Quick answer: Accessorial fees are charges for services beyond standard pick-and-pack and shipping, things like returns processing, UPC labeling, special projects, or receiving. Carrier surcharges come from UPS, FedEx or USPS and are passed through based on your shipment characteristics.
Accessorial Fees That Fulfyld Charges For
Accessorial fees are charges for additional services that fall outside the standard fulfillment cost included in your per order rate.
Here are the accessorial fees Fulfyld charges and what each one covers:
Returns Processing: $3.50 first item + $0.50 per additional item. Applied when a customer return is received at the warehouse. Fulfyld inspects the returned item, determines its condition, and either restocks it or disposes of it according to your instructions. Each return incurs this fee regardless of the reason for return.
UPC Labeling: $0.40 per label. Applied when a product arrives at the warehouse without a scannable barcode or with an incorrect label. Fulfyld will apply the correct UPC label so the item can be accurately picked and tracked in the system.
Special Projects Fee: $40.00 per man-hour. Applied for any warehouse labor that falls outside standard fulfillment, repacking, quality control inspections, inventory audits, custom kitting setups, or any other task that requires dedicated warehouse time beyond picking and packing.
Receiving Fee: $40.00 per hour (first 2 hours free during onboarding) Applied when inbound inventory shipments are received and processed at the warehouse. Fulfyld’s standard receiving time is 48 hours. Your first two hours of receiving during onboarding are covered at no charge. After that, receiving time is billed at $40 per hour based on the complexity and volume of each inbound shipment.
Additional Picks: $0.50 per item beyond 5. Your standard per-order rate includes up to 5 picks per order. If an order contains more than 5 line items, each additional item beyond the fifth is charged at $0.50.
Carrier Surcharges That Fulfyld Charges For
Common carrier surcharges you may see on your invoice include:
Residential Delivery Surcharge Applied by UPS and FedEx when a shipment is delivered to a residential address rather than a commercial address. Most D2C eCommerce shipments trigger this fee. It is baked into standard shipping cost estimates for most brands, but worth understanding if you’re comparing shipping costs across carriers.
Delivery Area Surcharge (DAS) is applied when a shipment is delivered to a remote or extended delivery area, such as ZIP codes that fall outside a carrier’s standard delivery zone. Rural destinations are the most common trigger. The amount varies by how remote the destination is.
Address Correction Fee is applied when a carrier needs to correct an incomplete or incorrect shipping address before delivery. If customer-entered addresses on your storefront frequently trigger this fee, enabling address validation at checkout is the most effective fix.
Oversized / Large Package Surcharge Applied by carriers when a package exceeds certain weight or dimensional thresholds. UPS and FedEx both have specific size and weight breakpoints that trigger this fee. If you sell bulky or heavy products, these surcharges may appear on most shipments in that category.
Fuel Surcharge: A variable fee applied by all major carriers that fluctuates based on national fuel cost indexes. It is applied as a percentage on top of the base shipping rate and adjusts regularly. Fulfyld passes this through at the carrier’s published rate .
Saturday or Extended Hours Delivery is applied when a delivery falls on a Saturday or requires delivery outside standard business hours. If your customers frequently select Saturday delivery at checkout, this fee will appear accordingly.
How to Read These Charges on Your Invoice
Fulfyld invoices itemize charges by category. Accessorial fees appear as separate line items alongside your standard shipping costs. Carrier surcharges are typically listed either as individual line items per shipment or as aggregated totals by surcharge type depending on the invoice period and volume.
If a line item isn’t immediately clear, the description should indicate which fee type it corresponds to. For surcharges passed through from carriers, the carrier name and surcharge type are generally included in the description.
How to Reduce Accessorial and Surcharge Costs
Some fees are unavoidable based on your product type and customer base. Others can be reduced with the right setup:
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Enable address validation at checkout to reduce address correction fees
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Ensure your supplier ships inventory with compliant UPC labels to avoid relabeling fees
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Optimize your order structure to keep line items at or under 5 picks where possible
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Discuss packaging dimensions with your account manager to avoid triggering oversized surcharges unnecessarily
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For brands with high rural customer concentration, ask your account manager about carrier rate comparisons across USPS, UPS, and FedEx for those destination ZIP codes
Still Have Questions?
If a charge on your invoice isn’t clear, your account manager can pull the details behind any line item and explain exactly what triggered it. Reach out at hey@fulfyld.com or (256) 716-8241, or visit fulfyld.com/3PL-fulfillment-pricing for a full breakdown of Fulfyld’s published fee structure.