What You'll Actually Pay a 3PL (Every Dollar, One Worked Example)

Why quotes and invoices disagree

Almost every seller who emails us asks a version of the same question. A Shopify founder holding stock in China put it best: "I've seen a lot of different fees mentioned online and I can't tell which ones are standard and which ones aren't. If you could just walk me through everything I'd be paying for — getting started, holding my stock, packing each order, and the shipping itself — that would help me a lot."

That is a fair ask, and most of this industry answers it badly. A fulfillment quote has two layers: the headline rate you compare 3PLs on, and the operating layer underneath — receiving, storage, materials, postage, returns — where the real monthly total is decided. A 3PL that wants to win on the headline moves margin into the layer you did not ask about. That is why a $1.57 quote can invoice higher than a $2.00 one.

This page is the walk-through. We run a 32,000 sqft climate-controlled warehouse at 6117 Long Dr in Houston and fulfill for 180+ brands; our published card is the worked example, and the same numbers are on our pricing page and price list. Use the structure to audit anyone, including us.

One order, dollar by dollar

Take the most common package in ecommerce: one item, packed weight under a pound, going to a US address in a poly mailer. Here is everything that touches your bill from our dock to the customer's door.

Two things about that postage line, because it is the one sellers get burned on. First, it is usually the biggest number on a DTC invoice — bigger than the fulfillment fee — so a "cheap" 3PL that quietly takes a percentage of postage costs more than an "expensive" one that passes it through. Ask every 3PL the question one seller asked us: is shipping billed to me at the actual carrier price, or is it built into what you charge? Ours is actual price; the label cost you see is the label cost we paid, and lightweight economy options can run lower still — see our last-mile rates page.

Second, carriers bill dimensional weight, not just scale weight. Nobody — including us — can promise your exact postage without your packed dimensions and destination mix. A 3PL that quotes you a firm postage number without asking for box dimensions is guessing with your money. Send us weights and dims and we return real sample rates before you commit, in writing.

One month, all in: launch, growth, and the quiet month

Per-order math is only half the picture. The other half is what the month costs around the orders — and what happens in a month where you barely sell. Assumptions: single-item orders under 5 lb in a $0.25 mailer, inventory on one or two pallets, one inbound delivery.

The quiet-month row is there on purpose. One seller running nine to fifteen orders a month asked us, before anything else, whether we charge monthly subscription fees. The answer sets the floor of the whole relationship: with no minimums, no account fee, and no software fee, a slow month costs you storage and the handful of orders you actually shipped — nothing else. Miss a month of sales entirely and the bill is $25 per pallet you are storing. That is the asterisk in the headline above: a zero-sales month with no inventory held costs exactly $0.

New clients also get their first 15 days of storage free, which in practice makes the launch month lighter than the table shows. And if your whole inventory is smaller than a pallet — a few cartons of test stock — it does not need pallet pricing at all: bin locations run $3.50 a month and shelf locations $7.50, so a two-carton operation is not paying for empty air.

The twelve questions to put in front of any 3PL

These are collected from real inquiry emails — the questions careful buyers ask us before sending inventory. A 3PL worth your stock answers all twelve in writing without a discovery call. Our answers are beside each one.

• Does the per-order fee include the shipping label? No — and no honest 3PL's does. Ours covers pick, pack, and processing; postage passes through at carrier cost. Any quote that "includes shipping" has postage margin hidden in it somewhere.
• Is postage marked up — any percentage, label fee, or fuel surcharge of your own? No. Carrier surcharges that genuinely exist (residential, remote-area, carrier peak fees) pass through at the carrier's own price, itemized.
• What does a typical parcel actually cost to ship? Light parcels typically run $4–$7 domestic at our discounted rates. For your products we will run real sample rates from your weights and dims — before you sign.
• What do I pay in a month where I barely sell? Storage on what you hold, plus the orders you shipped. No minimum, no inactivity fee.
• Are there setup, onboarding, software, or account-management fees? $0. The real-time WMS dashboard is included.
• Is storage per pallet position or per cubic foot? Per pallet position — $25 monthly, climate-controlled. Cube-based billing is nearly impossible to audit from outside the building; per-position billing you can count on your fingers. Bins and shelves are available for sub-pallet inventory.
• What does receiving cost, and when is my stock sellable? $20 per pallet or $5 per carton, free on 50+ pallet inbounds. Delivered before 2pm CT Mon–Sat, it is processed the same day.
• What exactly is in the packaging fee? Materials at cost, only when used: mailers from $0.25, boxes from $0.40, polybag with suffocation label $0.20, bubble wrap $0.20, fragile double-boxing $0.75. No blanket per-order "materials" line.
• Multi-item orders — what does item two cost? +$0.25 per additional item. Not a second pick fee.
• Returns — what does the fee include? $1.50 per return with inspection included. Detail on our returns processing page.
• Contract length and exit terms? Month-to-month, no contract, no cancellation penalty, and your inventory is yours — no exit ransom to release it.
• Who pays when the warehouse makes the mistake? We do. We are liable for our own handling errors, and every shipment carries insurance coverage up to $100,000.

Costs that live outside the rate card

Some money is decided by your product and your choices, not the 3PL's card. An honest cost page tells you where those are.

Heavy and bulky items. Weight bands move the per-order fee: $2.00 up to 5 lb, $2.75 to 8 lb, $4.00 to 15 lb, and a written custom quote above that. If your product is a 30 lb box, the number that matters is quoted before your first carton lands, not discovered on invoice two — the full logic is on our heavy and oversized fulfillment page.

Kitting and branded unboxing. Bundling runs $0.40 per kit and inserts $0.10 apiece when you want us assembling; plain multi-item orders just take the +$0.25 per item. Sellers deciding between pre-kitting at the factory and kitting here should ask for both numbers — we quote both.

Freight and containers. Container devanning is published too: $225 for a 20ft, $315 for a 40ft, $375 for a 40HQ. Palletizing runs $12 per single-SKU pallet, $18 mixed.

Your marketplace's fees. Amazon referral fees, storage at FBA, marketplace postage policies — none of that is 3PL spend, but it belongs in the same spreadsheet when you calculate landed cost per order. Our 3PL pricing guide covers the fee taxonomy across the industry if you want the deeper theory.

How to compare two 3PL quotes without getting played

A seller in home goods once told us he was building a line-by-line sheet to compare us against his current Houston 3PL. That is exactly the right method, so here is how to build it fairly.

• Price a real month, not a rate card: your actual order count, your real item weights, your true pallet count. Headline rates only matter multiplied by your volumes.
• Force every quote into the same five rows — receiving, storage, pick and pack, materials, returns — plus postage as its own row. Anything a 3PL cannot place in those rows is the fee to ask about.
• Get postage as sample labels for your three most common parcels, not as an "average". Averages hide the markup.
• Ask what the quoted number excludes. The cheapest per-unit quote usually covers the narrowest definition of "standard" and bills the rest as exceptions.
• Then weigh the row you cannot put a price on: who answered in writing, who guaranteed liability for their own errors, and who you actually reached on the first try.

We will do this work for you: send your volumes — or your current invoice — and you get an itemized side-by-side within 24 hours.

3PL cost FAQ