The cheapest courier for small businesses in the UK: Royal Mail, Evri, InPost, DPD and Parcelforce compared by parcel size

Published 4 November 2026 · 14 min read · Angler Fulfilment

Share on X LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp

If you send a few parcels a day, postage is probably your biggest cost after stock. Many guides to the cheapest courier, or the cheapest way to send a parcel in the UK, predate Royal Mail’s 5 October 2026 price change, still list Yodel as a separate carrier, and quote one “from” price that only fits the smallest parcel.

So we priced the same parcel sizes across Royal Mail, Evri, InPost, DPD and Parcelforce Worldwide from each carrier’s own published prices, with sources and dates at the end. Where something is our reading rather than a published fact, we say so.

How we compared the prices

Every price here is the carrier’s own public price for one parcel, bought online direct (not through a reseller), dropped off rather than collected, on the cheapest standard service unless we say otherwise, read on 4 November 2026. Royal Mail figures are its online prices from 5 October 2026, as in our guide to Royal Mail’s October 2026 price rise.

VAT is the trap in any comparison. Royal Mail 1st and 2nd Class are exempt from VAT. Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 prices include VAT at 20%, as do Evri, DPD and Parcelforce public prices. InPost’s price page does not say, so we treat its figure as what you pay.

A note on who wrote this. Angler Fulfilment is a 3PL that sends its clients’ parcels with carriers on business accounts. The prices here are the carriers’ public prices, not ours, and links are not endorsements.

Which UK courier is cheapest for each parcel size?

Each cell is the cheapest home-delivery service that carrier publishes for that parcel, dropped off. InPost prices by compartment size, not weight: small 8 x 38 x 64cm, medium 19 x 38 x 64cm, large 41 x 38 x 64cm, all up to 15kg.

VAT: Royal Mail Tracked prices include VAT; Evri and Parcelforce prices include VAT; InPost does not state it. DPD is left out of this table because its website shows only a “from” price (£2.99, or £2.49 plus VAT) and prices each parcel on a quote by size, weight and address. Read 4 November 2026.

Three things stand out. InPost is cheapest whenever the parcel fits a compartment, and its price does not rise with weight up to 15kg. Evri is the cheapest weight-based carrier at almost every band. Royal Mail Tracked 48 is rarely cheapest below 15kg but never far off, with £75 of cover against Evri’s £20, and from 15 to 20kg it is the cheapest of the four.

Is Royal Mail Tracked 48 cheaper than 2nd Class? Yes, online

Most small sellers still think of 2nd Class as Royal Mail’s budget option. Online, it no longer is. Since 5 October 2026, a small parcel up to 2kg costs £4.40 by 2nd Class and £3.75 by Tracked 48. A medium parcel up to 2kg is £7.00 by 2nd Class and £5.70 by Tracked 48. Tracked 48 also includes £75 of cover, against £20.

VAT widens the gap for a VAT-registered business. 2nd Class is VAT exempt, so £4.40 is the whole cost. The £3.75 Tracked 48 price includes 62.5p of VAT, which a VAT-registered seller can reclaim, so their real cost is about £3.13. A seller who is not VAT registered pays £3.75 and still saves 65p a parcel.

Two more details move the price. A small parcel must fit 45 x 35 x 16cm and 2kg; anything bigger is medium (up to 61 x 46 x 46cm and 20kg), £5.70 rather than £3.75 on Tracked 48, so a box one centimetre too deep costs you on every parcel. And where you buy matters: 2nd Class small is £4.60 with stamps at a Post Office against £4.40 online, and a collection adds 50p per item.

Evri vs Royal Mail: which is cheaper?

Evri is cheaper at almost every weight on published prices: £3.04 against £3.75 for a small parcel up to 1kg, and £6.68 against £7.55 for 5 to 10kg. Royal Mail Tracked 48 gives you £75 of cover against £20 and takes parcels up to 20kg against 15kg, and Evri scored lowest in Ofcom’s October 2026 customer service satisfaction figures.

Evri publishes its full price list, including VAT. To a home, dropped off, Standard delivery costs £2.70 for a Postable item under 1kg, £3.04 for a Small parcel up to 1kg, £3.52 for Small from 1 to 2kg, £4.79 for a Standard-size parcel from 1 to 2kg, £6.59 for 2 to 5kg, £6.68 for 5 to 10kg and £10.28 for 10 to 15kg. Next Day costs more (£3.90 for Small up to 1kg) and needs drop-off before 12pm; having Evri collect adds about £1 (£4.04 for Small up to 1kg).

Evri’s Small size matches Royal Mail’s: up to 2kg and 45 x 35 x 16cm. Standard delivery takes 2 to 3 working days and the public price list stops at 15kg. If your buyer collects from an Evri ParcelShop, every weight up to 5kg costs £2.62. A £2.75 location charge may apply to some postcodes, and cover is £20 on most items, upgradable to £999. We found no maximum size for Postable on the pages we read, so check before relying on £2.70.

InPost prices, and what happened to Yodel?

