RAL 7016 - Cheaper than other tones or why is it so popular?

The anthracite window frames always have a bit of a "eyeliner for the house" touch for me. By the way, "everything in the same RAL color" does not exist: unlike Pantone colors, RAL colors appear differently on every material (in terms of the surface, here possibly the foil!) – when googling for color examples, I can hardly find fewer than seven colors that look different to my eyes but have the “same” number. This effect is more pronounced with bright colors; this is also why uncolored tones (especially those close to medium black, i.e., around 80% gray) are relatively best suited for a seemingly uniform base of color areas that are adjacent to each other. In practice, however, the (at least “felt”) difference between matte and glossy of the same color number remains greater than, for example, between RAL7016, RAL7021, and DB703.

As a former window manufacturer, I can say that we (notably in aluminum!) produced 80% of orders in white. The pigment powders for coating are often delivered in large containers, meaning the capital tied up in stock affects the calculation more for a rare color than for one that is, for example, more expensive due to a metallic effect. I was quite satisfied with red because for office and shop projects the savings bank red is also gladly used by builders other than the savings banks – unfortunately it is different with Lidl or Aral blue. Roe brown is practically history since the trend sent steel garage swing gates with vertical ribs to the museum. This commercial aspect will essentially be the same for foil manufacturers with their granulates as it is for us with the powders.

Everyone should memorize the italic paragraph above before succumbing to the delusion of matching roof surfaces and window frames – whether in the "same" tone or intentionally different! – this can only regularly lead to disappointments and/or cause the builders to suspect the manufacturer of one or the other material of too large a tolerance for the supposedly “standardized” color tone.

succumbs to the delusion of coordinating roof covering and window frames - whether in the "same" tone or deliberately differentiated!

But that's not the topic at all (even if someone briefly mentioned it here).

But that's not the topic at all (even if someone briefly mentioned it here once)

That was also "only" the OP who mentioned it "briefly"

The problem is that according to the development plan, the facade must be white and the bricks in grey tone. Since white windows in front of a white facade don't look good in my opinion, there has to be a grey one.