Put two supplier quotes for the same roll side by side and they will rarely agree, and the gap is usually not about money. It sits in basis: face weight quoted against total weight, material-only priced against installed, FOB stacked against CIF. An artificial grass price comparison fails at that stage, before anyone reads a single number. The quotes are not wrong; they are answering different questions.
Public procurement shows the same confusion in the open. When one municipality published the award notice for a school football-turf package, six bids on an identical scope scattered wildly (per the published Yongzhou award notice). We sit on the factory side of these comparisons, and the same basis traps return season after season. The method below is how disciplined buyers dismantle them, one row at a time.
Why Two Quotes for the Same Roll Never Match
The deepest split is the weight basis. Face weight counts only the yarn, in ounces per square yard, while total weight folds the backing coat into the same figure (per one US turf lawncare guide). A quote declared on one basis and a quote declared on the other can describe the same carpet or very different ones, and nothing on the page tells you which. This is why an artificial grass price comparison starts at the basis row, not the total row.
The public record shows how wide the spread runs. The published award notice of a municipal football-turf procurement covers an 8,066 square metre school pitch (per the Yongzhou award notice). Six bids on that single package ran from 1,491,875.4 to 2,284,858 CNY, and the award cleared at 2,248,357 CNY. One scope, six totals – the market debating basis in public.
Basis before totals. A total-weight quote and a face-weight quote never reconcile; their numbers run apart on every line, which makes the comparison useless however carefully it is read. Face weight counts yarn only, total weight adds the backing coat, and every quote should declare its basis on the first line.
Mixed conventions are the industry’s default rather than a conspiracy, but the burden of comparability still lands on the buyer. The deeper question of why prices differ so widely across the market in the first place is a separate study; what follows is the machinery for making quotes comparable.
Align the Spec Sheet Before You Compare a Single Number
Comparability starts as a paperwork exercise. Before an artificial grass price comparison can mean anything, every quote must describe the same carpet in the same words, row by row. Three row groups do most of the work: weight and density, yarn construction, and backing with roll format.
Face Weight, Density and Stitch Rate
Face weight is the weight of yarn per square yard, excluding the backing, and it is the figure most price sheets argue about (per one US turf lawncare guide). Denier, the grammage of 9,000 metres of fibre, explains durability within that weight. Stitch rate sets how densely the yarn is planted; one published spec example runs 13 stitches per 100 mm (per one turf terminology guide). Ask each supplier to state all three on one line.
Yarn Polymer and Blade Shape
Polymer choice changes both price and behavior. Nylon is the stiffest and tolerates heat and heavy traffic. Polypropylene is softer but needs periodic raking to keep its appearance, while polyethylene is the softest of the three and suits lower-traffic specification (per one US cost guide). Blade cross-sections – S, U, W and diamond profiles are the common shapes – change optical appearance and how well blades stand upright (per one turf specifications guide). Two quotes on different polymers are not a price gap; they are different products.