Quick answer: Your monthly Fulfyld costs are made up of four main components: per-order fulfillment fees (which include shipping, pick/pack, and standard packaging), storage fees based on how many bins or pallets your inventory occupies, returns processing fees, and any value-added service fees for things like UPC labeling or special projects.
Forecasting Your Monthly Fulfyld Costs: Step-by-Step
Work through these steps using your actual order data or your best estimates for each input. The more accurate your inputs, the more reliable the forecast.
Step 1: Determine Your Monthly Order Volume
Pull your average monthly order count from your storefront’s analytics, Shopify, WooCommerce, or wherever you track orders. If your volume fluctuates seasonally, use a typical month as your baseline and build a separate high-volume scenario for peak periods like Q4 or promotional windows.
This single number drives your per-order cost calculation and also determines which storage rate tier applies to your account.
Step 2: Look Up Your Per-Order Fulfillment Cost
Your per-order fulfillment cost is set in your rate card, the pricing proposal Fulfyld gave you at the start of your engagement. It reflects your specific product weight range and the shipping services you use.
If you don’t have your rate card handy, the indicative pricing on Fulfyld gives you a starting framework by weight range:
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For a 4–12 oz shipment: standard shipping from approximately $7.56, expedited from approximately $7.94
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For a 2–4 lb shipment: standard from approximately $10.44, expedited from approximately $12.73
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For a 5–7 lb shipment: standard from approximately $12.73, expedited from approximately $14.46
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For a 10–12 lb shipment: standard from approximately $15.97, expedited from approximately $17.56
These are all-in figures that include postage, pick/pack for up to 5 items, and standard packaging. Use your actual rate card number if available; it will reflect your specific negotiated rate.
Step 3: Account for Orders with More Than 5 Items
The per-order fulfillment fee covers picking up to 5 items per order. Any order with more than 5 line items incurs an additional $0.50 per item beyond the first five.
Step 4: Calculate Your Monthly Storage Cost
Storage is billed per bin per month, and your storage cost depends on two things: how many bins of each size your inventory occupies and which volume tier your monthly order count puts you in.
Bin size options and their dimensions: Small (18×6×6), Regular (18×10×11), X-Large (24×16×16), and Pallet (48×40×60).
Storage rates by volume tier (monthly orders → per-bin monthly cost for the most common sizes):
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0–250 orders/month: Small $2.50 / Regular $4.00 / X-Large $6.00 / Pallet $32.00
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251–500: Small $2.35 / Regular $3.75 / X-Large $5.65 / Pallet $30.00
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501–1,000: Small $2.20 / Regular $3.50 / X-Large $5.25 / Pallet $28.00
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1,001–2,500: Small $1.95 / Regular $3.15 / X-Large $4.70 / Pallet $25.00
To estimate your storage cost: count how many bins of each size your current inventory occupies (or ask your account manager to pull this from Shipedge), identify your volume tier, and multiply bin count by the applicable rate.
If you’re unsure which bin sizes your SKUs are assigned to, your account manager can confirm the bin layout for your account.
Step 5: Estimate Your Returns Processing Cost
Returns processing is $3.50 for the first item returned, plus $0.50 per additional item in the same return package.
To estimate: multiply your monthly order volume by your return rate, then multiply by $3.50 (assuming most returns are single-item). If you regularly receive multi-item returns, factor in the $0.50 per additional item accordingly.
Step 6: Add Any Value-Added Service Costs
If you use any of the following, add them to your forecast:
UPC labeling: $0.40 per label. Relevant if any units arrive at the warehouse without barcodes and need to be labeled before they can be received and picked.
Special projects: $40 per man-hour. Relevant for kitting, repacking, quality control audits, or any custom warehouse labor task. If you run regular kitting operations, get a labor time estimate from your account manager for the specific task and multiply by $40.
Your monthly Fulfyld cost estimate:
(Monthly orders × per-order rate) + (extra item picks) + (bins × storage rate) + (returns × $3.50) + (value-added services) = estimated monthly total
A worked example for a mid-sized supplement brand :
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800 orders/month at an average of $10.44/order (2–4 lb, standard shipping) = $8,352
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5% of orders have 7 items: 40 orders × $1.00 extra picks = $40
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12 Regular bins in storage at $3.50/bin (501–1,000 tier) = $42
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2% return rate: 16 returns × $3.50 = $56
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No value-added services this month = $0
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Estimated monthly total: $8,490
What a Good Forecast Tells You
Beyond just knowing what to budget, a monthly cost forecast tells you your cost-per-order, your total Fulfyld spend divided by your order count, which is the most useful single metric for evaluating fulfillment efficiency.
The forecast makes those trends visible before they show up as invoice surprises.
Still Have Questions?
Your account manager can pull your current bin count, storage tier, and historical order data from Shipedge to help you build a more precise forecast. Reach the Fulfyld team at hey@fulfyld.com or (256) 716-8241, or visit fulfyld.com/3PL-fulfillment-pricing for the full pricing breakdown .