Production and shipping timeline planner
Tell it when the stock has to be in hand and it works backwards to the date the order has to be placed, stage by stage. It also flags any Chinese factory shutdown your plan runs straight through, which is the reason most first products land late.
Chinese New Year is not a public holiday, it is a migration
Workers travel home across the country and many do not come back to the same factory. Plants commonly close one to two weeks before the date and reopen one to two weeks after, and output either side of that is unreliable even with the doors open. In the weeks before the shutdown every exporter in the country is trying to ship at once, so space is scarce and rates climb.
The planner marks it when your plan crosses it. The next few fall on 6 February 2027, 26 January 2028, 13 February 2029 and 3 February 2030. National Day, October 1 to 7, closes factories for a week every year and is the smaller cousin of the same problem.
Move it now, not later
Air freight is the biggest lever and the most expensive one. A tighter spec buys back a sampling round. A factory already making something close to your product shortens tooling more than any amount of chasing. Splitting the order so a first tranche ships early covers a launch while the rest follows. And moving a promised date today costs nothing, which is never true a month before it.
Frequently asked
How far ahead should I place a first order?
Longer than almost anyone expects. A simple product with no tooling, made and shipped by ocean to the West Coast, is realistically four to six months from finalized spec to stock on a shelf. Add custom tooling and it stretches further. The calculator is there so you can see where the months actually go rather than guessing at a total.
Why does Chinese New Year matter so much?
Because it is not a public holiday in the sense most people mean. Migrant workers travel home across the country, many factories close one to two weeks before the date and reopen one to two weeks after, and the staff who come back are not always the same people. Output in the weeks either side is unreliable even when the doors are open, and the shipping backlog before the shutdown pushes freight rates up and space down.
What about Golden Week?
China's National Day holiday runs October 1 to 7 and closes factories for the week, with a slower ramp either side. It is far less disruptive than Chinese New Year but it is a week you should not have assumed was productive.
Are these durations your quote?
No. They are planning defaults drawn from typical ranges, and every one of them is editable for exactly that reason. The moment you have a real production lead time from your factory and a real transit time from a forwarder, type those in. The numbers most worth replacing first are production and transit.
Why does it give me a range instead of a date?
Because a single date would be a lie. Every stage has a realistic best and worst case, so the honest output is the date you should start if things go slowly and the date you could get away with if everything goes quickly. The gap between them is uncertainty rather than spare time, and it shrinks as guesses are replaced by commitments from your factory and your forwarder.
The calculator says my date is not achievable. Now what?
Air freight instead of ocean is the biggest single lever and the most expensive. After that: fewer sampling rounds by writing a tighter spec, a factory that already makes something close to your product so tooling shrinks, splitting the order so a first tranche ships early, or moving the promised date before you promise it. Moving it now costs nothing. Moving it later costs your reputation.
Does this work for crowdfunding?
That is what the campaign toggle is for. It adds the backer survey and address lock, which is the stage creators most often discover late, and it lengthens the pick and pack window because reward tiers and add-ons are slower to build than a single SKU. Plan from the date you promised backers, not the date you hope to ship.
Send us the date you promised
Tell us the product and the date it has to land, and we will come back with the real schedule: what your factory can actually hold, what the lane is really running, and whether the date needs to move.
- Inspected before the balance moves. Every run.
- Freight booked early, which is the only time it is booked well.
- A straight no if the date cannot be made.
Tell us about your project
We'll come back with a scope and a quote. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.