A Shopify brand shipping 1,000 to 20,000 orders a month pays a 3PL about $3.50 per order in fulfillment fees and about $9.70 per order with postage, based on median bids in 3PL Hub's RFP data (reviewed October 24, 2026). These are market examples, not Orderfy's rates: The Fulfillment Advisor's August 2026 survey averaged $3.21 to pick and pack a one-item order and $19.37 a month per pallet.
A 3PL bills in lines: pick and pack, packaging, storage, receiving, returns, account fees and postage. In 3PL Hub's bids, fees before postage come to $3.44 per order at 1,000 to 5,000 orders a month and $3.57 at 5,000 to 20,000. Postage, at a median $6.50 per parcel, is about two thirds of the total. Compare 3PLs on total monthly cost divided by orders shipped, not on the pick fee.
How to work out your cost per order
Add every line for one month and divide by orders shipped. A rate card prices each activity, but what you'll pay depends on how many items your customers buy, how much stock you hold, how often you restock and what you ship, so put every quote through the same formula with the same month of your own orders:
The quote with the lowest pick fee isn't always the cheapest invoice. In 3PL Hub's data, fulfillment fees are 20 to 30% of a brand's spend and courier is a median 67%, so 50 cents off postage is worth more than 20 cents off the order fee at any volume.
What 3PLs charge for each line in 2026
These are market figures from two sources, not anyone's rate card. Names vary and some 3PLs bundle lines together, but you'll see each of these charges in some form.
| Charge | Range in 3PL Hub RFP bids | 2026 survey average | What drives it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick & pack (first item) | $1.40 to $2.35 per order, median $1.85 | $3.21 per one-item order | Volume, items per order, packing steps |
| Additional items | $0.25 to $0.55 per unit, median $0.35 | $0.48 per item | Your average items per order |
| Packaging | About $0.35 to $0.60 per order for a stock mailer or small box | $1.46 per carton where billed separately | Stock mailers vs. custom or branded boxes, markup on materials |
| Storage | $16.50 to $25 per pallet a month, median $20 | $19.37 per pallet a month ($16.00 in Texas) | Footprint, region, pallet vs. bin storage |
| Receiving | $7 to $13 per pallet, median $9.20 | $8.75 per pallet, $41.25 an hour | Palletized vs. loose cartons, labeling quality |
| Returns | $2.00 to $3.30 per return, median $2.89 | $3.56 per return | Inspection depth, repackaging |
| Account fees and minimums | $500 to $2,000 a month where charged (4 in 10 bids) | $752.08 average minimum where one is set | Your volume against the minimum |
| Postage Ask about markup | $5.75 to $8.80 per parcel, median $6.50 | 71% bill cost-plus, average ground markup 14.14% | Weight, dimensions, zone, surcharges |
Sources: 3PL Hub, 3PL pricing and rates, historical bids from its managed RFPs for US brands shipping 100 to 37,000 orders a month, reviewed October 24, 2026; The Fulfillment Advisor, 2026 Warehousing and Fulfillment Costs and Pricing Survey, 500 providers, August 17, 2026. The bids are what 3PLs offered brands running a formal RFP, and their pick and pack and returns fees sit below the survey averages, which reflect what providers report charging. You may also see setup fees (55% of surveyed providers charge one, averaging $373.06), project labor billed hourly, kitting fees and peak or oversize surcharges. Our sample 3PL quote shows what a complete one looks like.
Worked examples at 5,000, 10,000 and 25,000 orders a month
Each brand below is priced at 3PL Hub's median bids for its volume band, with packaging at $0.45 an order and postage at the $6.50 median parcel. They're market examples, not anyone's rate card, including ours. They come in below 3PL Hub's $3.57 median for whole bids, because real bids rarely land at the median on every line at once.
Brand A: 5,000 orders a month
1.5 items per order, about 150 SKUs, 40 pallets of stock, 20 pallets received a month, 4% return rate, and a $1,000 account fee (the band median where one is charged).
