Which 3PLs publish their pricing publicly?
Almost every major 3PL describes itself as transparent. Most of them mean something different by that word than you might think. We audited the public pricing pages of ShipBob, ShipMonk, Red Stag Fulfillment, eFulfillment Service, and Huboo and quoted them directly.
The scorecard
How each 3PL handles pricing on their public pages
Three questions. Six companies. Sourced directly from their own pricing pages.
| Company | Rate card published | Starting price shown | Quote form required |
|---|---|---|---|
| ShipBob | ✗No | ✗No | ✓Yes |
| ShipMonk | ✗No | ✗No | ✓Yes |
| Red Stag Fulfillment | ✗No | ✗No | ✓Yes |
| eFulfillment Service | ✗No | ✗No | ✓Yes |
| Huboo | ✗No | ✓£1,000/mo | ✓Yes |
| Hermeslines | ✓Yes | ✓From $0.99 | ✗No |
The evidence
What each pricing page actually says
Verbatim quotes. Live URLs. Date-stamped.
ShipBob
ShipBob’s headline contains the word “Clear.” The page itself contains no rates. Every pricing question routes to a quote form.
|
What they publish
✓Names of four fee categories
✓Customer testimonials
✓The phrase “Clear pricing”
|
What they don’t
✗Any per-pick fee
✗Any storage rate
✗Any minimum or starting price
✗Any rate visible without a form
|
For a full side-by-side of Hermeslines vs ShipBob — including worked pricing examples, ShipBob figures attributed to primary sources, and the places where ShipBob actually beats us — see our full ShipBob comparison page.
ShipMonk
ShipMonk promises “every fee explained” on a page that publishes no rates. It does explain ShipMonk’s monthly minimum formula in unusual detail:
Every variable in that formula — your order volume, your pick fee — is only disclosed after you fill out a quote form. The formula is published; the inputs are not.
|
What they publish
✓Names of four fee categories
✓Monthly minimum formula
✓“Software included at no charge”
|
What they don’t
✗Any per-pick fee or storage rate
✗The actual monthly minimum dollar amount
✗Any starting price
✗Any rate visible without a form
|
Red Stag Fulfillment
Red Stag’s pricing page is, structurally, a multi-step intake form. The form asks for name, email, phone, company, current fulfillment solution, product type, average package weight, monthly volume, SKU count, biggest challenge, and how the visitor heard about Red Stag. Of all the fields on the form, only one is optional.
There are no dollar figures published anywhere on the page — no per-pick fee, no storage rate, no minimum, no starting price.
|
What they publish
✓Service guarantees
✓A multi-step intake form
✓Industry rate ranges on a separate page
|
What they don’t
✗Any of Red Stag’s own rates
✗Any starting price or minimum
✗Any pricing visible without submission
|
eFulfillment Service
eFulfillment Service uses the word “transparency” in its lead pricing copy. The page publishes no rates. The pricing summary consists of four qualitative bullets: no setup fees, no minimum order requirements, award-winning service, pay-as-you-go.
|
What they publish
✓“No setup fees”
✓“No minimums”
✓“Pay-as-you-go”
✓“Full transparency” (as a phrase)
|
What they don’t
✗Any per-order rate
✗Any storage rate
✗Any inbound or returns rate
✗Any starting price
|
Huboo
Huboo makes the strongest transparency claim of any of the five 3PLs we audited. They publish one concrete figure — a £1,000 monthly starting price — and route everything else to a quote form.
Huboo is the most transparent of the five by this measure: they publish a starting price. They are not transparent in the sense most ecommerce founders mean it — you still cannot calculate your costs without going through their sales team.
|
What they publish
✓£1,000 monthly starting price
✓Names of five service buckets
✓“Transparent pricing structure” claim
|
What they don’t
✗Any per-item fulfilment rate
✗Any per-pallet storage rate
✗Any returns or extra-services rate
✗Anything that lets you calculate your costs
|
What we do differently
Every Hermeslines rate is published on a single page: our pricing page. Pick-and-pack from $0.99. Storage from $13.01 per pallet at the 15+ tier. FBA prep at $60 per hour. No quote form required. No “starting at” hiding the real number. No “request access” gate.
We do this for two reasons. First, because most of our customers are small ecommerce brands without time to chase quotes from six 3PLs. Publishing the rate card is the most respectful thing we can do with their time. Second, because we think the industry’s current approach to pricing is bad for the people buying it — and we’d rather be the alternative.
If our published rates don’t work for you, you’ll know in 90 seconds. If they do, you can contact us with most of the questions already answered.
Questions
Frequently asked
The questions prospects ask us about this page, and our answers.
Why don’t most 3PLs publish their pricing?
The most common explanation given by 3PLs is that pricing varies by product type, volume, weight, and shipping destination, so a single rate card can’t capture the complexity. There’s truth in this — fulfillment pricing does have many variables. But the same variables exist for carrier rates (UPS, FedEx, USPS) and those carriers publish full rate tables. The deeper reason gated pricing persists is that it pulls prospects into a sales conversation where the 3PL can negotiate. Published pricing removes that lever.
How do you compare to ShipBob, ShipMonk, or Red Stag on price?
For ShipBob specifically, we built a full side-by-side comparison page using third-party-reported figures (attributed to specific primary sources) alongside our published rates. For ShipMonk and Red Stag, we haven’t built head-to-head pages yet — anyone claiming such a comparison is working from third-party estimates rather than published numbers. What we can tell you about ourselves: Our fulfillment pricing starts at $0.99 per pick-and-pack, $13.01 per pallet per month at the 15+ tier, $60/hr for prep services. Compare against any rates you obtain from competitors in your own quote process.
What if a competitor adds their rates to their pricing page?
That would be good for the industry and we’d update this page to reflect it. The point isn’t to make any specific company look bad — the point is that the current industry standard treats prospects like leads to be captured rather than people trying to make an informed decision. If that changes, we’ll change with it.
Methodology and updates
All quotes on this page were verified live on the date noted below. Each competitor’s pricing page was fetched, read, and quoted directly. No claim on this page is paraphrased or inferred — every claim is sourced to a URL we have on file with a date stamp.
We re-verify this page annually. If you notice that any claim here is out of date or incorrect, tell us and we’ll fix it.