Huboo Review: Pricing, Reviews and Features

Huboo is a decent order fulfilment company for small businesses trading steady volumes of medium-sized products. There are many different types of costs associated with order fulfilment, but they have some of the lowest costs of any supplier. For instance, receiving, picking and postage costs of one item starts from just £1.36 plus monthly subscription fees.

That means if you’re selling alcohol, gifts, pet supplies or other everyday goods Huboo is a scalable order management firm for growing your online business.

In our Huboo review, we’ll take an in-depth look at its features, flaws and fantastic bits. With more than a decade of experience in the order fulfilment sector, we’re experts in researching third-party logistics (3PL) companies like Huboo. Pricing, customer reviews, and European fulfilment capabilities all come under the microscope in our expert review.

If you’re considering Huboo as your order fulfilment supplier, remember to look out for the following four features:

• Can they store your items?
• Monthly costs
• Distribution network
• Customer reviews

Remember we’re more than happy to take the legwork out of your 3PL company search: simply let us know a few basics such as the volumes you’re dispatching each month and we’ll match you with a suitable supplier. If you’ve been trading for at least one year and you’re ready to scale up your ecommerce business, we’ll get you set up with the perfect company to make it happen.

Huboo at a glance

Huboo pricing: Let’s talk money

Huboo pricing is much more transparent on their website compared with most other fulfilment companies. While your company’s specific costs can vary due to your order volume, product size, taxes and other factors, you can calculate a pretty close estimate of your costs with Huboo’s listed prices.

Huboo subscription pricing

Every Huboo customer pays a monthly subscription price which gives you access to account management, a dashboard and customer support. Storage fees, picking and packing (plus kitting) as well as courier fees are then added on top.

Here are the Huboo monthly subscription prices:

For small business owners who can no longer cope with crawling over piles of boxes just to reach their front door, a Huboo 3PL subscription is an effective way to eliminate the stress of in-house stock management.

Here are Huboo’s base costs per subscription package:

• Silver: £50 per month (up to 300 dispatches per month)
• Gold: £100 per month (up to 1,500 dispatches per month)
• Platinum: £450 per month (up to 5,000 dispatches per month)

There’s a couple of extra charges to be aware of:

• There’s a minimum invoice value of £375 to be charged monthly.
• Any client who doesn’t pay by direct debit will be charged 3.5% of the invoice amount on top.
• Returned items cost £3 each.
• A fuel surcharge may apply to shipping rates (this is from courier companies due to unstable fuel prices).

Huboo storage fees

Like most 3PL companies, Huboo charges for the exact amount of storage space you use, meaning you’re never paying to store empty space on a shelf. Huboo typically handles smaller products but pallet storage is available for Enterprise clients. For products stored on shelves, new customers can benefit from two months of free storage.

Here are Huboo’s storage prices per item:

Shelf storage (price per month)

• Large letter (30cm x 22cm x 2.5cm): 6p
• Small packet (30cm x 22cm x 15cm): 17p
• Small parcel (44cm x 34cm x 15cm): 46p
• Medium/large/extra large parcel (60-100cm x 40-50cm x 40-50cm): £1.15

Pallet storage (per week) – available for Enterprise clients only

• One pallet up to 750kg: £9.95

It’s worth knowing that if you’re primarily looking for pallet storage then Huboo isn’t the best value for money. A 3PL supplier like Fulfillable offers free storage for clients shipping at least 500 orders per month. If you’re selling in lower volumes then Fulfillable’s pallet storage comes to 70p per day or £4.90 a week.

Huboo fulfilment fees (receiving, picking, postage)

Huboo prices 24 Hour Standard fulfilment from £1.69 to £6.20 per item depending on size and weight. Naturally, 48 Hour Standard fulfilment costs a little less, from £1.36 to £4.91.

The below pricing table outlines the inbound, receiving, picking and postage costs of one item. You’ll get one scan and confirmation number, with items delivered by a courier such as DPD, Royal Mail or Evri (formerly known as Hermes).

This means fulfilment costs for smaller items is considerably cheaper with Huboo compared with the competition. For instance, myWarehouse in Milton Keynes charges £2.75 just for picking and packing per single-item order (with receiving, packaging and courier fees added on top).

With Huboo, tracked fulfilment costs a little extra: a small parcel costs £4.78 (48 Hour Tracked) up to an extra large parcel at £9.56 (24 Hour Tracked).

Handily, Huboo will fulfil orders to the EU and the rest of the world. In the past two years they’ve expanded into Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, giving you access to inventory storage and fulfilment on the continent.

Huboo’s pricing for UK fulfilment of small letters and parcels seems competitive but you must bear in mind the additional costs of monthly subscription fees plus packaging.

Huboo packing and packaging fees

If you don’t want to package your own items, Huboo will wrap them up for you. Below pricing includes courier mailing bags, Jiffy bags and envelopes but not boxes.

• Large letter: 35p
• Small packet: 46p
• Small parcel: 58p
• Medium parcel: £1.04
• Large parcel: £2.24
• Extra large parcel: £3.39

Kitting is available, but not included in the above prices so you’ll need a bespoke quote from Huboo (we can sort that for you). You can also request custom branded packaging and eco packaging, again, at slightly different prices.

