How Much Does Ecommerce Fulfilment Cost?

Order fulfilment costs can vary wildly across different third-party logistics (3PL) suppliers – many of whom aren’t transparent about their prices.

Typically, receiving costs are around 10p per item. Storage fees range from 5p for a small letter to £10.88 per pallet/cubic metre per month (with Core Fulfilment). Picking and packing fees start at £1.36 per order (with Huboo).

However, what you’ll pay will also depend on various factors including:

• How many orders you’re shipping
• The number of items in each one
• The physical size of your inventory
• and much more…

If you are ready to invest in serious growth for your ecommerce venture – and want to know exactly what this will cost – we recommend using our unique order fulfilment quote-finding tool.

Simply provide us with a few details about your ecommerce business’ requirements and we’ll send you accurate pricing quotes tailored to your specific fulfilment needs, completely free of charge.

Or read on for more details about the different cost criteria of ecommerce fulfilment

Fulfilment services pricing table

We’ll look at each of the following in more detail later in the article, but for now here’s a summary of the main costs you’re looking at: 

These figures are a rough guide and do not apply to every situation. You almost certainly won’t pay all of these fulfilment costs – many 3PL providers don’t charge setup fees and waive account management fees. 

Indeed, many 3PL companies will lump fees together under one umbrella. You might find everything from receiving to return simply referred to as ‘fulfilment fees’, or pay a simple monthly subscription fee for the whole hog.

Plus, plenty of 3PL suppliers offer other ways to save, such as not imposing minimum order requirements or insisting on long contracts.

If these prices seem reasonable to you and within your budget, get accurate pricing info from our trusted 3PL suppliers.

Order fulfilment cost factors: what affects the price?

We’ve broken down the range of factors that influence ecommerce fulfilment pricing in the UK. Read on for the costs of outsourcing each step of the fulfilment process – from setting up your account, all the way to shipping and returns. 

• Setup fees
• Receiving fees
• Storage fees
• Picking and packing fees
• Shipping fees
• Kitting and return fees
• Account management fees
• Exit fees

Setup fees

While it’s not a blanket rule, many 3PL providers will charge a setup fee when you begin working together. This cost ranges from anywhere between £100 to more than £800.

What you’ll pay depends on the complexity of your current setup, including your website, shopping cart, and the size of your business and order volume.

Negotiate this one down, if you can.

Receiving fees

Whether they’re coming from a supplier or directly from you, when you first ship your products to your 3PL provider’s warehouse (a fulfilment centre, in industry terms), there’s a fair bit of admin involved for the latter. Fulfilment centre staff have to receive the goods, relabel them according to their own system, and potentially repackage them to fit your own requirements, too. 

It’s a lot of work… and you can be sure these ‘receiving’ fees are getting passed on to you.

Receiving costs are priced either by the shipment (in which you’re looking at a figure of around £200 per load), or by the unit (a fee of around 5 to 10p per item).

We should note here that, rather than charge individual costs for receiving, picking, and courier costs, some providers roll it all up into a single fee. Huboo does this, with all-inclusive rates available from £1.36 per small letter.

Storage fees

Storage fees are the bread and butter of order fulfilment costs, and pretty much every 3PL you’ll come across charges them. Essentially, storage fees are what you’ll pay to house your inventory in a third-party fulfilment centre (warehouse). 

What’s you’ll want to watch out for is exactly how each 3PL supplier charges for the space your stock takes up. Many fulfilment providers charge by the pallet (one cubic metre of space), including:

• Core Fulfilment: £10.88 per pallet, per month
• Minatus: from £2.48 per cubic metre, per week

Charged per cubic metre or pallet, you should budget between £10 and £14 per month in storage. Bear in mind, this price may increase with the more unique products (SKUs, or stock keeping units) that you add to your inventory.

Other 3PL providers charge on an even more granular level – myWarehouse, for instance, charges 48p per cubic foot!

Other fulfilment suppliers charge for storage on a per item basis, such as:

• Huboo: 5p for a large letter to £1 for a medium, large or extra large parcel (per month)
• Amazon FBA: from 43p for clothing, shoes, and bags to 71p for ‘all other categories’ items (per daily average volume in cubic feet, per month. Prices rise Oct-Dec)

Some 3PL providers charge by individual ‘bin’. This is ideal for small items, and, due to the ease with which they can be picked, helps keep storage costs down. In this scenario, you can expect to pay between £1 and £3 per each bin, per month.

Picking and packing fees

When someone orders from you online, fulfilment centre staff swing into action. Your product is selected from your inventory (picked) and then boxed up for shipping (packed). Unsurprisingly, all this incurs a fee.

