This article in concerned with studying the effect of die profile on the load and energy necessary for plane-strain forward extrusion. With this regard, the geometries of the second-order polynomial and exponential die profiles were optimized in order to minimize the required extrusion pressure calculated based on the slab method. These optimal extrusion dies and the relevant linear one were manufactured for three extrusion ratios. After performing the extrusion experiments, the corresponding finite-element simulations were carried out under the same test conditions. All the analytical, experimental, and numerical findings, which were in good agreement with each other, showed that for all the extrusion ratios, the optimized polynomial and exponential die profiles involved the minimum and maximum force and energy requirements for the process, respectively. Moreover, the influence of the die geometry was more apparent at lower extrusion ratios. When the experimental results were analyzed based on the Taguchi method, it was also found that the effect of the die profile on the maximum extrusion load was more than one third that of the extrusion ratio.