Cost to Ship Calculator
All-in cost to get one parcel delivered.
All-in cost to ship
$8.97
postage alone is $5.40
Pricing against postage alone understates shipping by roughly a third for most small ecommerce.
How the Cost to Ship Calculator works
Postage is the visible cost and rarely the whole one. Packaging, the minutes spent packing, insurance and surcharges all belong in the figure — and the total is what your pricing has to cover, not the number on the postage label.
Not financial advice. Marketplace fees change, and they vary by country, plan and seller status. Every rate here is an editable default, not a quoted price — check the platform's current fee schedule before you price a product against it. This is not tax or business advice.
Frequently asked questions
What is the real cost to ship a parcel?
Postage plus packaging plus labour plus any surcharge, plus an allowance for the small proportion that go wrong. On a typical small ecommerce order the true figure is often 30-50% above the postage alone.
Should I include labour?
Yes. Packing takes time whoever does it, and if you do it yourself that time has a value. Excluding it makes shipping look cheaper than it is and leads to underpriced free-shipping thresholds.
What is the biggest hidden shipping cost?
Surcharges, followed by the cost of failed or damaged deliveries. Fuel and residential surcharges apply to nearly every consumer parcel and are frequently omitted from cost models built on quoted base rates.
How do I keep it down?
Right-size packaging to cut dimensional weight, use the cheapest service that meets your delivery promise, batch pack to reduce per-order labour, and negotiate once volume justifies it.