Ship yourself or use fulfilment?
What does it really cost you to pack and ship yourself? Work it out including your own hours, and see from how many orders a month fulfilment is cheaper.
Doing it yourself
€1,450.00
€9.67 per order
Fulfilment
€1,012.00–€1,567.00
€6.74–€10.45 per order
Per month, excl. VAT, including shipping.
- Time you spend yourself
- 15 hours per month
- Fulfilment becomes cheaper from
- ± 73 orders per month
Your numbers are carried over to the match form. Free, no account needed.
Where the difference lies
- Shipping rate: a small webshop often pays €5 to €7 for a parcel. Fulfilment companies ship tens of thousands of parcels and get lower rates as a result. At 150 orders, that quickly saves €150 to €300 a month.
- Your own time: six minutes per order sounds like little, but at 150 orders that’s 15 hours a month. Plus the regular trips to the drop-off point.
- Space: as soon as your stock no longer fits in your home, you pay for a garage or unit. With fulfilment you only pay for the space your stock takes up.
- Fixed costs: some fulfilment companies charge a monthly minimum or setup fees. See the starting prices per company and all cost items.
Frequently asked questions
When is fulfilment cheaper than shipping yourself?+
Often from around 50 to 150 orders a month, if you count your own hours. Thanks to their volume, fulfilment companies pay less for shipping than a small webshop. That difference (often €1 to €2 per parcel) pays for a large part of the packing. Without your own hours, doing it yourself is almost always cheaper; the question is what your hours would bring in if you spent them on growth.
What does this tool use for fulfilment?+
The same market prices as our match results: €1.60 to €2.40 per order for pick and pack, €0.25 to €0.45 per extra item, packaging, shipping at fulfilment companies’ rates (letterbox parcel €3.20 to €4.20, small parcel €4.60 to €6.20 in the Netherlands) and storage per shelf location per month. The real price differs per company; ask for a quote for your products.
What counts as the cost of doing it yourself?+
Your time (picking orders, packing, labels, going to the drop-off point), packaging materials, your own shipping rate and fixed costs such as a storage space, shipping software and a label printer. We leave out returns and customer questions about shipping; those partly stay with you.
What is my hour worth?+
Don’t calculate with €0. Choose what you’d want to earn yourself as an entrepreneur, or what it costs you to hire someone (a packer easily costs €20 to €30 an hour including employer costs). Or: what would you earn if you spent those hours on marketing or purchasing?
Need help?
Fulfilment companies that can help you with this
Want to know what it would cost for you? Ask a fulfilment company a question directly, or compare them all based on your orders.
The order follows our guide; this is how we rank.