InPost prices by the size of the locker compartment, not by weight. To an InPost Locker or Shop, a small parcel is £1.99, medium £2.59 and large £3.99. To a home address the same sizes cost £2.89, £3.99 and £5.99. Every size takes up to 15kg. You drop off with a QR code, so no printer is needed, and a buyer has 3 days to collect from a locker. Cover is £50, with full-value cover up to £500 in the app.

The catch is shape. The small compartment is 8cm deep: a folded T-shirt fits, a shoebox does not. In our reading, InPost is best value for flat or dense items and the wrong choice for bulky, light boxes.

InPost vs Evri: if the item fits InPost’s small 8cm compartment, InPost is cheaper to a home (£2.89 against Evri’s £3.04 to £3.52) and much cheaper to a locker (£1.99 against £2.62 to an Evri ParcelShop). Above 2kg the gap widens, because InPost’s price does not rise with weight. Evri wins for boxes too big for a compartment.

Yodel is now part of InPost. Ofcom’s news release of 27 October 2026 notes that “Yodel was acquired by InPost in 2025, and now operates under the InPost brand”, and Yodel’s own website now says Yodel by InPost has moved to InPost. It adds that InPost Direct accounts “are still available to use as normal”. Some well-ranked guides still list Yodel separately; treat Yodel and InPost as one carrier.

DPD and Parcelforce: when price is not the point

DPD advertises “Send a parcel from £2.99 (£2.49 plus VAT)” for economy delivery booked on DPD Online, with a lowest-price guarantee when you book direct. Beyond that it prices each parcel on a quote, so we have not guessed band prices. What it publishes is the service: £50 cover, parcels up to 30kg, 16,000+ UK drop-off points (Post Offices, Sainsbury’s, Argos, 24/7 lockers), free label printing at drop-off, and a one-hour delivery window with a 15-minute heads-up, plus next-day and before-10:30 upgrades. In our reading, for buyers who want to know when a parcel will arrive, that published one-hour window is the clearest promise of the five.

Parcelforce Worldwide is Royal Mail Group’s express parcel carrier. At a Post Office counter, express48 costs £13.60 up to 5kg, £15.70 up to 10kg, £18.85 up to 20kg and £22.00 up to 30kg, including VAT. That is the dearest option up to 20kg, but it takes parcels up to 30kg and 1.5m long (3m length plus girth), with £150 cover and extra cover up to £2,500. Online bookings now go through the Royal Mail website; we found no current online price list, so these are counter prices.

Cover, claims and reliability: the part of the price you do not see

A lost parcel costs the item, the postage and often the customer, so check the included cover before chasing the lowest price.

On reliability there is fresh independent data. Ofcom’s parcel survey, published on 27 October 2026, found average overall satisfaction fell to 75%, the first fall in three years, and 71% of recipients had a delivery issue in the previous six months, up from 68%. On customer service satisfaction, Amazon and FedEx scored highest at 56%; Ofcom said “for a fourth straight year, Yodel and Evri perform worst”, at 34% and 26%. It says it is considering further action, with an update in its postal monitoring report in December.

Those scores measure how easy a problem is to fix, not how often parcels arrive. For a £12 product the cheapest tracked option is usually right; for a £150 product, paying more for higher cover is cheap insurance.

Best courier for a small business in the UK, by what you sell

1. Flat items under 1kg. Evri Postable £2.70 or InPost £2.89 to a home; Royal Mail Tracked 48 large letter £2.90 if it fits 35.3 x 25 x 2.5cm and you want £75 cover.
2. Small boxes up to 2kg. Evri at £3.04 to £3.52; Royal Mail Tracked 48 at £3.75 for £75 cover. Both include VAT, so Evri stays cheaper after reclaiming it: about £2.53 to £2.93 against £3.13.
3. Heavy items, 5 to 15kg. InPost if the box fits a compartment, Evri if not. Above 15kg, Royal Mail Tracked 48 up to 20kg, then Parcelforce or DPD.
4. Buyers who expect next day or a time slot. Evri Next Day from £3.49, Royal Mail Tracked 24 at £4.80, DPD for the one-hour window.
5. High-value items. Royal Mail Special Delivery from £16.05 with £750 cover, or Parcelforce with £150 included.
6. TikTok Shop orders you ship yourself. Untracked post is out. TikTok Shop UK’s approved carriers for Shipped by Seller orders, dated 30 October 2026, include Royal Mail Tracked 24/48, Special Delivery, Evri, DPD, Parcelforce and Yodel UK, and it says “Royal Mail 1st/2nd class is not considered traceable tracking”. That list still names Yodel UK, which now trades as InPost, but InPost is not named itself, so check Seller Center before relying on it. Our guide to TikTok Shop fulfilment in the UK covers the dispatch and tracking rules in full.

On any marketplace, check its tracking rules before choosing an untracked service: a cheaper label that costs you a seller rating is not cheaper.

