I have stayed out of this post so as to not step on CTI. My comment will be generic and apply to all products. Somehow dilution suggestions have become the determination of the products cost. Our dilution instructions are suggestions or starting points for your system. We do not have a mathematical formula where we come up with the dilution. You will notice that the dilutions we use are modeled after the Hydro-Force sprayer: 1 to 4, 1 to 8, 1 to 16, 1 to 32, etc. We had a recent visit from a local cleaner who was upset that his product was discontinued by another supplier with a recommended dilution of 1 oz. per gallon. He did not think that a product that we recommend at 4 oz. per gallon could match his product if he diluted our product at 1 oz. per gallon. A test still needed to be done, but the possibility of equal performance should be examined.
We along with other manufacturers make concentrated products with dilution suggestions. However, we believe that we do not set the price, but the cleaner sets the price by choosing how much water you want to add. Several years ago someone came out with a 3X encapsulant to compete with the double strength formulas in the market place. We were curious and got a sample (we only look at a handful of competitive products a year). We did a dry down solids test and found out that if the competitive formula was 3X then we have been lying about our 2X formulas for years. Comparing the weight of our dry down solids, if the competitive product was 3X then our product was 6X. In short, when you do side by side testing, we suggest testing at the same Ready to Use gallon price even if it does not match label dilution instructions. We make strong coffee rather than weak coffee as you cannot make weak coffee stronger but you can dilute strong coffee to make it weaker.