Tool

Launch countdown planner

Put in the date the product has to be on shelf. We work backwards through tooling, artwork, regulatory approval, production and shipping, and tell you the day the work has to start.

Your launch

On-shelf date *

Where is it produced? *

Transit timeweeks — pick a region for the default

Does it need new tooling or moulds? *

Regulated product? *

Buffer at the DC before launchweeks — 3 if left blank

Durations are the ones we plan to in practice, not best case. Component and packaging production is planned at 15 weeks, and on a regulated product we hold at least 10 weeks between supplier selection and locked artwork. A supplier who promises faster is quoting a best case.

Your countdown appears here

The date the work has to start, and every gate between now and the shelf — tooling, artwork, regulatory copy, production and shipping — with a date and an owner.

The two dates that move everything

Tooling sign-off and regulatory copy approval are the gates that quietly push a launch. Everything after them is sequential, so a week lost there is a week lost on shelf — it cannot be made up in production.

Walk a real plan through with us

The gates a launch actually runs on

A launch date is not one date. It is a chain of sign-offs, each of which has to clear before the next can start: the brief and target cost, the RFQ, supplier selection, tooling, the artwork brief, regulatory and legal copy, locked artwork, the print proof, component production, bulk production, first-batch approval, pre-shipment inspection and transit.

Two of them do most of the damage. Tooling sign-off carries eight weeks of lead time that does not compress, and regulatory copy approval is the single most common cause of a slipped launch — because ingredient lists, claims and mandatory copy all have to clear before artwork can close.