Galvanizing costs are a function of zinc consumption, overhead, and labour to process the material through the plant.  Zinc costs are a function of the surface area of the material which relates directly to the thickness of the material.  The thinner the steel, the more zinc cost per unit of weight.

labour costs result from loading the material in standard racks and from processing these lifts through the process.  The racks are designed to utilize as much of the volume of the kettle, which is 12.6m long x 1.0m wide x 1.9m deep, as possible.  The racks have a capacity of 6,000 kilograms which is of course the economic optimum weight of a lift.  Designing simple fabrications which minimize racking times and allow the maximum weight per lift will significantly reduce galvanizing costs.

Due to the labour costs associated with galvanizing, galvanizing costs usually don't relate to steel costs but relate more to fabricating costs, ie. the higher the fabrication cost per unit of weight, the higher the galvanizing cost.