MCCB Price List: ABB, Schneider, Siemens Compared

What determines the price of an MCCB? Five variables compound to set the number on the quote — frame/current rating, breaking-capacity class (Icu/Ics per IEC 60947-2 §8.3), trip-unit architecture (thermal-magnetic vs. electronic), pole count, and accessories — brand name alone explains very little of it. Spec a breaking class below your site's prospective fault current to save money and the breaker can fail to clear a real fault; over-spec an electronic LSIG trip on a simple lighting feeder and the panel budget disappears on metering nobody reads. This article covers frame-size cost steps, breaking-capacity class cost steps, thermal-magnetic vs. electronic trip pricing, pole and accessory add-ons, and how ABB Tmax XT, Schneider ComPact NSX, and Siemens Sentron 3VA position against each other before you request a quote.

Frame Size and Current Rating: The First Cost Step

Every MCCB range is built around a small number of physical frame sizes, and the frame — not the amp rating printed on the label — is the first cost jump. ABB's Tmax XT line runs XT1 through XT7 across 16 A to 1600 A; Schneider's ComPact NSX splits into the NSX100/160/250 frame family and the larger NSX400/630 family, 15 A to 630 A; Siemens covers the same territory with 3VA1 (to ~630 A) and 3VA2 (to ~1000 A) frames. A 100 A breaker and a 250 A breaker in the same frame body often share the same case, contacts, and arc chute, with only the thermal element or sensor plug changing. Moving up a frame, though, means a physically larger enclosure, heavier contacts, and a different arc-quenching design, and that's where the real step in list price sits.

This has a direct sizing consequence. If your load calculation puts you near the top of one frame's current range, it is worth checking whether the next current step still fits inside the same frame before assuming you need to move up. Frame changes also affect breaker width in the panel, which affects busbar and enclosure design — a cost that shows up outside the MCCB line item entirely.

Breaking-Capacity Class: Where the Extra Cost Really Sits

Within one frame, moving from the base class to a higher class does not change the outer dimensions — it changes the internal contact geometry, the arc chute stack, and sometimes the current-limiting behavior. ABB's Tmax XT tops out near 200 kA at 415 V on its V-class frames; Schneider's NSX runs B(25) through L(150) kA at 415 V; Siemens' high 3VA2 frames reach roughly 150 kA at 415 V on the top class. None of that capacity is free, and the added cost for one class step up is usually larger than the added cost for one current-rating step within the same class.

Ics matters as much as Icu, and it's the number that gets skipped most often. Icu is the breaker's rating for one interruption of a fault before it may need service; Ics is the rating for repeated interruption at full rated capacity, expressed as a percentage of Icu. ABB and Siemens commonly rate Ics at 100% of Icu on their higher classes; some Schneider NSX classes rate Ics at 50-75% of Icu. A breaker sized only against Icu can be technically compliant and still leave you with a device that shouldn't be trusted to clear the same fault current twice.

The engineering answer to "which class do I need" is always site-specific — it comes from the fault current study, not from a habit of always ordering the top class "to be safe." Ordering above what the fault study requires is the single most common source of MCCB budget overrun we see on panel-builder quotes.

Thermal-Magnetic vs. Electronic Trip Units: The Biggest Swing Factor

Thermal-magnetic is the base-cost option across all three brands: ABB's TMD/TMA on Tmax XT1/XT3 and Formula A1/A2/A3, Schneider's TM-D/TM-G on NSX up to 250 A, Siemens' TM on 3VA1. These give fixed or adjustable overload and instantaneous settings with no display, no auxiliary power requirement, and the lowest unit cost in the range.

Electronic trip units are where the price curve steepens, and where the three brands diverge in how they sell it. ABB's Ekip line runs from Ekip Dip (dip-switch settings, no display) up to Ekip Touch and Hi-Touch (LCD, metering, LSIG protection curves). Schneider's Micrologic modules are field-swappable — Micrologic 2 gives long-time/instantaneous (LI), 5 adds short-time (LSI), 6 adds ground-fault (LSIG), and the "E" suffix adds energy metering — so a panel builder can order the frame once and select the trip module separately. Siemens' ETU range on 3VA2 spans ETU320 at the basic end to ETU850 with a graphic display and communications. Metering, communications, and LSIG curves are each incremental cost adders on top of base LSI protection, and they add up faster than most first-pass BOMs assume.