- Pick & pack at $1.55 per order: $7,750
- 2,500 additional units at $0.36: $900
- Packaging at $0.45: $2,250
- Storage, 40 pallets at $20: $800
- Receiving, 20 pallets at $8.72: $174
- Returns, 200 at $2.89: $578
- Account fee: $1,000
Fees: $13,452, or $2.69 per order. Add $32,500 of postage and the all-in figure is $45,952, or $9.19 per order.
Brand B: 10,000 orders a month
1.7 items per order, about 250 SKUs, 60 pallets, 35 pallets received a month, 5% return rate, no account fee.
- Pick & pack at $1.55 per order: $15,500
- 7,000 additional units at $0.36: $2,520
- Packaging at $0.45: $4,500
- Storage, 60 pallets at $20: $1,200
- Receiving, 35 pallets at $8.72: $305
- Returns, 500 at $2.89: $1,445
Fees: $25,470, or $2.55 per order. With $65,000 of postage, the total is $90,470, or $9.05 per order.
Brand C: 25,000 orders a month
1.8 items per order, about 400 SKUs, 130 pallets, 80 pallets received a month, 6% return rate, no account fee, priced at the 20,000-and-up band.
- Pick & pack at $1.60 per order: $40,000
- 20,000 additional units at $0.35: $7,000
- Packaging at $0.45: $11,250
- Storage, 130 pallets at $18: $2,340
- Receiving, 80 pallets at $7.57: $606
- Returns, 1,500 at $2.89: $4,335
Fees: $65,531, or $2.62 per order. With $162,500 of postage, the total is $228,031, or $9.12 per order.
Brand C pays slightly more per order in fees than Brand B. In 3PL Hub's data the order fee drops by nearly 30% between the under-1,000 band and the 1,000 to 5,000 band, then barely moves, so above 5,000 orders a month your items per order and return rate change the fee line more than your volume does.
Storage stays small while stock turns every month or two. If your storage line climbs faster than your orders, look at how much you buy before you look at the rate: reorder points and safety stock set from your sales keep slow SKUs from filling paid pallet positions.
Where 3PL bills go above the quote
Billing is what sends Shopify brands to write one-star reviews. In Orderfy's November 2026 analysis of 529 one-star reviews of competing 3PLs on Trustpilot and the Shopify App Store, billing was the main reason in 25% of reviews and came up in 54%. The gap between the quote and the invoice opens in a few predictable places.
- Postage markups and adjustments. 71% of surveyed providers bill shipping cost-plus. Carriers also bill a box that's large for its weight at dimensional weight: for UPS and FedEx, length × width × height in inches divided by 139, so a 12 × 10 × 8 box bills as 7 pounds even with 2 pounds inside. We weigh every Shopify order and pack it in the right-size packaging, so you aren't paying postage on empty box space.
- Storage counting. A peak-day count, a month-end snapshot or a long-term storage multiplier raises the line with no change in rate. 3PL Hub reports pallets past 180 or 365 days jumping to two or three times the standard rate. Our storage fees guide covers the counting rules.
- Minimums and account fees. A minimum above your expected spend works as a fixed fee, and it's easy to leave off a comparison.
- Peak and packaging charges. 3PL Hub lists October to December surcharges on picks, storage and courier, and packaging marked up 12% as common and 30% as not rare.
One question catches the biggest line before you sign: "Is postage billed at your carrier cost, and will each charge on the invoice show the order it belongs to?" A good answer is yes to both, with the surcharge schedule in dollars rather than "at cost".
What pushes your price up
If a quote comes in above the market ranges, one of these drivers is usually why.
Every SKU needs a location, a count and a picker walking to it. A catalog of 500 SKUs selling 5,000 orders a month costs more to run than 50 SKUs selling the same.
