per kilogram
Cost per massexact by definition
Cost per kilogram is the base of this converter's mass cost scale, and the standard commercial basis for chemicals, food ingredients, metals and freight in metric jurisdictions. The conversions among the mass units here are exact, since the pound and the tonne are both defined exactly against the kilogram. As with all cost rates, converting to a smaller unit of mass gives a smaller price and not a larger one.
| 1 $/kg | 1 $/kg |
About the per kilogram
Mass-based pricing is what most bulk commerce actually runs on, because mass does not change with temperature, container or altitude the way volume does. The conversions are all exact: the international avoirdupois pound is exactly 0.45359237 kg, so a dollar per pound is exactly \(1/0.45359237 = 2.2046\) dollars per kilogram, and the metric tonne of exactly 1000 kg makes a dollar per tonne exactly a tenth of a cent per kilogram.
Two habits are worth carrying into any comparison. First, check which ton: North American suppliers frequently quote short tons of 2000 pounds, which is 907.18 kg, so a price per short ton is about 10 percent different from a price per tonne for the same material. Second, for chemicals, check what is being weighed. Water treatment chemicals in particular are sold as solutions, so sodium hypochlorite at 12 percent available chlorine and at 6 percent may show the same price per kilogram of solution while differing by a factor of two in price per kilogram of active ingredient. The useful figure is nearly always cost per unit of active substance delivered.