Kennametal Drill Bits vs. Cheap Carbide: A Total Cost Comparison

I'll start with a confession: I used to be a tool snob. If a job needed a hole, I ordered Kennametal drill bits. No questions asked. Then a $3,200 mistake changed my mind.

I'm a manufacturing engineer handling custom machining orders for a job shop, and I've been doing this for 11 years. I've personally made—and documented—14 significant mistakes, totaling roughly $32,000 in wasted budget. Now I maintain our team's procurement checklist, and this is the comparison I wish someone had shown me before I spent that first $3,200.

Kennametal Company Overview: Manufacturing Context

Kennametal isn't a newcomer. Founded in 1938 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, it makes metal cutting tools and wear-resistant solutions. Here's the Kennametal company overview manufacturing teams rely on: it makes carbide inserts, tool holders, end mills, reamers, boring bars, and drill bits. I checked their site before writing this, and the product line still matches the catalog I used in 2014.

Why does the company background matter? Because a Kennametal drill bit has a known substrate, coating, and edge prep. That sounds obvious until you compare it to a no-name carbide drill where the coating is ... well, whatever the factory had left that week.

The Comparison That Changed My Buying Process

I compared two ways to make holes in a steel part.

• Option A: Kennametal drill bits.
• Option B: cheaper carbide drills from a distributor I won't name.

I used three dimensions: unit price and lead time, tool life and hole quality, and total cost per good hole. The results surprised me in both directions.

Dimension 1: Unit Price and Lead Time

Option B was about $28 per drill at the time, if I remember correctly. Option A was around $85. On paper, the cheap drills won by 67%.

But the $28 drill came from a warehouse out of state. With freight and a 4-day lead, it wasn't $28. It was $42 and five days. Option A was one aisle away at the local distributor. Next-day, no freight if I picked it up. The day I needed it, the cheaper drill would have cost us a production day.

That was my first lesson in total cost: lead time is part of the price.

Dimension 2: Tool Life and Hole Quality

The September 2022 disaster is the one that sticks.

I ordered 20 cheap carbide drills for a 600-piece run. On the first 12 parts, one drill fractured and three holes came out oversized by about 0.0015 inch. That's not a disaster if you catch it. We caught it and recut the parts. But the pattern kept showing up. By piece 48, the cheap drills were wearing unevenly. Kennametal drills in the same application wore gradually and predictably.

Seeing the two side by side made me realize something: 'same diameter' doesn't equal 'same tool.' The cheap drills had coating and edge prep that looked fine under a loupe, but not when the machine was cutting. The most frustrating part wasn't the broken tool. It was the wasted weekend reworking parts that should have been fine.

Dimension 3: Total Cost per Good Hole

By the end of that job, we used 14 cheap drills instead of the 5 Kennametal drills I would have used. The cheap drills created 11 scrap parts and 14 hours of rework.

Run the numbers: 14 x $28 = $392, plus 11 scrap parts x $18 = $198, plus 14 rework hours x $60 = $840. That's $1,430, and I haven't even counted the overnight shipping or the schedule delay. The Kennametal path: 5 x $85 = $425, one scrap part = $18, zero rework. Total: $443.

The $57 difference per drill wasn't the cost. The rework, scrap, and delay were the cost. The premium option was cheaper by nearly $1,000 on that single job.

The Surprising Part: Idaho 3D Printing Services Won

I don't want this to sound like a Kennametal commercial. There are cases where the cheap option should win.

In Q1 2024, we needed a one-off drill guide for a part with a weird 30-degree angle. A custom metal tool from Kennametal would have solved it, but the quote was around $900—I want to say $900, but don't quote me on it—and the lead time was three weeks. Instead, I sent the part model to an Idaho 3D printing services shop. They printed a drill guide for $180 in four days. We needed exactly 32 holes, and the guide survived all 32 with minor wear. Total cost: $180 plus two hours of design time. The custom Kennametal tool would have been overkill.

That's the flip side of total cost thinking. The best buy isn't always the premium brand. It's the solution with the lowest cost per successful operation. Sometimes that solution is a $180 printed guide.

What Does a CO2 Laser Have to Do With Drill Bits?

I didn't fully understand TCO until I watched my sister review a training video. She manages a dermatology clinic. She asked if I wanted to see a CO2 laser dermatology procedure close up. I said yes, mostly because I'm nosy.

The laser spot looked tiny, but the operator was controlling depth, speed, and tissue response—like tooling speeds and feeds. I asked, 'What is CO2 laser ablation for the vulva?' She explained it's a gynecological procedure that uses focused CO2 laser energy to vaporize abnormal vulvar tissue. The clinical details are outside my field, but the purchasing logic wasn't.

A practice buying a laser doesn't just buy a laser. It buys handpieces, disposables, maintenance, training, and the cost of re-treatment if the first pass doesn't work. The cheaper console can be more expensive per completed case. Same with a drill bit.

Which One Should You Buy?

Scenario matters more than brand loyalty.

Choose Kennametal drill bits when:

• You're running high-volume or high-value parts.
• Hole quality directly affects scrap.
• You need reliable application data or support.
• Downtime costs more than the tool price.

Choose the cheaper option—or a 3D printed guide—when:

• You need one part or a tiny run.
• The feature isn't critical and rework is cheap.
• You have time to test before the real deadline.

Since Q1 2024, our checklist has caught 47 potential ordering errors. Three were cases where the cheap tool looked good but would have cost more than Kennametal. Four were cases where Kennametal would have been a waste of money and we used local 3D printing instead.

Whenever a vendor sends me a quote, I now calculate TCO before comparing it to anything else. It's not the most exciting spreadsheet, but it's the one that keeps my name off the rework list.

And don't underestimate delivery certainty. The value of guaranteed turnaround isn't speed—it's certainty. A production cell waiting on a 'maybe Friday' drill is an expensive gamble.

There's something satisfying about a job that finishes on the first pass with no rework. That satisfaction is the real product. The tool is just the way you get there.