Business accounts: when you stop paying retail

An account is not automatically cheaper per parcel on published prices. Royal Mail’s lowest published account price for a Royal Mail 48 parcel up to 2kg is £4.30 before VAT, and account parcels also carry a 16% fuel and energy surcharge and, from 2 November 2026 to 10 January 2027, a peak surcharge. That is more than the £3.75 online Tracked 48 small parcel. But an individual account can be priced differently, so the only rate that settles it is the one on your own invoice. Our article on the three surcharges on every Royal Mail business parcel sets out how they add up.

Christmas 2026: surcharges and last posting dates

Account customers pay seasonal surcharges: DPD adds 30p a parcel (it does not publish the dates) and Royal Mail 15p on Royal Mail 48 from 2 November, with the rest listed carrier by carrier in our courier peak surcharges for 2026. For the whole of peak in one place, see Q4 2026 parcel costs. Parcelforce’s last recommended express48 posting date for Christmas is Monday 21 December. For every carrier’s cut-off, see how to set your last order dates for Christmas.

When a 3PL’s rates beat doing it yourself

A fulfilment company (3PL) changes the question in two ways. It ships on negotiated carrier rates rather than retail ones: ours are Royal Mail, Evri and DPD rates, passed through with a small handling margin and itemised on every invoice. Negotiated is not always cheaper than one parcel bought online, as the account prices above show, but a 3PL can also choose the service per parcel, without you holding three accounts.

The honest break-even is about your time as much as postage. At 20 parcels a month, buying Tracked 48 or Evri online and dropping them off is, in our reading, the cheapest way in cash terms, and a 3PL will not beat it (we work through the numbers in UK order fulfilment for 100 orders a month). It changes when packing and drop-off take hours every week, or when you need same-day dispatch to meet a marketplace’s delivery promise. As an example of the arithmetic: if packing one order and its share of the drop-off takes you 10 minutes, 300 orders a month is 50 hours of your time.

Our published rate card puts a typical month at about £1.30 to £1.45 per order before postage and packaging, and a typical single-item parcel at £3.50 to £5.50 all in with postage, before VAT. On the Starter plan (up to 500 orders a month) the first item is £1.10 and each extra item 25p, with no minimum order volume and a rolling monthly contract. There is no onboarding fee; a one-off £150 integration setup connects every sales channel. Orders in by 2pm Monday to Friday, or 1pm Saturday, leave the same day from our warehouse in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Every line is on our pricing page, and what fulfilment costs per order in the UK shows how to compare a 3PL against doing it yourself.

Cheapest courier UK: questions small sellers ask

What is the cheapest courier in the UK for a small parcel?

On prices read on 4 November 2026, the cheapest is InPost at £1.99 to a locker, if the parcel fits its 8cm-deep small compartment. To a home, a flat item under 1kg is cheapest with Evri Postable at £2.70, then InPost at £2.89. For a small box too deep for that compartment, Evri is cheapest at £3.04 up to 1kg and £3.52 from 1 to 2kg, then Royal Mail Tracked 48 at £3.75.

Is Royal Mail Tracked 48 cheaper than 2nd Class?

Yes, when bought online. Since 5 October 2026 a small parcel up to 2kg costs £3.75 by Tracked 48 and £4.40 by 2nd Class, with £75 cover against £20. A VAT-registered seller can also reclaim the VAT in the Tracked 48 price; 2nd Class is VAT exempt.

Is Evri cheaper than Royal Mail?

On published prices, usually yes. A small parcel up to 1kg is £3.04 with Evri against £3.75 by Royal Mail Tracked 48, and 5 to 10kg is £6.68 against £7.55. Royal Mail Tracked includes £75 cover against Evri’s £20, and goes to 20kg against Evri’s 15kg.

Does Yodel still exist?

Not as a separate brand for senders. Ofcom says Yodel was acquired by InPost in 2025 and now operates under the InPost brand. Business senders can keep using InPost Direct accounts as normal.

What is the cheapest way to send a heavy parcel in the UK?

If it fits an InPost locker compartment, InPost charges £3.99 to £5.99 to a home for anything up to 15kg. Otherwise Evri charges £10.28 for 10 to 15kg, Royal Mail Tracked 48 £12.25 for a medium parcel up to 20kg, and Parcelforce express48 £22.00 up to 30kg at a Post Office.

Which courier gives the most compensation as standard?

Of the services compared here, Royal Mail Special Delivery includes the most, at £750. Among standard parcel services, Parcelforce express48 includes £150, Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 £75, DPD and InPost £50, and Evri and Royal Mail 1st and 2nd Class £20.

How many parcels do I need to send for a business account?

Royal Mail points senders of fewer than 20 parcels a week to Click & Drop online, and those sending 20 or more to a business account. Evri’s free Frequent Seller Account needs 40 or more parcels each calendar month to keep its discounts, and its Business Account starts at 75 parcels a week. InPost and DPD do not publish a threshold.

When does using a 3PL beat sending parcels yourself?

At a few parcels a week, buying postage online and dropping it off is usually cheapest. A 3PL makes sense when packing takes hours every week, when you need same-day dispatch, or when your parcel sizes suit more than one carrier. Compare its all-in cost per order with your postage plus your time.