Every date between now and January that changes what a parcel costs
The Royal Mail peak surcharge, the October price rise and the EU charges, as one calendar with the arithmetic.
Costs
What fulfilment costs per order in the UK, from published rate cards
The figures you find online run from £2 to £7 an order because they measure different things. This page builds the number from rate cards that UK 3PLs publish, line by line, so you can see what each part costs and where postage comes in.
Short answer: on the UK rate cards that publish a price, the warehouse fee for a single-item order starts between 50p and £1.95. Add packaging handling, storage, returns and goods-in and a typical month on our own published card comes to about £1.30 to £1.45 an order. Postage is extra and is usually the biggest line: Royal Mail’s published account price for a 48-hour parcel up to 1kg is £3.90 from 5 October 2026. So budget roughly £5 to £6 a small parcel all in on standard account postage, less on a 3PL’s negotiated rates.
A note on who wrote this. Angler Fulfilment is a 3PL and one of the providers below. Every other provider’s figure is taken from its own website on 10 October 2026, with a link, in alphabetical order. The full monthly breakdown uses our own rate card, because it is the only one we can cost line by line without guessing. If your company is listed and a figure is out of date, email info@anglerfulfilment.co.uk and we will correct it within one working day.
Why the numbers you find online disagree
Search for the cost of fulfilment per order and you will find figures from under £1 to over £7. Most of the gap comes from three different things being called the same name.
The pick fee. The headline “from” price on a rate card. It usually covers picking and packing one small item, nothing else. This is the 50p to £1.95 range below.
The warehouse cost per order. Everything the 3PL bills in a month, divided by the orders: pick and pack, extra items, packaging, storage, goods-in and returns. On our card this is £1.30 to £1.45.
The all-in cost per order. The warehouse cost plus postage. This is the £3.50 to £7 range, and the carrier and service decide most of it.
Before you compare two figures, ask which of the three each one is.
What UK 3PLs publish for one order
Six UK fulfilment companies that take small sellers publish a pick and pack price. The two-item column adds one extra item to show how quickly a cheap first item can be overtaken by the price of the second. “Not published” means we read the provider’s pricing pages and did not find it; it does not mean there is no charge. Prices are as each site states them, usually before VAT.
| Provider | First item | Each extra item | Two-item order | Price published as |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angler FulfilmentRochdale, Greater Manchester. Source: pricing page | £1.1095p from 1,000 orders a month, 85p from 3,000 | 25p22p from 1,000, 20p from 3,000 | £1.35Packaging at cost plus 15p handling | Full rate cardEvery line, with worked months |
| Choice FulfilmentPlymouth, Devon. Source: pick and pack | From £1“Order Fulfilment from £1” | Not published | Cannot be worked out | Headline onlyNot itemised |
| myWarehouseMilton Keynes. Source: pricing | From £1.95 | 65p | £2.60 | Rate cardPrepaid account, £50 minimum top-up |
| PackPro FulfilmentEssex. Source: pricing | 90pLower from 251 orders a month | 60p | £1.50 | Rate cardStorage per unit per day |
| Small Business FulfilmentCorsham, Wiltshire. Source: pricing | From £1£1.25 to £1.50 on the start-up tier | Not published | Cannot be worked out | Rate cardStorage from £1.75 a pallet a week |
| StoreshipNottingham, and Alicante in Spain. Source: fulfilment | From 50p“Pick and pack starts from £0.50 per order” | Not published | Cannot be worked out | Headline plus storageStorage per item a week |
One order, line by line
A pick fee is one line of six. This is a normal month on our published rate card: 500 orders, 1.2 items in an average order, two pallets of stock and a 3% return rate. Ex VAT.
| Line | 500-order month | Per order |
|---|---|---|
| Pick and pack (500 first items at £1.10, 100 extra items at 25p) | £575.00 | £1.15 |
| Packaging handling (15p an order) | £75.00 | 15p |
| Storage (2 pallets at £4.15 a week) | £36.00 | 7p |
| Returns (3% of orders at £2 a unit) | £30.00 | 6p |
| Goods in (1 pallet booked in) | £10.00 | 2p |
| Warehouse total | £726.00 | £1.45 |
| Packaging materials (mailer or box) | At cost, depends on the product | |
| Postage | Per parcel, see the next section | |
Pick and pack is about four fifths of the warehouse cost. The rest adds roughly 30p an order, which is why a rate card that shows only the pick fee looks cheaper than the invoice that follows it. The five charges that do not appear on a rate card are the ones to ask every provider about.