Picking and packing fees typically depend on how many orders you fulfil a month, and the average number of items per order. 

With Core Fulfilment, for instance, you’ll pay as little as £1.50 per order in picking and packing fees (if you have one item per order, and a monthly volume of 10,000 packages) or as much as £4.20 (if you have ten items per order, and ship 250 items per month).

myWarehouse charges a flat £2.61 picking and packing fee for orders with one item, with each additional item costing 42p. Huboo’s packing fees begin at 30p for a large letter, and go up to £2.95 for an extra large parcel. 

Amazon FBA’s picking and packing rates (lumped together as ‘fulfilment fees’) depend on your item’s sale value, size, and weight. Costs start at 62p for items of small envelope size that weigh up to 80g, and go up to £1.62 for a large envelope. Parcels start from £2.28, and reach £6.68 for items that weigh over 10kg.

Shipping fees

It’s tough to estimate the costs of shipping, as they depend on so many variables – not only the fees of the carrier itself, but on the size, weight, and nature of the products you’re transporting.

However, we should note that – even when you outsource your order fulfilment – you still have the option to use your own shipping carrier. Though this route offers more transparency and control, 3PL providers typically can offer the cheapest, quickest shipping – Amazon FBA being the most notable example.

The bottom line? Get to grips with where the cheapest, simplest shipping lies, before you sign a deal.

Kitting and return fees

If your product requires some kind of assembly or special attention before it’s shipped, chances are you’ll have to pay ‘kitting’ fees. These are usually based on an hourly rate of between £40 and £60, and will vary depending on the size and time demands of the job.

Likewise, return fees reflect the cost of the labour involved with handling any returns. This includes receiving your returned stock, assessing the damage (if any), and (if possible) getting it ready for resale.

Account management fees

These costs vary drastically between providers (in terms of what they include, and how much they are), but some form of account management fees is inevitable.

Typically, these costs include dedicated customer support, and integration with your website and shopping cart. As most 3PL providers’ operations are built around a live, cloud-based platform, you’ll also need to pay a monthly subscription fee to licence the software.

All up, you can expect to pay between £60 and £240 per month for order fulfilment account management fees.

Exit fees

Certain 3PL providers will charge a fee when you conclude your time with them – particularly if you terminate your contract early. 

That’s why it’s crucial to read and negotiate any contract for order fulfilment services with care – and why it’s so important to pick the right provider.

Are order fulfilment costs worth it for my business?

Order fulfilment is great, but it’s not a catch-all solution for every business. If you’re running a smaller enterprise and you’re not looking to invest thousands into scaling up this year, then dropshipping may well be the perfect solution. If you can’t wait to learn how to start dropshipping then feel free to check out our guide.

We’ve put together a handy comparison chart to help you figure out which type of service would suit your business more.

In addition to the above, order fulfilment is also a fantastic option for companies based abroad with no plans to set up UK warehouses. If you’re in this position, why not skip the hassle of establishing a physical presence on British soil, and simply let a trusted third party do the heavy lifting (and shipping) for you?

Our 3PL service comparison tool is free to use and will match you with tailored quotes for the right service providers – it only takes two minutes to use; see if you can find your ideal 3PL company today.

Choosing the right order fulfilment supplier

While this page isn’t about comparing order fulfilment suppliers for small businesses, we can recommend Huboo.

Huboo keeps labour costs low by dividing up their warehouses into smaller units. Their rates combine receiving, picking, packing, and shipping costs. Bear in mind they only handle small and medium-sized parcels, though.

There’s plenty of flexibility, though – you’ll have the option to choose between 24-hour and 48-hour delivery, and benefit from subscription rates starting from £50 per month.

Add this to Huboo’s offer of two months of free storage when you sign up, and there are few better deals out there.

Next steps

Now that you have a better idea of how much it costs to outsource your ecommerce fulfilment, it’s time to start comparing quotes from providers. If you’ve been trading for over a year, already have a website and you’re shipping more than 10 items a day, we’d love to connect you with trusted 3PL suppliers. How?

Well, simply provide a few details about your business’ requirements. We’ll ask:

• How long you’ve been trading for
• How you currently deliver your products
• Where you sell your products
• How many items you deliver daily

We’ll also need your postcode, so we can put you in touch with the top 3PL providers servicing your area. They’ll then be in contact with you directly, to offer no-obligation quotes tailored to your business. It takes around 30 seconds to fill in your requirements, and is completely free for UK businesses. What have you got to lose?