3PL prices aren't public. Anyone who tells you what's “market rate” either has years of operational experience in the engine room — or something to sell. Usually the latter.
I ran a 3PL for six years and, on the other side of the table, saw hundreds of pricing calculations up close — how they're costed, how they're positioned against competitors, and which assumptions ultimately determine the price. What you read here are ranges I know from operational practice 2025/2026 in the DACH region. No white-paper figures, no investor slides. What actually appears on your invoice.
Disclaimer up front: All values are ranges. They depend on SKU profile, monthly volume, region, carton size mix, returns rate and industry. Anyone who puts a binding offer on the table within 24 hours of an enquiry, without knowing these variables, builds in a 20% buffer to be safe. You then pay it.
Pick & pack
Pick & pack is the cost centre that shines in the first email and gives you stomach ache in month three. Here are the ranges for DACH standard goods (no bulky, no pharma) at medium volumes of 10,000 to 50,000 parcels per month:
Price range pick & pack
| Item | Range DE | Range AT | Range CH |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick (first item) | €0.75–1.30 | €0.85–1.45 | €1.10–1.80 |
| Pick (additional item) | €0.10–0.25 | €0.12–0.28 | €0.15–0.35 |
| Pack (standard carton) | €0.20–0.45 | €0.25–0.50 | €0.30–0.60 |
| Pack (custom-branded / gift wrap) | €0.40–0.90 | €0.45–0.95 | €0.55–1.20 |
The CH range is consistently more expensive, because Swiss wage levels plus smaller scale. AT is typically 10–15% above DE.
What makes the ranges so wide
Four drivers:
- SKU profile. 200 SKUs, all easy to handle, all ABC-A: pick in the lower third. 8,000 SKUs with a long tail, a third fragile, half needing film: upper third or higher.
- Warehouse layout. “Person to goods” (classic shelf warehouse, picker walks) has higher labour share per pick. “Goods to person” (AKL, shuttle, AutoStore) has low variable costs but higher storage rates. You pay for the automation via storage.
- Degree of automation. Fully automated AutoStore setups at large 3PLs sometimes sit at €0.55–0.70 for pick (first item). But: you have to carry the minimum-volume commitment.
- Volume. Below 3,000 parcels/month you pay a 3PL penalty tax of around 30%. From 30,000 parcels, serious terms come to the table.
Common tricks: “all-in” packages
Watch out when you get offers advertising “€2.90 all-in per parcel”. It looks good but is usually an obfuscation tactic. Three typical patterns:
- Storage isn't included. Suddenly €22 a month is due per SKU, and at your 1,200 SKUs that's €26,400 annually you didn't see in the offer phase.
- Dimension surcharges kick in. Anything over 20×20×10 cm is billed as “oversize”. Suddenly 40% of your parcels are in a more expensive class.
- A surcharge catalogue in the small print. Labelling, stretch film, multi-item picks above 3 positions — all separate.
Anyone promising you < €0.75 for pick (first item) compensates elsewhere. Ask for the full surcharge catalogue before you sign.
Storage
Storage is the item many brands look at when comparing 3PLs — and in month six discover that dimension surcharges have halved their calculation.
Price range storage (per slot, per month)
| Warehouse type | Range DACH |
|---|---|
| Shelf warehouse — carton slot (60×40×30 cm) | €0.80–1.80 |
| Shelf warehouse — larger bin size | €12–18 |
| Pallet slot (Euro/CHEP, standard) | €12–22 |
| Pallet slot (premium, metro area) | €22–38 |
| High-bay/AKL/shuttle (per tote) | €0.90–2.20 |
| Climate-controlled warehouse (beauty/pharma, surcharge) | +15–30% |
| Hazardous-goods warehouse (ADR) | +25–50% |
The spread on pallet slots has a real explanation: a pallet at a 3PL in the greater Munich or Zurich area costs €28–35. The same pallet at a rural provider in southern Lower Austria or Saxony-Anhalt costs €12–16. Labour costs plus property rents explain most of it.
Volumetric surcharges: how 3PLs optimise dimensions
This is one of the most common invisible cost drivers. A 3PL usually measures storage by the actually occupied bin, not the product volume. Anyone putting a 30×30×40 cm product in a 60×40×40 cm standard bin pays for the whole bin — i.e. the full 96-litre class, not the product's 36-litre class.
In the carrier business it works similarly via the 1:5000 divisor: volumetric weight = (L × W × H in cm) / 5000. For a 40×30×20 cm carton that's 4.8 kg volumetric, even if the actual weight is 1.2 kg. You pay the 4.8 kg.
