Ask what it costs to send a parcel and the honest answer is "between about £4 and £40, depending". That is not evasion — parcel pricing genuinely is built from a handful of variables. Once you know what they are, quotes stop looking random and you can start controlling them.
The short answer
For a typical UK parcel sent through Fleet Express:
| Service | Transit time | From (excl. VAT) | Tracking & cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy | 3–5 working days | £3.99 | Full tracking, £100 cover |
| 2-Day | 2 working days | £5.99 | Full tracking, £100 cover |
| Next Day | 1 working day | £8.99 | Full tracking, £100 cover |
| Returns | 3–5 working days | £2.99 | Pre-paid label, full tracking |
| International | Varies by country | £12.99 | Tracking plus customs support |
Those "from" prices are for a small, light parcel. What pushes a quote above them is size, weight, distance and speed — in roughly that order of impact.
Enter your parcel's weight and dimensions into the Fleet Express quote tool and you will see the real price for every service at once. It takes about twenty seconds and beats any table in a blog post.
How couriers actually build your price
1. Weight, in bands
Pricing moves in bands, not gradually — typically 0–1kg, 1–2kg, 2–5kg, 5–10kg, 10–20kg and so on. This is why a parcel that is 100g over a threshold can cost noticeably more than one just under it. If a parcel weighs 2.1kg, removing 150g of unnecessary padding can genuinely drop it a band.
2. Size, via volumetric weight
A duvet weighs almost nothing and fills a van. Couriers price for the space consumed using volumetric weight: length × width × height in centimetres, divided by a fixed divisor (5000 is common for UK road freight). You are charged on the greater of actual and volumetric weight.
A 60 × 40 × 40cm box has a volumetric weight of 19.2kg. If it actually weighs 4kg, you are still paying the 19.2kg rate. This single rule explains most "why is this quote so high?" surprises, and we cover it fully in volumetric weight explained.
3. Speed
Faster service means tighter deadlines, more overnight trunking and less scope to consolidate loads. Expect next day to run roughly two to two and a half times economy for the same parcel. Our next day delivery guide covers when that premium is worth paying.
4. Destination
Mainland Britain is priced flat by most carriers. Beyond it, geography reasserts itself: the Highlands and islands, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands cost more to reach because they involve ferries, planes, or long low-density routes.
The surcharges that inflate a bill
The headline rate is rarely the final number. These are the additions worth knowing about before they appear on an invoice:
- Remote area surcharge — applied to specific outlying postcodes. Check the postcode, not the town name.
- Oversize / overlength — most services cap a single dimension around 120cm and total girth beyond that. Cross it and the parcel moves to a freight rate.
- Overweight or manual handling — anything above roughly 30kg usually needs two people and is priced accordingly.
- Fuel surcharge — a percentage that floats with diesel prices. Ask whether a quoted rate includes it.
- Address correction — charged when a courier has to fix an incomplete or wrong address mid-transit.
- Redelivery / return to sender — charged after failed attempts. Getting a mobile number on the label is the cheapest insurance against this.
- Insurance above the standard limit — £100 cover is included as standard with us; higher value needs declaring at booking.
Business courier prices are normally quoted excluding VAT; consumer sites often show prices including it. A "£5.99" business rate is £7.19 delivered. Compare like with like or you will pick the wrong carrier on a spreadsheet.
Eight ways to pay less without downgrading service
- Right-size the box. The most reliable saving available. A box 10cm smaller in each dimension can cut volumetric weight by half.
- Weigh before you quote. Guessing high wastes money; guessing low invites a re-grade fee. Kitchen scales are fine under 5kg.
- Consolidate orders. One 5kg parcel almost always beats three 2kg parcels.
- Default to 2-day, upsell next day. Let customers who genuinely need speed pay for it, instead of building it into every price.
- Drop off instead of booking a collection. Collections carry a cost; drop-off is usually cheaper and often faster into the network.
- Get a business account. Volume pricing on a Fleet Express business account beats ad-hoc rates, with monthly invoicing rather than card payments per parcel.
- Cut failed deliveries. Every failed attempt risks a redelivery charge. Full addresses, flat numbers, mobile numbers.
- Reduce packaging weight, not protection. Swap heavy void fill for correctly sized boxes. Damage claims cost far more than the padding saved — see the packaging guide.
Worked examples
Three realistic parcels, to show how the variables interact:
| Parcel | Actual weight | Dimensions | Volumetric | Charged on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pair of trainers | 1.2kg | 34 × 22 × 13cm | 1.9kg | 1.9kg (volumetric) |
| Hardback books ×4 | 3.4kg | 30 × 24 × 12cm | 1.7kg | 3.4kg (actual) |
| Winter duvet | 3.0kg | 60 × 45 × 40cm | 21.6kg | 21.6kg (volumetric) |
The duvet is the lesson. It is the lightest item on the list by weight and by far the most expensive to send. Compressing it into a vacuum bag and a 40 × 30 × 25cm box takes volumetric weight to 6kg — the same parcel, roughly a third of the cost.
Is the cheapest courier the right courier?
Sometimes. But the true cost of a delivery includes what happens when it goes wrong: refunds on lost items, time spent on support messages, and the reviews that follow a bad experience. A rate that is 50p cheaper stops being cheaper the first time you refund a £40 order because there was no proof of delivery.
When you compare, look past the headline price at whether you get tracking granular enough to answer a customer, photo proof of delivery you can use in a marketplace dispute, insurance included as standard, and support you can actually reach. All four are standard with Fleet Express — including UK-based phone support on 0800 079 3859.
Frequently asked questions
Common pricing questions are answered below, with more detail on our FAQ page.
Get a real number
Estimates only go so far. Put your actual weight and dimensions into the Fleet Express quote tool for an instant price across every service, with no account needed and no obligation to book.
