How Much Does a 3PL Charge? A Line-by-Line Look at the Fees

So, how much does a 3PL charge?

It's the first question everyone asks, and the honest answer is annoying: it depends on what you're asking the 3PL to do. How much does a 3PL charge for a seller shipping 200 small orders a month? Very different from one storing 60 pallets of slow wholesale stock.

What we can do is break the bill into its parts, so a quote stops looking like a wall of numbers. And instead of quoting made-up industry averages (nobody has a reliable one), we'll use our own posted rates at Treasure World Prep Center in Niles, Illinois as the concrete example. One warehouse, real numbers. Yours will vary.

The five kinds of charges on almost every quote

Names change from warehouse to warehouse, but nearly all 3PL pricing falls into these buckets:

• Receiving: getting your inventory in the door and counted
• Storage: keeping it on a shelf or pallet rack each month
• Pick and pack: pulling and packing each order
• Materials and add-ons: boxes, bags, inserts, labels
• Special projects and labor: anything that doesn't fit a per-unit rate

Then there's the fine print, which isn't a fee category exactly but changes what you pay. More on that below.

Receiving fees

Some 3PLs charge by the carton, some by the pallet, some by the hour. Many use a mix. At our warehouse, a standard labeled carton is $1.00 to receive with a basic count-in, and a standard pallet is $10.00.

The thing to watch is what happens when a shipment isn't standard. Missing paperwork, mixed SKUs, damaged freight, no labels. We bill that kind of problem receiving at standard labor ($40 an hour), and most warehouses have something similar. A clean inbound is cheap. A messy one isn't.

Containers are their own line. A 40 ft floor-loaded container unload runs $750 to $1,000 here depending on carton count and SKU complexity, while the same container on pallets is $600.

Storage fees

Storage is usually priced per pallet, per bin or shelf, or per cubic foot, per month. Our rates:

Standard box / bin storage

$4-$6/month

Standard pallet, up to 72 in.

$35/month

25-99 pallets

$32/pallet/month

100+ pallets

$28-$30/pallet/month

Oversize, non-pallet items

$0.55-$0.75/cu ft/month

Look closely at aged inventory charges. Ours go to 1.25x base storage at 91 to 180 days and 1.50x at 181+ days. That's normal across the industry in some form, and it's the line that surprises sellers sitting on slow stock. We cover storage math in more detail in what pallet storage costs, and the service itself is on our warehouse storage page.

Pick and pack fees

For direct-to-consumer orders, this is the line people compare first. It's usually a charge for the first item in an order, plus a smaller charge for each additional item.

Ours, for FBM and DTC orders:

• 1-250 orders a month: $2.75 for the first item
• 251-500 orders: $2.35
• 501-1,000 orders: $2.10
• 1,001-5,000 orders: $1.85 to $2.00, based on SKU and order profile
• Each additional item in the same order: $0.50

Heavy items add a surcharge (+$2.00 for 21 to 30 lb, +$4.00 for 31 to 50 lb). Rush same-day work after cutoff is +$1.00 an order, only if capacity allows. Note that postage is separate from all of this. Pick and pack is labor. Shipping is what the carrier charges. See our FBM and DTC fulfillment page for how the order side works.

If you send inventory to Amazon instead, the equivalent is per-unit prep, which starts at $0.70 a unit here for wholesale and private label. That's a different pricing model, and we break it down in what an FBA prep center costs.

Materials and add-ons

Some 3PLs fold standard boxes into the pick fee. Others charge for every bag and mailer. Neither is wrong, but you need to know which you're looking at.

Examples from our rate card: branded insert $0.20 an order, printed gift note or packing slip $0.30, custom branded packaging $0.50 handling plus materials, poly bags $0.30 to $0.50 a unit, bubble wrap $0.60 to $1.25. Small numbers. They add up across thousands of orders.

Special projects and hourly labor

Relabeling a whole shipment, sorting a mixed container, a recall, a custom report. Work that can't be priced per unit usually gets billed by the hour. Our standard labor is $40 an hour, and after-hours or rush labor is $55. Evidence photos are free for the first three, then $1 each.

Ask any 3PL how they handle this before you sign. A warehouse that bills vaguely for "projects" can make an otherwise cheap quote expensive.

Account terms: the part people skip

Rates are half the story. The other half is the terms. Things to check:

• Monthly minimums, if any
• When invoices are due and what happens if they're late
• Who's responsible for carrier damage or delays
• What products the warehouse won't accept
• How much notice you need to leave

Ours, for transparency: an unpaid balance means orders don't ship the following week, and a 5% late fee applies after one full week unpaid. We're not responsible for carrier delays or damage. Every warehouse has terms like these. Better to read them now.

How to compare 3PL quotes fairly

Don't compare pick fees side by side and call it a day. Instead:

1. 01

   Pull one real month

   Orders, units per order, weights, inbound shipments, and how much inventory you had sitting on the shelf.

2. 02

   Run it through every quote

   Same month, same numbers. That shows you the actual total, not the headline rate.

3. 03

   Add materials and storage

   This is where quotes that looked cheap often catch up.

4. 04

   Ask about the exceptions

   Problem receiving, aged inventory, hourly projects. Whatever you're likely to need.

Your total fulfillment costs come from that whole picture, not one line. Every one of our 3PL fees is listed on our pricing page. If you'd rather we run your numbers, send us your volume and we'll quote it.