How to price 3PL storage and pick & pack fees (with examples)

Most small 3PLs set their first rate card by guessing, then adjust it once a client's actual costs come in higher than expected. That's an expensive way to learn pricing. Here's a framework that starts from your real costs instead.

Storage: price the space, not the SKU

Storage fees should be tied to a physical unit you actually pay for — per pallet, per shelf, or per cubic foot — not a flat per-SKU rate that breaks down the moment a client's product mix changes. A common structure: $15–25 per pallet per month for standard dry goods, adjusted up for climate control or oversized items.

Pick & pack: separate the pick from the pack

Charging a single blended "per order" fee hides your real cost structure. A order with one SKU and an order with twelve SKUs across four bins cost you very different amounts of labor. Many 3PLs now charge a base pick fee (e.g. $0.75 for the first item) plus a smaller per-additional-item fee, which scales fairly as order complexity grows.

Shipping: pass-through plus markup, never a guess

Shipping should always be a pass-through of the actual negotiated carrier rate, plus a transparent markup (commonly 5–10%) rather than a flat estimated fee. Guessing here is how 3PLs quietly eat margin on every heavy or oversized package.

Automate before you scale

None of this is sustainable by hand past a handful of clients. The 3PLs who scale past 10–15 client accounts without adding back-office headcount are the ones who configured their rate card once in software and let storage, pick/pack and shipping calculate automatically at month end — turning a two-day billing cycle into a one-click invoice run.