The five fulfilment charges that don't appear on the rate card

July 2026 · 9 min read · Angler Fulfilment

Every seller who has moved 3PL twice tells the same story. The rate card looked competitive, the first invoice looked nothing like it, and by the time anyone worked out why, the stock was already on the shelf and moving was going to cost more than staying.

Almost none of this is fraud. Fulfilment has real costs that do not fit neatly into a per-order number, and every provider has to recover them somewhere. The problem is that the recovery lines are usually in the terms rather than on the pricing page, so two quotes that look 20% apart can be identical — or the cheaper one can be 40% more expensive.

1. Goods-in and receiving

Someone has to unload the pallet, count it, check it against your ASN, resolve the discrepancy when the count is wrong, and put it away. That is real labour, and most 3PLs charge for it — per pallet, per carton, per unit, or per hour of the labour it took.

What makes this line unpredictable is that you largely control its size. Mixed cartons cost more to receive than single-SKU cartons. Unbarcoded units cost more than barcoded ones because someone has to label every piece. A delivery that arrives without notice costs more than a booked one.

Ask

• Is receiving charged per pallet, per carton, per unit or per hour?
• What happens if the count does not match the ASN — who pays for the recount?
• Is labelling included, and at what rate if a unit arrives without a scannable barcode?
• Is there a surcharge for unbooked deliveries?

2. Storage that is charged on the space, not the stock

This is the one that catches growing sellers hardest. Storage is usually billed on the space your stock occupies, not the units it contains — per shelf, per bin, per pallet, per cubic metre. A slow-moving SKU on a half-empty pallet is billed the same as a full one.

Two follow-on charges hide behind it. Minimum billing periods: if storage is billed monthly, stock that arrives on the 28th may be billed for the whole month. And long-term storage surcharges: some providers escalate the rate on anything sitting past 90 or 180 days, which is exactly the stock you are least likely to be watching.

Ask

• What are the actual dimensions of a shelf, bin or pallet space?
• Is storage billed daily, weekly or monthly, and is a part month charged in full?
• Is there a long-term storage surcharge, and at what age does it start?
• What happens to the rate if my stock profile changes shape — more SKUs, same units?

3. Packaging, and who owns the decision

The headline pick-and-pack rate normally covers the labour of picking and packing. It often does not cover what the order is packed in. Boxes, mailing bags, void fill, tape, fragile wrap, branded tissue and inserts are consumables, and consumables get billed.

Three things to pin down. First, whether packaging is charged at cost, at cost-plus, or at a fixed per-order rate. Second, whether you can supply your own — and whether the 3PL charges storage on your packaging stock if you do. Third, what happens when an order needs a bigger box than the standard: is there an oversize packing rate, and who decides when it applies?

Branded packaging is where this gets expensive quietly. Custom boxes carry minimum order quantities, they occupy storage you pay for, and if your design changes you may be storing dead stock. Worth doing — but budget the storage, not just the print.

4. The picks after the first one

Almost every rate card is quoted on a single-item order. Real baskets are not single-item. The second and subsequent items on an order are usually charged separately, and the gap between providers on that additional-item rate is often wider than the gap on the headline rate.

The maths matters more than it looks. If your average order contains 2.4 items, the additional-item rate applies to well over half your picks. A provider 5p cheaper on the first pick and 10p dearer on each additional one is more expensive for you, not less — and their pricing page will still look better.

Also in this bracket

• Serial or batch capture, if you sell anything with an expiry date or a traceable code
• Kitting and bundling — building a multipack is assembly work, not picking
• Gift wrap, personalisation and hand-written notes, all charged as touches
• Special handling for fragile, heavy or awkward items that will not fit a standard conveyor process

5. Minimums, surcharges and getting out

Minimum monthly charges are the quiet killer for sellers with seasonal volume. A £500 monthly minimum is invisible in November and painful in February. If your business has a slow quarter, model the slow quarter, not the average.

Peak surcharges are legitimate — labour genuinely costs more in November and December — but they should be a published number, not a discretionary one. Ours is 20p per order in November and December, and it appears on every quote we send. A 3PL that will not put a figure on its peak surcharge in advance is asking you to sign a blank cheque for your two most important months.

Rate reviews should have a date and a notice period. We review each April and tell clients in advance. “Rates may be amended from time to time” with no notice period is not a pricing term, it is an option they hold over you.

Exit costs are the ones nobody asks about at signature and everybody asks about at 2am eighteen months later. Find out now: what is the notice period, what does it cost per unit or per pallet to have your stock picked, packed onto pallets and released, and — the important one — is there a lien clause that lets them hold your stock against an unpaid invoice? Most 3PL contracts have one, including ours. That is normal and reasonable. What is not reasonable is finding out about it during a dispute.

The comparison that actually works

Do not compare rate cards. Compare total monthly cost, modelled on your own twelve months of order data, in three scenarios: your slowest month, your average month, and your peak month. Send every provider the same five inputs — orders per month, average items per order, number of SKUs, storage footprint, and return rate — and ask each of them to produce a worked invoice.

The provider whose number comes back highest is not necessarily the expensive one. Sometimes it is just the honest one.