Pick and Pack Pricing Explained

Take one real month of your order history and run it through both quotes line by line. Not a hypothetical average order — an actual export of your orders, with real unit counts and real destinations. Averages hide the multi-item orders that generate additional pick fees, and they hide the oversized items that trigger dimensional weight.

Then ask both providers the same set of questions in writing: what triggers an extra fee, what the minimum monthly charge is, how storage is measured, whether packaging is billed at cost or with a markup, and what happens during peak season. The gap between the answers is usually more informative than the gap between the rates.

Account or platform fees, minimum monthly spend, long-term storage penalties, receiving fees for non-conforming freight, returns handling, special project labor rates, and peak-season surcharges. None of these are unreasonable on their own — a warehouse has real costs. The problem is when they are disclosed after signing.

Location is the fee nobody lists. A warehouse far from the port adds a drayage move on every import container, and a warehouse far from your customers adds a shipping zone to every parcel. Our Vernon facility sits roughly 30 minutes from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which removes a transfer leg on inbound freight, and it reaches most of California in ground zone 1 or 2 on the way out.

Monthly order volume, average units per order, total active SKU count, product dimensions and weights, how inventory arrives (containers, LTL, parcel), your sales channels, and any retail compliance requirements. That is usually a fifteen-minute conversation and one spreadsheet.

With that in hand we can give you a firm, itemized quote rather than a teaser rate that changes on the first invoice. If we are not the right fit for your profile, we will say so directly instead of quoting a number to keep you in the funnel.