Cheapest is only answerable against what companies print, and most of them print nothing. Four of the sixteen carriers and brokers in this record publish a price a customer can read without entering anything: Parcel2Go at £2.39 including VAT, Evri at £2.70 for a Postable and £3.04 for a 0-1kg Small, Royal Mail at £3.95 for a 2nd Class Small Parcel bought online, and Parcelforce at £11.95 up to 5kg. Their median is £3.74.
The floor is four different products
Parcel2Go's £2.39 has no stated band at all. Evri's £2.70 is a Postable, which is a large-letter shape rather than a parcel. Royal Mail's £3.95 is a 2kg Small Parcel bought online. Parcelforce's £11.95 covers anything to 5kg. Ranked as published they look like a ladder; read against their bands they answer four different questions, and only one of them may be yours.
The cheapest published thing is often not the cheapest for you
Royal Mail's own grid contains the clearest example: its Tracked 48 Small Parcel is £3.65 online where its 2nd Class Small Parcel is £3.95, so the tracked service costs less than the untracked default. Reading a grid across the rows rather than down the headline column is where the real savings in this market are, and it takes about a minute.
What a courier quote is built from
A destination, a weight band, a size band and a service tier, plus whatever surcharges apply to your postcode. A broker's quote adds its negotiated rate for a carrier's service, which is why Parcel2Go's destination pages name services like Evri Standard Parcelshop and DPD Lite rather than services of its own. That is a real price and it is not the carrier's published one.
Questions people ask about cheapest parcel delivery uk
What is the cheapest parcel delivery in the UK?
On published prices, Parcel2Go's £2.39 including VAT is the lowest figure, then Evri at £2.70 for a Postable and £3.04 for a 0-1kg Small, then Royal Mail at £3.95 for a 2nd Class Small Parcel online. Read 10 September 2026.
Is the cheapest service always the best value?
No. Royal Mail's Tracked 48 Small Parcel is £3.65 online against £3.95 for its untracked 2nd Class equivalent, so the cheaper service there is also the better one.
Why can I not compare all UK couriers on price?
Because twelve of the sixteen in this record publish no price. Five route everything through a quote form and seven refused an automated read.