Lever: A genuine carton consolidation (four instead of twelve size classes, matched to your top-20 SKUs) reduces the average dimension by 15–25%. That shows up both in 3PL storage and in carrier rates.
Seasonal peaks (“peak slots”)
Q4 slots at mid-sized DACH 3PLs are partly allocated as early as Q1. Anyone enquiring in September often pays surcharges of 20–40% on the normal storage rates for October–December — or finds no warehouse at all. Realistically: if you grow strongly in Q4, negotiate the peak terms at contract signing.
Returns
A return costs operationally two to three times as much as an outbound. It has to be accepted, inspected, possibly repackaged and re-stocked. The cost structure:
| Returns action | Range DACH |
|---|---|
| Acceptance + simple re-stocking (A goods) | €1.80–3.50 |
| With inspection + reconfiguration | €3.50–6.80 |
| Complexity surcharge (beauty, jewellery, sets) | +€1.50–4.00 |
| Disposal flat fee (B/C goods) | €0.80–2.50 |
| Returns-as-a-service (incl. return label + portal) | €4.50–9.00 |
Industry reality: About You has communicated returns costs of €8–12 per item in annual reports. That's fashion with high complexity and expensive inspection, i.e. the upper range. Anyone in standard consumer goods with a good process is more like €3–5.
Value-added services (VAS)
Everything beyond pure pick-pack-ship. Ranges for DACH 2026:
| Service | Range |
|---|---|
| Labelling / re-labelling | €0.15–0.45 per item |
| Set building (bundling, 2–3 SKUs) | €0.80–2.50 per bundle |
| Kit assembly (complex, > 5 components) | €2.80–6.50 per kit |
| Gift wrap | €1.20–3.80 per order |
| B2B shipping on pallet (picking per carton) | €0.80–1.80 |
| IOSS/OSS cross-border handling | €0.15–0.40 per order |
| Manual special inspection (per minute) | €0.55–1.10 |
Note on IOSS: if you're a non-EU seller, you need an EU intermediary. Their annual fee is typically between €500 and €2,000, depending on shipment volume. That's not in the 3PL tariff and easily forgotten.
Carrier domestic rates (DE / AT / CH)
Carrier rates aren't public, aren't standardised and aren't “fair”. They're negotiation outcomes. What I name here are ranges I know from concrete negotiation setups 2025/2026. You get the lower range from 100,000 parcels per year, the upper at < 20,000.
Germany
| Carrier | Standard parcel 2 kg | 5 kg |
|---|---|---|
| DHL Paket (DE) | €3.80–5.40 | €4.50–6.80 |
| DPD (DE) | €3.40–5.10 | €4.20–6.30 |
| GLS (DE) | €3.30–5.00 | €4.10–6.20 |
| Hermes/Evri (DE) | €2.90–4.40 | €3.80–5.50 |
DHL raised business-customer rates on 1 January 2026. Concrete reports from retailer associations speak of around 8% to 9% increase across the portfolio, in the small-parcel segment partly up to 20%. Individual contracts vary widely — a large customer with > 500,000 parcels/year negotiates differently from a mid-sized company with 30,000.
DPD and GLS tier not by weight but by the sum of the longest and shortest side (S/M/L). That's cheap for light, compact goods (cosmetics, jewellery), expensive for light, bulky goods (shoe boxes, toys).
Austria
| Carrier | Standard parcel 2 kg | 5 kg |
|---|---|---|
| Austrian Post (AT) | €4.40–6.50 | €5.50–8.20 |
| DPD AT | €4.10–6.20 | €5.20–7.80 |
| GLS AT | €4.00–6.00 | €5.10–7.60 |
Austrian Post also adjusted rates on 1 January 2026. The list price (private customer) for a parcel up to 2 kg is €7.39 incl. VAT in 2026, for a parcel up to 10 kg €12.48 (post.at). Business-customer terms are typically 30–50% below that.
Switzerland
| Carrier | Standard parcel 2 kg | 5 kg |
|---|---|---|
| Swiss Post — PostPac Economy | €6.50–9.20 (CHF 6.00–8.50) | €7.80–11.50 |
| Swiss Post — PostPac Priority | €9.00–13.50 | €11.50–17.00 |
| DPD CH / Planzer | €6.20–8.90 | €7.50–11.00 |
Swiss Post raised PostPac Economy by 50 centimes per shipment on 1 January 2026. Business customers with > CHF 2,000 monthly revenue get an 8% discount, plus a CHF 1.50 online discount per shipment via the business-customer platform. In the first half of 2026 there's a temporary additional online discount of CHF 0.50 to CHF 2.00.
