Calculate Fulfillment Costs: What Fulfillment Really Costs and When It Pays Off

→ Tips for using the calculator:

1. Orders per month: Take the average of the last three months, not your strongest month. The calculator starts at 250 orders per month.
2. Items per order and parcel weight: These determine pick costs and shipping. If a single item weighs more than 5 kg, the calculator adds weight surcharges.
3. Number of products (SKUs) and storage needed: From these, the calculator automatically picks the cheapest suitable software plan and works out the storage costs.
4. Return rate: In fashion, 30% or more is not unusual, while for supplements or cosmetics it is usually well below that.

The last slider asks how much shipping gets on your nerves. It doesn’t change the costs, but it says a lot about your motivation. To be honest, for many retailers it’s the slider that tips the balance in the end. All values are a rough estimate based on our standard price list and current market prices. The calculator therefore does not constitute a binding quote. You’ll get your individual, exact price when you contact us.
 

What are fulfillment costs made up of?

Every fulfillment provider essentially charges for the same things, just split up and named differently. So if you’re comparing fulfillment prices, these items definitely belong on your list:

How fulfillment costs are structured at Quivo:

At Quivo, the total price is made up of three pillars: software (the Quivo Connector), fulfillment (storage, pick & pack, returns) and shipping at our bundled rates. These are our software plans:

Prices with annual billing (25% cheaper than monthly), excl. VAT, as of November 2026. A one-off onboarding fee also applies.

We bill storage weekly. That means you pay for the stock that’s actually on the shelf, not for your peak level of the month. You’ll find the overview on our prices page, all plan details under software subscriptions and every single item in the latest fulfillment price list. Our e-commerce fulfillment page shows you how things work in the warehouse.

The biggest cost item is almost always shipping

In all the example calculations further down, postage accounts for more than half of the fulfillment costs. If you compare providers on pick price alone, you’re looking at the smaller part of the bill. What matters far more is which shipping rates a provider gets across the bundled volume of all its customers, and which surcharges the carriers add on top!
 

What does fulfillment cost per order? 4 example calculations

We ran four typical shops through the calculator. All values are rounded, net and apply to DHL Parcel within Germany, as of November 2026.

What these numbers show:

• Fulfillment stays stable per order. With Quivo, all four shops land between €7.96 and €8.99 per order, shipping included. In-house logistics cost around €2.70 to €3.10 more per parcel in every scenario.
• The time you spend grows with every order. Just 500 orders a month mean around 77 hours of work, roughly ten full working days. At 2,000 orders, it’s almost 1.8 full-time roles.
• Returns eat up time. The same fashion shop would need around 142 instead of 195 hours a month with an 8% instead of a 40% return rate.
   

The hidden costs of shipping yourself

Shipping yourself looks cheap on your bank statement because the biggest items never arrive as an invoice. These are the 7 costs missing from most calculations:

1. Your working time

   Every order involves quite a lot: checking the order, taking the goods off the shelf, packing, printing the label, taking the parcel to the parcel shop and later answering the question of where the parcel has got to. For up to 500 orders a month, our calculator allows 5.5 to 8.5 minutes per order, plus 1 to 1.5 minutes for each additional item. That doesn’t sound like much. But at 500 orders a month, it adds up to around 77 hours. Even if you hire someone for it, an hour costs more than the wage on paper. The German statutory minimum wage has been €13.90 gross per hour since 1 January 2026 and rises to €14.60 in 2027. With employer contributions, holidays, sick days and a realistic wage for warehouse staff, we therefore work with €22 to €28 per hour in the calculator. If you pack yourself, those are hours you don’t have for marketing, purchasing and product development.

2. Postage without volume discounts

   Without a business customer contract, DHL charges €6.19 for a parcel up to 2 kg in 2026 (online only), €7.69 up to 5 kg and €10.49 up to 10 kg. If you have it collected, €3 is added, while collection is free for four or more parcels franked online per basket. A business customer contract of your own makes it cheaper, but it still barely gets you close to the rates of a fulfillment provider that bundles the volume of many retailers. For shipping yourself, the calculator therefore assumes 8 to 46% higher shipping costs than our bundled rates, depending on volume, but never more than DHL’s online prices for parcels up to 5 kg.

3. Storage space

   At first the living room is enough, then the cellar, then the garage. At the latest once you rent commercial space, storage becomes a fixed cost block that runs every month, however much you sell. Prime rents for logistics space in Munich have now reached €11.25 per square metre per month. For smaller spaces in cities such as Berlin, considerably higher rents are sometimes paid. On top come shelving, insurance, electricity and heating. The calculator works with €18 to €30 per pallet space per month.

4. Returns

   Germany has the highest return rate in Europe. According to the Returns Management Research Group at the University of Bamberg, almost one in four parcels in German online retail was sent back in 2021. Average transport and handling costs came to €2.85 per item and €6.95 per return shipment, considerably higher for small retailers than for large ones. Every return means unpacking, checking, restocking and triggering the refund. In the calculator, that’s 8 to 12 minutes per return. How to handle returns professionally is covered in our article on fulfillment returns.

