The short answer
Turnkey means the assembler buys the components and sells you a finished board at a single price. Consignment means you buy the components and ship them to the assembler, who charges for placement only.
The price difference between the two quotes is usually small. The risk difference is not. In a year when memory allocation is tight and laminate prices are moving monthly, the model you choose decides which of four risks sits on your books — and three of those risks do not appear anywhere on a quotation.
This page lists them, states which model absorbs each one, and gives the hybrid that most programmes converge on after their first shortage.
What the two models actually exchange
Read the table as a transfer, not a ranking. Every line where consignment looks cheaper is a line where you have taken on work.
| Risk | Turnkey | Consignment |
|---|---|---|
| Component price movement between quote and build | Assembler carries it inside the quoted unit price | You carry it; the price is whatever you paid |
| Excess and obsolete stock after the build | Assembler's, within the terms you negotiated | Yours, on your shelf, at your cost of capital |
| Counterfeit and authenticity exposure | Assembler's sourcing channel | Yours, unless you buy from a franchised distributor |
| Allocation and lead-time slippage | Assembler's volume leverage works for you | Your order size is your leverage, which is usually none |
Why 2026 changes the arithmetic
In a stable market, consignment is often the rational choice: you already have the parts, you know the price, and you avoid a margin on components you could buy yourself.
Two conditions this year break that. First, component pricing has been moving faster than quotation cycles — memory and high-end passives most of all, as covered in the allocation analysis. A turnkey quote that holds a component price for 30 days is worth something, and that something is not free. Second, allocation means availability is decided by purchase history rather than by need. A programme buying 500 boards a quarter has no standing with a distributor next to one buying 50,000.
That is the asymmetry that matters. Turnkey borrows the assembler's standing. Consignment spends yours.
Price risk: who is actually taking the bet
When an assembler quotes turnkey, they are quoting a component price they do not yet own. If the part moves before they buy, they absorb it — up to the point where the contract lets them reprice, which is why validity windows matter as much on an assembly order as on a bare board.
Ask for the terms in writing: how long the component price holds, what happens if it moves more than a stated percentage, and whether the answer differs for parts already in stock. A supplier who cannot answer has not thought about it, and will discover the answer during your build.
Excess and obsolete: the quiet one
Every build leaves residue. Minimum reel quantities, MOQ breaks, attrition allowance, parts that were on the BOM in revision B and not in revision C. Under turnkey that residue is the assembler's problem to hold or write off. Under consignment it is yours, and it is usually larger than expected because nobody accounts for it.
Before choosing consignment, ask what happens to the leftover 400 connectors and who pays to store them for the next 18 months. If the answer is "you do", price that in.
Counterfeit and authenticity: the one with a safety dimension
Consignment means the authenticity of every part is your responsibility. If you buy from a franchised distributor with traceability, that is a controlled risk. If any part comes from an open market source, you have taken on a risk that no amount of inspection at assembly removes, because a counterfeit that passes incoming inspection can still fail in the field.
A turnkey supplier buying through franchised channels carries that exposure and, more usefully, carries the paperwork. Ask for the traceability record — lot, date code, distributor — on the parts, not just the boards.
Allocation and time: the one that decides 2026
A long-lead part is not a purchasing problem, it is a scheduling problem. If the 12-week item is on your side of the fence, the assembly slot waits for you, and you pay for a slot you cannot use. If it is on the assembler's side, they can often substitute within an approved family, pull from stock held for other customers, or tell you honestly that the date will slip.
The last one is underrated. A supplier who says "this date will slip" early is worth more this year than one who says yes.
Consignment is cheaper when you already own the parts and the market is calm. It is more expensive when the parts do not exist yet and the market is not calm. Most of 2026 is the second case.
The hybrid most programmes settle on
Full consignment and full turnkey are the two ends. The workable middle is partial turnkey: you consign the strategic long-lead items — the MCU, the FPGA, the specific connector that only one vendor makes — and leave everything else turnkey.
That keeps your design authority over the parts that define the product, and hands the assembler the volume-sensitive commodity buying where their leverage is worth more than your control. It also keeps the consigned list short enough that the excess-stock problem stays visible.
Six questions that settle it
Answer those and the model usually chooses itself. The wrong way to decide is to compare the two totals and pick the smaller one, because the totals differ by a few percent and the risks differ by an order of magnitude.
- Which parts on this BOM are single-source, and what is the current lead time on each?
- Do we already own any of them, and is that stock still within date code?
- How long does the component price hold, and what triggers a reprice?
- Who holds excess at end of build, and at what carrying cost?
- Can you show distributor traceability per lot?
- If a part slips, do we lose the assembly slot?
What we can and cannot do
We quote both models, and we will tell you which one we think fits your BOM — including when the answer is consignment and the placement revenue to us is smaller.
What we cannot do is guarantee a component price beyond the validity we state, or guarantee an allocation we do not have. Anyone who offers either, in this market, is selling you a date they cannot keep. Whatever model you choose, the assembly half of the order still depends on the bare board arriving on time, and the DFM check that precedes both is where most avoidable delays start. What we actually quote for the placement side is on the assembly services page, and the consigned-BOM route is described in component sourcing.