Industrial sourcing · China to Europe

Buyer-firstOpen route · visible proof

Buyer guide · Pharma & supplements

Tablet counting machine from China

Tablet counters are sold on bottles per minute and a counting accuracy, and neither means anything until you know the count per bottle and whether accuracy is per tablet or per bottle.

Ask about this machine ↗Where the numbers come from

Written and listings checked 30 September 2026. Every figure on this page names its source.

What you are actually comparing.

Two quotes, one machine name

What hides inside the price

Pieces per hour, not bottles per minute

Bottles per minute depends on your fill count. Ask for rated pieces per hour on your tablet size and divide by your count yourself.

Lane count and tablet shape

More vibrating lanes raise output only if each lane stays full. Oblong and coated tablets slide and bounce differently from round ones, so ask for a run on your shape.

Sensor type: photoelectric or camera

A photoelectric beam counts anything that breaks it, including a broken half tablet. A camera counter can reject by size and shape, and costs more.

Dust on the sensors

Tablet dust coats the sensor windows and drifts the count. Ask how the sensors are cleaned, how often, and whether air purge is fitted.

Where a wrong count goes

Some machines stop, some divert the bottle, some only alarm. Ask which, and whether it is logged.

Before you ask for a price.

Send these with the enquiry. Without them, any number a factory gives you is a guess dressed as a quotation.

Every tablet shape and size, coated or uncoated, with a sample of the most friable one.
Count per bottle for every product, smallest and largest.
Bottle sizes and neck diameters, and whether bottles arrive from an unscrambler or by hand.
The bottles per minute you need at your real count.
Food supplement maker (Directive 2002/46/EC) or licensed medicines maker (EU GMP, EudraLex Volume 4).

Turn the claim into a demonstration.

Require this	A pass looks like
Count your most friable tablet into your bottle at your largest count, at the speed you are buying, for at least 200 bottles. Hand-count a sample.	Every hand-counted bottle holds the target count, at a speed stated for your count.
Add broken halves and chipped tablets to the hopper mid-run.	Fragments are rejected or the bottle diverted; none reach a good bottle.
Run a full hour without cleaning the sensors.	Accuracy at the end of the hour equals accuracy at the start.

The documents that must arrive with it.

EU Declaration of Conformity naming model and serial, covering 2006/42/EC until 19 January 2027 and Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 after, plus 2014/35/EU and 2014/30/EU.
Material certificates for hopper, channels and funnels, as food contact under Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 for supplements.
For licensed medicines makers: FAT report and IQ/OQ protocols you can execute.

The one people forget. The sensor calibration procedure, the only proof the counter still counts right after a sensor is replaced.

When this is the wrong machine.

Buy something else if

Named, not hedged

You fill a few hundred bottles a day.

A hand-loaded tabletop counter at a fraction of the price.

You need bottles counted, capped, sealed and labelled without people between the steps.

A tablet bottle filling line, quoted as one system with the counter as one station.

Where the numbers come from.

We name the kind of source, how many and when, and never the factory. Listed prices are asking prices, not landed cost. Where we do not hold a fact we say so: that is a GAP, not an estimate.

Listings · 11Eleven marketplace listings for automatic multi-lane tablet and capsule counters, checked September 2026, advertised asking prices from US$6,621 to US$40,556. Three tabletop counters on the same marketplace listed US$870 to US$3,000. Asking prices, not landed cost.
Listings · 1One manufacturer page for a 16-lane counter, checked September 2026, stated 260,000 to 460,000 pieces an hour, up to 200 bottles a minute, accuracy better than 99.98 percent, and tablets of 3 to 25 mm.
Arithmetic460,000 / 60 = about 7,667 pieces a minute. 7,667 / 200 bottles = about 38 a bottle. 7,667 / 100 = about 77 bottles a minute. 0.02 percent of 10,000 = 2.
GAPGAP - no supplier quotations logged for this machine yet. Three to five quotations for one configuration would give a real price spread.

Related machines.

Capsule counting machine. Choose it for hard capsules or softgels, which fail a counter for other reasons than tablets.
Tablet bottle filling line. Choose it when you want counting, capping, sealing and labelling as one quoted system.

Every machine we source in this area is on the Pharma & supplements page. How a project runs, stage by stage, is on how it works, and what it costs is on pricing.

Straight answers

Questions buyers ask about this machine.

Chinese vs European tablet counting machine: what differs?+

The counting principle is the same. Sensor quality, fragment rejection, recorded counts and spare sensor supply differ. For supplements a Chinese multi-lane counter can be enough; for licensed medicines, qualification papers often decide.

What goes on a tablet counting machine inspection checklist?+

Serial against the declaration, lane count against the order, your tablet counted and hand-checked, fragment rejection tested, and the reject path for a miscounted bottle.

What does a counting accuracy figure really mean?+

Ask if it is per tablet or per bottle. One listing gives better than 99.98 percent. Per tablet, that is up to 2 errors in 10,000, so at 100 a bottle up to 2 bottles in 100 could be off by one.

Who is the EU importer of a tablet counter?+

Whoever places it on the EU market. Buying direct makes that you: your name and address go on the machine or documents, and you check the declaration.

Contact

Tell us what you need.

Send a machine, a quotation you want checked, or a question. We reply with what we would look at first.