Fulfillment pricing built around your invoice, not our marketing.

Most 3PL pricing pages are designed to start a sales conversation, not to give you the math. We tried something different. The page below covers how the line items work, what each one typically costs across the industry, what we charge, and what a monthly invoice looks like at three real volume tiers. The numbers are honest and sourced.

Where every dollar on a 3PL invoice actually goes.

A clean 3PL invoice has 6 to 8 line items. Most invoices in the wild have 12 to 20, because providers split labor into many smaller fees that add up. Below is the simple version of how the math works at a tech-native single-network operator like Warpspeed, with the typical industry range alongside.

Pallet, shelf, bin, or cubic foot. Why the unit you pick matters.

Standard 3PL pallet storage runs $20 to $45 per month nationally, with metro corridors (LA, NYC/NJ) running 30 to 50% higher^[1][2]. Cubic foot pricing clusters in a $0.43 to $0.78 per ft³ per month range for warehouses using volumetric billing instead of pallet positions^[3]. The cubic foot model is honest math when your inventory does not pallet-stack cleanly. The pallet model is honest when your inventory does.

Where storage pricing gets ugly is the shelf and bin tier some 3PLs add on top. A typical schedule charges roughly $40 per pallet, $10 per shelf, and $5 per bin per month. If you carry a high-SKU catalog with low inventory per SKU, the shelf and bin charges can outrun the pallet cost in a single quarter. We avoid this. Warpspeed quotes pallet or cubic foot, your choice, with no shelf or bin tier on top.

What a single order actually costs on the floor.

A typical mid-market 3PL pick fee in 2026 sits at $1.50 to $3.50 per order plus $0.25 to $0.75 per additional line item^[6][8]. The headline pick fee is usually structured to include the first item, with additional items billed per pick. The spread reflects facility automation, regional labor cost, and volume tier. Higher volume negotiates lower per-order rates.

Packaging is charged 3 ways across the industry. At supplier cost (the honest version), supplier cost plus a handling fee (the common version), or as a flat per-order packaging fee (the less honest version, since it bundles labor and materials together). Warpspeed charges packaging at supplier cost. We disclose any handling component up front in the proposal. If you supply your own branded packaging, we charge nothing for materials and only the labor time to assemble.

What an account manager does and what they cost.

“Half the value of a 3PL is the person who picks up the phone. The other half is the rate card. Most providers price you on the second and skimp on the first.”

Many 3PLs tier account management. Lower volume tiers get a shared queue. Higher tiers get a named contact, typically with $300 to $1,200 per month added to the bill. The tier model usually means the account manager is balancing 30 to 60 brands, which makes the dedicated label more aspirational than real.

Warpspeed includes a dedicated operations lead at and above our standard volume tier with no separate account management fee. Your operations lead is a person you call by name, who knows your SKU mix, and who is on every weekly review. The reason this works at our scale is the single-facility model. One operations team, one set of brands, no roundtrips through tier-2 queues.

What it actually adds up to.

Below are 3 illustrative monthly invoices at common volume tiers. The numbers are order-of-magnitude estimates based on the rates above, an average package weight of 1.5 lb, an average of 1.4 picks per order, ground service in zone 4, and standard mailer packaging. Actual numbers will move based on your SKU mix, weight distribution, and carrier mix. We model your specifics in a real quote.

What our agreement actually commits to.

We commit, in your master service agreement, to the following: published pick rates that do not change without a written 60-day notice, postage at carrier-cost pass-through with no markup, no peak season surcharge on pick or storage fees, packaging at supplier cost with any handling component disclosed in advance, and a single account management fee structure (which is $0 above our standard volume tier). The agreement also commits to month-to-month after a 90-day onboarding period, so you are never locked in to a relationship that is not working.

What we do not promise is the lowest pick fee in the industry. We promise transparent math, single accountability, and software our floor scans into. If your only criterion is the cheapest per-pick number, we are probably not the right fit.

5 inputs, 48 hours, real numbers.

1. A recent month's order export with order count, line items per order, and ship-to states.
2. SKU list with dimensions and weights for your top 80% by velocity.
3. Total inventory in pallets or cubic feet (rough estimate is fine).
4. Inbound cadence: how often you receive freight, in pallets per shipment.
5. Channel mix: DTC, Amazon, marketplace, retail, B2B in rough percentages.

With those 5 inputs, we return a real model in 48 hours. No sales call required to see the numbers. We will share a per-line-item rate card alongside, so you can compare to your current 3PL invoice item by item.