at the top the whole pack. The egg tray pair splits on the same logic: USD 8,000 buys the forming machine, and the ≈USD 30,000 plant buys the pulping and drying either side of it, which is where trays actually come from.
For a South African entry, two things outside the machine list usually decide which band you should be in. The first is where the jumbo rolls come from — converting earns a margin on conversion, so a line specified for rated speed that then runs on whatever parent rolls are available that month will not hold its cost per pack; the roll contract deserves more scrutiny than the rewinder. The second is electricity. Tray drying is a continuous thermal load, and a dryer that has to restart through a scheduled outage loses more in scrap and reheat than a cheaper dryer saves — which is why sun-drying keeps appearing at the entry end, trading capital for consistency. Add the landed leg of 25–45% before comparing any of these numbers against a local quote, and price the wrapper in from the start if the product is going to a retail shelf rather than an institutional roll.
| Class | 2026 band | What you're actually buying |
|---|---|---|
| Toilet paper converting — manual/basic | USD 10,000–50,000 | Rewinder-perforator, band saw or log cutter, wrapper — converting bought jumbo rolls into retail rolls; a workable small line ≈USD 25,000 |
| Converting — automatic | USD 100,000–1,000,000 | High-speed rewinding, log handling, auto packing — the branded-volume tier |
| Tissue mill (making the paper) | Project class | Pulping and a paper machine — heavy industry; treat sub-six-figure "paper mill" listings as partial systems |
| Egg tray forming machine | From USD 8,000 | 1,000–3,000 pieces/hour entry class |
| Egg tray small plant | ≈USD 30,000 | Forming plus pulping and drying, ±20,000 trays/day — waste paper in, trays out |
The jumbo roll is the business
A converting operation's real dependency is its jumbo roll supply — price, consistency and availability of the parent rolls decide your cost per pack before the machine touches anything. Contract the rolls before the machine, know your grammage and ply strategy, and treat wrapping film and cores as the working-capital lines they are. Egg tray plants flip the logic: the feedstock is waste paper, cheap and local — there the constraints are drying energy and the offtake contracts with egg farms.
What the machine price leaves out
- The landed leg — 25–45% on top of ex-works; build it in the estimator.
- Drying energy (egg trays) — the drying line is the energy bill; sun-drying saves capital and costs consistency.
- Packing and branding — retail toilet paper sells by the wrapped pack; the wrapper is not optional at shelf tier.
- Commissioning and training — part of our delivery, because rated speed on day one isn't automatic.
What you're buying from CISH
Converting and tray plants delivered working: configuration for your market, OEM audit, FAT before shipment, freight and clearing, installation, training and documented handover — as one contract. Start with how turnkey delivery works.