Pros and cons of Huboo

✅ Transparent inventory storage

With some fulfilment companies, you’ll never know exactly where and how your inventory is being stored. That’s bound to set any merchant worrying. With Huboo, you’ll get a live stock overview with their in-house cloud dashboard. Granted, many modern fulfilment companies will offer the same digital asset. However, it’s good to know you can find the exact addresses of each Huboo fulfilment centre on their website, including their European facilities. This should take a load of your stress as you can carefully manage your sales operations with this inventory transparency.

✅ Direct connection with warehouse support

Unlike Fulfilment by Amazon, for instance, Huboo provides a more direct line of communication with the warehouse manager in charge of your stock. You’ll contact Huboo’s customer support centre through your account log-in and you can email messages to your ‘hub manager’ who is the staff member personally overseeing your inventory. It’s definitely a relief knowing you’ll be able to communicate with well-informed personnel instead of overseas call centre staff.

✅ Fulfil alcohol, health and adult products

Not all fulfilment firms are prepared to store and dispatch products in slightly more fringe categories such as alcohol, health items and sex toys. With Huboo, you don’t need to worry about any restrictions. Some clients supply COVID tests, for instance.

✅ Sustainability attempts made

Few modern companies are perfectly sustainable, but Huboo makes something of an effort to reduce their environmental impact. Huboo’s fulfilment centres are partially powered by solar panels and the firm partners with More Trees to replenish forests. They also have a Zero Waste Policy meaning unwanted stock is donated to charity. Eco-friendly packaging is available too.

Huboo donates unwanted stock to charity, which is almost unheard of in the fulfilment industry.

❌ No bulky, chilled or frozen goods

Huboo isn’t set up for cold-chain products of any kind, including medicines, food or beverages. You can entrust them with teas and coffee, but nothing that needs keeping in the fridge. When it comes to size, smaller is better. Their rule of thumb is “Can it fit on a shelf?” and that’s the kind of product Huboo can store for you. That means no washing machines, sofas or lawn mowers.

❌ Mainly B2C not B2B

Huboo is in the business of business-to-consumer order fulfilment. They’ve told us they wouldn’t take on purely wholesale business-to-business customers.

❌ Some concerning customer reviews

Huboo is currently suffering a bit of an image problem, with some damning reviews on Trustpilot surfacing recently. The issues raised relate to missing inventory and incorrect billing. That said, Huboo has 89% ‘excellent’ reviews on Trustpilot. This may be a reflection of customers’ positive onboarding experience, as the company appears to ask for reviews very early in the customer’s journey.

Huboo’s key features explained

The central services of 3PL companies are basically identical: receiving, storing, picking, packing and dispatching goods. One thing to be aware of is that Huboo wouldn’t store items for you without fulfilment (dispatch) services as well.

Now we’ll look at the main reasons Huboo is somewhat unique in order fulfilment, to help you get a sense of whether this company is right for you.

‘Hub’ model of warehouse

Huboo pricing is a little lower than some competitors as their storage facilities are organised to a ‘T’. Instead of spreading stock across a warehouse, each client’s items are stored in dedicated ‘hubs’. These are dedicated physical ‘zones’ containing the inventory of around 30 clients. Staff can pick and pack quickly within one zone because they’re familiar with where items are stored, so labour costs are kept low and savings are passed onto you.

Returns management

Reverse logistics are a vital concern for any ecommerce merchant, and Huboo’s got this covered. They partner with ZigZag to offer a branded portal where customers can order return shipping labels. This triggers a ticket to ping over to you, which is great for keeping you up to date with customer satisfaction. When Huboo receives the item back, the company will place it back into stock or dispose of it, as you wish. It will cost you £3 per item.

What kind of business is Huboo best for?

As touched on in the summary table at the start of this article, Huboo is best suited to very small ecommerce businesses (selling online) looking to grow their operations. Their customer service unit in Bristol is UK-based so you can communicate as often as you need to with your inventory managers. That’s extremely useful for aligning your own working hours with those of your fulfilment solution. Plus you’ll save on overseas calls you may face with larger 3PL firms.

If you sell consumer items online in any of the following sectors, you’d likely be a great match for Huboo:

• Clothing and accessories
• Health and cosmetics
• Alcohol or soft drinks
• Sports goods
• Pet food, bedding and toys
• Toys, arts and crafts
• Baby goods
• Adult products (sex toys)

Huboo is particularly well suited to the above categories of ecommerce because of their ambient shelf storage facilities.

Does Huboo have good customer reviews?

Mostly, yes. Huboo achieves an average score of 4.4/5 across Google, Trustpilot and Nicelocal customer review platforms. Huboo isn’t rated on Capterra, Facebook or G2 so we can’t include scores from them. We haven’t included testimonials from the company’s own website as it’s likely to be heavily biased.

Positive reviews praise the following aspects of Huboo:

• Friendly, knowledgeable and helpful staff
• Great communication
• Deliveries made on time
• Work to solve issues
• Cheaper rates than former supplier

Negative customer reviews raise the following concerns:

• Billing issues: disputes about whether they are correct or have already been paid
• Inventory has gone missing with delayed explanation

Truspilot has validated reviewers who made the above complaints after reviewing evidence from the customers. Huboo responded to the criticisms saying: “We take all feedback very seriously”, and reject the validity of certain claims. They also commented: “We are always willing to review genuine concerns”.

In our view, the issue of missing stock is serious enough to warrant further questioning. If you were to sign up with Huboo, you should make sure you’ve asked about inventory security and account communication in light of the above. If you’re not satisfied with the reassurances you’re given, you must consider taking your inventory to a 3PL supplier without such complaints in their recent customer reviews.