Ask ten fulfillment providers what they charge and you will get two price sheets and eight invitations to a sales call. This article breaks down every cost category in plain numbers, so you can budget properly before you talk to anyone, including us.
Receiving. Getting your inventory into the warehouse, counted and inspected. Industry pricing is typically per unit or per hour. Our rate: $0.15 per unit with a $15 minimum per box, and container unloading from $199 for a 20 foot container.
Storage. Usually billed per cubic foot per month, so you pay for exactly the space your products occupy. Our rate: $0.57 per cubic foot per month with a $39 monthly minimum, and your first 30 days of storage are free for newly received inventory.
Pick and pack. The cost of pulling items off the shelf and packing an order. Our rate: $1.75 per order for the first item and $0.50 for each additional item, and orders received by our daily cutoff ship the same business day.
Shipping. The carrier's charge to move the package. A good provider passes through discounted carrier rates or lets you use your own carrier account for free. This is usually the largest single cost per order, and it depends on package weight, dimensions, and destination.
Returns processing, kitting, label replacement, marketing inserts, custom cartons, and pallets all carry real costs. None of them are scandalous, but a provider who will not publish them is planning to surprise you. Our full list is public: returns at $3.00 per unit, kitting at $0.50 per unit, inserts at $0.10 per order, and everything else down to the price of a pallet.
Monthly software fees deserve their own paragraph. Some providers charge a recurring platform fee of tens to hundreds of dollars per month just for access to the dashboard that shows you your own inventory. We think that is wrong, so our client portal, live inventory, and order tracking cost $0, permanently.
A brand shipping 500 orders a month, averaging two items per order, holding about 150 cubic feet of stock, and receiving 1,000 units a month would spend roughly $1,238 per month with us before carrier shipping: $1,125 on pick and pack, and around $86 on storage, plus a one time $150 receiving charge for the new inventory. No software fee, no setup fee, no surprises.
Every business is different, which is why we built an interactive calculator that estimates your monthly cost from your actual volumes and product dimensions. It is free, it requires no signup, and it lives on our pricing page next to the complete price list.