Larger items take more space, more packing material and more care, and they ship at dimensional weight. Expect higher pick, storage and postage lines.
Tissue, stickers, handwritten notes and multiple inserts add touches. Many brands find them worth it, but each step is labor you're paying for.
Floor-loaded containers, unlabeled cartons and mixed SKUs in one box take hours to sort, and that freight gets billed hourly: $40 to $52 an hour in 3PL Hub's bids. Clean, labeled, palletized deliveries receive faster and cheaper.
Missing product data costs time before anything ships. A toothbrush brand that moved to us had about 5,000 units inbound for Q4, and only the brush had a SKU. Before receiving, we asked for a SKU or barcode and a weight on every product and the exact contents of its Complete and Duo sets, so both could be built as bundles in Orderfy WMS. We received the stock against an advance shipping notice, and units that arrived before setup were held until their products were in the system.
Spiky volume is the other driver. A brand that ships 300 orders most days and 6,000 on launch day makes a warehouse hold capacity in reserve, so share your launch calendar early. At Orderfy, each brand has dedicated staff who know its products, and that team handles its launches and limited-time drops.
Distance to your customers sets your postage zones. Carriers price parcels by zone, and the zone depends on how far a package travels from the warehouse. If your customers are spread across the country, a warehouse near the center lowers the average zone and the average label cost; that's why our warehouse is in the center of the US, in Dallas-Fort Worth. If most of your orders go to one region, a warehouse in that region can do better.
How this compares to doing it yourself
In-house costs are spread across rent, payroll, software, supplies and your own time, and few of them show up in a per-order figure until you add them up. List every one, then run both options through the formula above. Our in-house vs 3PL cost per order comparison does that at 5,000 and 10,000 orders a month.
How we quote and bill Shopify fulfillment
We quote from your own numbers (orders, items per order, SKUs, package weights and destinations), and every charge is itemized before you sign, including how postage is billed. Billing is weekly with autopay, and each charge shows on the order it belongs to in Orderfy WMS, the proprietary software we built in-house to run our warehouse. We don't publish a rate card, so if you want to choose a 3PL from a price list without a quote, we aren't the right fit. More on Shopify fulfillment at Orderfy.
Frequently asked questions
In 3PL Hub's RFP bids (reviewed October 2026), the order fee with the first item included runs $1.40 to $2.35, with a median of $1.85, plus $0.25 to $0.55 for each additional unit. The Fulfillment Advisor's August 2026 survey puts the average at $3.21 for a one-item order. Check whether the box or mailer is included, because 57% of surveyed providers charge for cartons separately.
Pallet storage runs $16.50 to $25 a month in 3PL Hub's bids (median $20), and the 2026 survey average is $19.37, or $16.00 in Texas. Bins averaged $3.03 and cubic feet $0.45 a month. Our storage fees guide shows how to work out how much you'll be billed for.
Many do. In the 2026 survey, 71% of providers bill shipping cost-plus, with an average ground markup of 14.14% over their carrier cost, and 23% offer discounts off published rates. Find out whether the invoice shows the carrier's label cost on each order, so you can see the markup instead of estimating it.
It's the least a 3PL will bill you in a month. If your fees come in under it, you pay the difference. Among surveyed providers that set one, the average was $752.08 a month, with a range from $150 to more than $1,500, so confirm which charges count toward it.
The usual causes are postage markups and dimensional weight adjustments, storage counted at a peak or past a long-term threshold, and fees the quote left out, such as account management, peak surcharges or packaging. Match one month of invoices to the quote line by line. Any charge you can't trace to an order or a quoted line is the one to raise with your 3PL.
Sources
- 3PL Hub: 3PL pricing and rates, what a 3PL costs in 2026 (historical RFP bids, 2023 to 2026), reviewed October 24, 2026
- The Fulfillment Advisor: 2026 Warehousing and Fulfillment Costs and Pricing Survey (500 providers), August 17, 2026
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