Surcharges
The section where most brands lose control. As a rule of thumb: surcharges make up 8–18% of your carrier total if you don't actively manage them.
| Surcharge | Range |
|---|---|
| Bulky (> 120 cm longest side or > 31.5 kg) | €9.00–32.00 |
| Island/special zones DE (DPD/GLS, forwarders — DHL Paket usually neutral) | €3.50–12.00 |
| Mountain areas AT (Tyrolean/Carinthian high valleys) | €1.80–4.50 |
| Swiss mountain zones / Ticino surcharge | €2.50–6.00 |
| Express / same-day | €4.00–18.00 |
| Sunday/preferred-day | €1.80–5.50 |
| Last-mile metro surcharge (Vienna, Zurich, Berlin) | €0.80–2.50 |
| CO2 surcharge / GoGreen Plus (DHL: opt-out from 2025/26, 10% emission reduction) | €0.05–0.20 per parcel |
| Fuel/energy floater | 4–11% on the base rate |
The DHL bulky surcharge is currently €28.99 within DE — so that's not a range but a clearly defined rate for volumes over 120 × 60 × 60 cm or > 31.5 kg.
GoGreen was discontinued for new DHL business customers on 1 January 2026. DHL replaced it with GoGreen Plus — an opt-out model with a flat 10% emission reduction and a fixed surcharge. Anyone who doesn't actively opt out pays it automatically.
Total-cost example calculation
What does a realistic setup cost per month? Example shop:
- 10,000 parcels/month
- 2.3 items per order (good for mid-market beauty/apparel)
- 1.5 kg average weight
- 12% returns rate (rather conservative; apparel/fashion is higher)
- 800 active SKUs
- DE-focused (90% DE, 8% AT, 2% CH)
Monthly calculation (middle range)
| Item | Calculation | Month |
|---|---|---|
| Pick (first item) | 10,000 × €1.00 | €10,000 |
| Pick (additional items) | 10,000 × 1.3 × €0.18 | €2,340 |
| Pack (standard, 50% branded) | 10,000 × €0.55 mix | €5,500 |
| Packaging material | 10,000 × €0.85 | €8,500 |
| Storage (800 SKUs, carton mix) | 800 × €6.50 | €5,200 |
| Carrier (DHL, weighted mix) | 10,000 × €4.40 | €44,000 |
| Surcharges (10% on carrier) | €44,000 × 10% | €4,400 |
| Returns handling (12%) | 1,200 × €4.20 | €5,040 |
| Carrier return (1,200 labels) | 1,200 × €3.20 | €3,840 |
| VAS (inserts, leaflets) | 10,000 × €0.12 | €1,200 |
| Total month | €90,020 | |
| Total year | €1,080,240 |
That means: at 10,000 parcels/month you realistically land in the DACH market 2026 between €8.50 and €10.80 all-in full cost per parcel. Anyone operating at < €7 either has a special setup (extremely light goods, very little custom branding, high volume) — or doesn't have all costs transparent.
When are 3PL prices negotiable?
There are clear volume thresholds at which 3PLs genuinely give ground:
- < 3,000 parcels/month: penalty tax, barely any negotiation room. You're bycatch.
- 3,000–15,000: pick and storage are hard, but surcharges and VAS are negotiable.
- 15,000–50,000: real negotiation. Pick & pack reachable in the lower third of the range, storage depending on SKU profile.
- 50,000–200,000: you become a KAM customer. Tailored rates, your own slot allocation, sometimes dedicated lines.
- > 200,000: you no longer negotiate pricing, you negotiate penalties and SLAs.
For carrier rates, the negotiation potential is broadly 25–40% if you've never negotiated or haven't touched it for more than three years. Most brands leave money exactly here — because DHL KAMs don't call by themselves to lower your rates.
Next steps
If you want to know where you concretely stand in this range:
- Package 01 – fulfillment audit: A structured full-cost analysis of your current setup. I take your invoices, your SKU profile and your parcel mix and tell you within 14 days where you stand versus the market and which levers are realistic.
- 3PL cost calculator: A quick self-check. Enter your volume, SKU count and carrier setup and get an initial full-cost indication.
What you shouldn't do: interpret tables like these as a binding offer. The real numbers are in your contracts — and in the surcharge catalogues no one reads.