5. Shipping errors

   Wrong item, mixed-up size, forgotten insert: every mistake costs double postage, time in customer service and sometimes a bad review. If you pack on the side, there are no fixed checks. For shipping yourself, the calculator assumes 1 to 2% mis-shipments, with €12 to €18 in follow-on costs per case. For comparison: Quivo achieves a fulfillment accuracy of 99.6%.

6. Equipment and software

   Label printer, parcel scale, packing table, shelving, shipping software and a tool for return labels. Individually, none of these are big sums, but together they form a fixed base that’s due every month. In the calculator, it ranges from €40 to €1,200 per month depending on volume.

7. Everything you can’t put a euro figure on

• Holidays and illness: If you’re out, shipping stops. If someone steps in, they need to be trained first.
• Peak season: Black Friday and Christmas turn into a stress test every year. You’ll find the key dates in our overview of Amazon Peak Season 2026.
• Growth: It’s what you want, but at some point your time runs out. Then it’s employment contracts, training and payroll before a single extra parcel can go out.
• Headspace: Boxes in the living room, tape on your fingers, and the day only ends after the last parcel. That’s exactly what the “nerves” slider in the calculator is for.
   

Fulfillment cost comparison: fulfillment vs shipping yourself

• Orders that reach Quivo by 1pm are handed over to the carrier on the same working day. With two of our own warehouses in Wetzlar and Kösching, your parcel usually reaches customers within Germany after 1 to 2 working days. More on our page about fulfillment in Germany.
   

When does fulfillment pay off?

There’s no fixed threshold. The most honest answer comes from a counter-calculation in which we make shipping yourself as cheap as possible: without a single euro for your working time. What’s left is postage, storage space, equipment and mis-shipments.

Assumptions: 300 orders with 1.5 items, up to 2 kg, up to 20 SKUs, 4 pallets, 8% returns. 500 orders as in the example above. Hourly figure based on midpoints.

So even if you value your time at zero, packing yourself only saves you a small amount. Divide that saving by the hours you work for it, and you end up with less than half the minimum wage. At around 250 orders, both options are almost level in pure euros. The difference is the time you put in.

In our experience, a good point to switch has been reached when you’re sending around 250 orders per month, your product has proven itself on the market and you notice that further growth depends on your time.

Fulfillment pays off for you if ...

• you spend more than a day a week on packing, shipping and returns
• you’d soon have to hire someone for shipping
• returns regularly pile up
• every peak season turns into a major effort
• you want to expand into other countries or onto marketplaces such as Amazon, Otto or Kaufland
• your living room is slowly turning into a warehouse

Shipping yourself still makes sense if ...

• you’re still testing whether there’s demand for your product at all
• you send fewer than around 250 orders a month
• every order is made or personalised individually

By the way, a two-track approach works too: some of our customers only run their bestsellers through us and keep shipping slow-moving items themselves.
 

Comparing fulfillment provider costs: 8 points to check

A fulfillment cost comparison only means something if you run the same order through every provider. Pay attention to these points:

1. Total costs per order instead of individual prices: A cheap pick price doesn’t help much if shipping is expensive.
2. How storage is billed: Weekly by actual stock or monthly on a set date? With fluctuating stock, that makes a noticeable difference.
3. Minimum volumes and base fees: Some providers require a minimum monthly volume or charge a flat fee if you stay below it.
4. Carrier surcharges: Energy, toll or seasonal surcharges and extra charges for bulky goods often aren’t in the base rate.
5. Return costs: Is billing per return, per item or both? Is the inspection included?
6. One-off costs: Onboarding, setup and the first inbound delivery of your goods.
7. Contract term and cancellation: How flexible are you if your volume changes?
8. Software and interfaces: Can your shop be connected directly? The Quivo Connector links over 40 shop and ERP systems.

The most reliable basis is an example calculation with your real figures. Send us your key figures and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours with an individual quote. You can find out how we work as a fulfillment provider on our overview page.
 

How to lower your fulfillment costs

• Adjust your packaging: A few centimetres or grams less can move your parcel into a cheaper class.
• Keep stock lean: Storage costs run every week. Goods that sit for months take up space and tie up capital.
• Reduce returns: Good size charts, honest product photos and clear descriptions save returns and therefore costs at every stage.
• More items per order: Each additional item only costs a small pick surcharge, while postage and the base price are only charged once.
• Choose the right plan: At Quivo, the system fee per shipment drops from €0.50 to €0.25 and then €0.17. As your volume grows, switching pays off. The calculator automatically selects the cheapest plan for your key figures.
   

The bottom line: shipping yourself only seems cheaper

Shipping yourself is often only cheaper as long as you don’t count your own time. As soon as you factor in working time, storage space, shipping without volume discounts and returns handling, fulfillment comes out around €3 per order below in-house logistics in our examples. And even if you value your time at zero, you earn less than half the minimum wage from packing yourself, for something you probably won’t enjoy much in the long run.

• Try the calculator above with your own figures. And if you’d like an exact quote tailored to your business, just get in touch!