Some engineers spec the top-tier electronic trip on every distribution breaker as a default, arguing it future-proofs the panel for metering and comms later. In practice this is rarely worth it on downstream feeder breakers with no communication backbone planned — the extra cost buys features that stay unused, and a basic LSI trip does the protection job at lower cost. Reserve the metering/comms tier for incomers and critical feeders where the data has a use.

Poles, Accessories, and the Line Items Nobody Budgets For

Pole count is a straightforward step: a 4-pole MCCB costs more than the equivalent 3-pole because it carries an additional pole assembly and a wider frame, and it is required whenever the neutral needs to be switched or monitored — TN-S systems with neutral disconnection, or installations with sensitive earth-fault protection on the neutral. Where local code and the distribution design allow 3-pole with a solid neutral, the 4-pole surcharge is avoided outright.

Accessories are the category most quotes underestimate. Shunt trip and undervoltage release coils, auxiliary and alarm contact blocks, motor operators for remote/automatic operation, mechanical interlocks between breakers, and Schneider's Vigi earth-leakage add-on module all sit outside the base breaker price. On a small order — a handful of feeder breakers for one panel — the accessory line items can add up to a meaningful fraction of the breaker cost itself, simply because there's no volume to spread fixed accessory pricing across.

ABB Tmax XT vs. Schneider ComPact NSX vs. Siemens Sentron 3VA: Relative Positioning

None of the three brands is uniformly cheaper or more expensive — positioning shifts by frame, class, and trip tier, and by which economy sub-line you compare against. ABB's Formula A series undercuts Tmax XT on basic thermal-magnetic breakers; Schneider's EasyPact CVS and newer GoPact lines sit below ComPact NSX on price for the same job; Siemens doesn't run a third economy tier in the same way, so its 3VA1 thermal-magnetic frame carries more of the brand's mid-tier positioning by itself.

What we see in the field: on breakers matched frame-for-frame, class-for-class, and trip-for-trip, landed cost differences between the three brands are usually driven more by regional stock position and lead time than by list price alone. A breaking-class-and-trip-tier match that's in stock beats a marginally cheaper spec that's twelve weeks out, once you count the cost of a delayed panel.

How to Read an MCCB Quote: What You're Actually Paying For

A clean MCCB quote line breaks into the base breaker (frame, current rating, breaking class), the trip unit (thermal-magnetic or the electronic tier selected), poles, accessories, and — often the least visible line — a lead-time surcharge when stock has to be expedited from outside the region. Reading a quote this way makes it possible to ask a supplier for a like-for-like alternative on any one line without re-specifying the whole breaker. It also makes brand-to-brand comparisons meaningful, since comparing a bare ABB TMD unit against a fully-loaded Schneider Micrologic 6 with Vigi tells you nothing about relative brand pricing.

Because exact figures move with breaking-capacity class, trip tier, region, and current stock position, this article intentionally does not quote numbers — anyone quoting a fixed MCCB price without knowing your class and trip selection is guessing. Molded case circuit breakers from ABB, Schneider Electric, and Siemens are available from Stoklink with live stock and pricing; request a quote with your frame, breaking class, and trip-unit selection and get a number tied to what your panel actually needs, not a list-price average.

Conclusion

MCCB price is not a brand lookup. It's the sum of frame/current rating, breaking-capacity class matched to your fault current study, trip-unit tier matched to what the feeder actually needs, poles, and accessories. ABB Tmax XT, Schneider ComPact NSX, and Siemens Sentron 3VA each cover the same territory with different economy sub-lines and different trip-module architectures, and none is categorically cheaper once specs are matched line-for-line. The reliable way to control cost is to size each variable against the actual requirement: see the breaking capacity ratings and voltage and current frame sizing guides for the sizing detail, use the MCCB selection checklist to confirm the spec before quoting, and check the IEC 60947-2 standards overview for the clause references behind Icu and Ics — then request a live quote rather than budgeting against a remembered list price. For the full picture across ranges, construction, and selection, see the MCCB engineering guide.