What does fulfilment cost in 2026? All costs at a glance

Fulfilment companies almost always price with a few standard building blocks. Once you know them, you can compare quotes fairly. The amounts below are typical rates in the Netherlands and Belgium in autumn 2026, excluding VAT.

The building blocks

Cost item	Typical rate	What does it depend on?
Order picking and packing	€1.60 – €2.40 per order	number of items, automation, volume
Extra item in the same order	€0.25 – €0.45	sometimes included up to 2 or 3 items
Packaging materials	€0.15 – €0.70	letterbox box or shipping box, custom printing
Storage per shelf location	€1.50 – €3.50 per month	size of the location
Storage per pallet	€12 – €20 per month	height, bulk or mixed
Inbound (goods receipt)	€8 – €15 per pallet or per hour	delivered sorted or not
Returns handling	€1.50 – €2.50 per return	inspection, photos, repacking
Fixed costs	€0 – €50 per month	portal, integration, minimum spend

On top of that comes shipping. Fulfilment companies usually have better rates than you get yourself, because they combine a lot of volume. In the Netherlands, expect about €3.20 – €4.20 for a letterbox parcel and €4.60 – €6.20 for a standard parcel up to 5 kilos. To Belgium you pay €1 to €2.50 more, to Germany €7 – €10.

Worked example: 300 orders a month

A personal care webshop with 300 orders a month, 1.6 items per order on average, 80 products and mostly letterbox parcels:

• Order picking: 300 × (€1.90 + 0.6 × €0.35) ≈ €633
• Packaging: 300 × €0.25 ≈ €75
• Shipping: 300 × €3.80 ≈ €1,140
• Storage: 80 locations × €2.50 ≈ €200

Together that is around €2,050 a month, or about €6.80 per order including shipping. If you do it yourself, also count your hours, packaging materials, space and higher shipping rates.

Worked example: 1,500 orders a month

At 1,500 orders a month the rates per order usually drop: many fulfilment companies use volume tiers. A picking price of €1.60 and a parcel price of €4.40 are then realistic. The total cost is more like €5.90 per order.

Where do quotes differ?

1. What is included in the picking price? Sometimes two items are included, sometimes you pay extra from the second item.
2. Shipping rates per country and size. Ask for a table, not a single average.
3. Storage per location or per cubic metre. With lots of small products, per location is often more expensive.
4. Minimum monthly invoice. Small webshops sometimes pay a minimum, even when they ship little.
5. Set-up costs and contract length. More and more companies charge no set-up costs and can be cancelled monthly.

Your own cost estimate

Which fulfilment companies quote which "from" price is on cheap fulfilment.

On FulfilmentMatch you connect your webshop or shipping software and we calculate with your real orders: quantities, items per order, sizes and countries. You then get an estimate for each fulfilment company. Start your match and see what fulfilment costs for you.