Postage, the biggest line
Postage usually costs more than everything the warehouse does. These are Royal Mail’s own published account prices for business senders from 5 October 2026; what changed that day is in our Royal Mail price guide.
| Royal Mail account price, from 5 October 2026 | Up to 1kg | Up to 2kg |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Mail 48 parcel | £3.90 | £4.30 |
| Royal Mail 24 parcel | £5.85 | £6.05 |
On those prices, a small single-item parcel on Royal Mail 48 comes to about £5.35 (£1.45 warehouse plus £3.90 postage), plus the mailer or box. 3PLs ship on their own negotiated carrier rates, which are often lower: on ours, a typical single-item parcel lands at £3.50 to £5.50 all in. If you would rather keep your own carrier account, we charge a flat 40p a parcel for label handling.
How volume changes the number
On most rate cards the cost per order falls as you grow, for two reasons: the pick price steps down at set volumes, and fixed costs such as goods-in are spread over more orders. On our card a typical month works out at:
- 100 single-item orders: £144.40, or £1.44 an order
- 500 orders at 1.2 items: £726.00, or £1.45 an order
- 1,000 orders at 1.2 items: £1,296.00, or £1.30 an order, because the first item drops to 95p
Every line of those three months is on our pricing page. In November and December a 20p peak surcharge applies to every order, which takes the 500-order month to £1.65 an order.
Work out your own cost per order
Take one normal month and add six numbers: pick and pack for every item, packaging, storage, goods-in, returns and postage. Divide by the orders. Do the same with every quote on your shortlist, using the same month, and compare the totals rather than the headline rates.
The fastest way is to ask each provider for a worked invoice for that month at your volume. If you are still choosing, read how to choose a 3PL in the UK, and if you send under a few hundred orders a month, fulfilment at 100 orders a month covers the options.
How this page was checked
Other providers’ prices were read on their own pricing pages on 10 October 2026, for the comparison of UK 3PLs with no minimum order volume. Royal Mail prices are from Royal Mail’s published price guides for 5 October 2026. Our own figures are from our published rate card. We will review the page at least every three months and show the date at the top.
Questions
How much does fulfilment cost per order in the UK?
On the UK rate cards that publish a price, checked on 10 October 2026, the warehouse fee for a single-item order starts between 50p and £1.95. Once packaging handling, storage, returns and goods-in are added, a typical month on Angler Fulfilment’s published rate card comes to about £1.30 to £1.45 an order. Postage is extra and is usually the biggest line: Royal Mail’s published account price for a 48-hour parcel up to 1kg is £3.90 from 5 October 2026.
What is included in a fulfilment cost per order?
A full cost per order adds six lines and divides by the orders in the month: pick and pack (first item plus any extra items), packaging, storage, goods-in, returns and postage. A headline “from” price usually covers only the pick and pack of one small item.
Is postage included in the fulfilment fee?
Usually not. Most UK 3PLs charge postage separately at their carrier rates. Check whether a quoted cost per order is before or after postage, because that one difference explains most of the gap between the £2 and £7 figures found online.
Does fulfilment get cheaper per order as volume grows?
Yes, on most rate cards. On Angler’s card the first item is £1.10 under 1,000 orders a month, 95p from 1,000 and 85p from 3,000, and fixed costs such as goods-in spread over more orders. A typical month works out at £1.44 an order at 100 single-item orders, £1.45 at 500 orders and £1.30 at 1,000.
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