Cheap parcel delivery: the cheapest published price for sending a parcel, and who publishes one

What the companies publish for this

How to get to the cheap end without four quote forms

1. Find your band before you find a price. Almost every quoted price in this trade is a band, not a rate. Royal Mail's cheapest parcel band is 2kg and 45cm x 35cm x 16cm; Evri's is 0-1kg Small at £3.04.
2. Take it to a shop rather than have it collected. Royal Mail's grid prices the same service twice, online and in branch, and online is cheaper on almost every row: £3.95 against £4.25 on a 2nd Class Small Parcel, £2.85 against £3.30 on Tracked 48 Large Letter.
3. Read the headline figure's small print. Parcel2Go's £2.39 is stated as £1.99 excluding VAT and the page does not say what weight or size it applies to. It is a real published figure and it is not a promise about your parcel.
4. Compare the brokers against the carriers. A broker resells the same carriers at negotiated rates, which is why Parcel2Go's per-destination pages price named services like Evri Standard Parcelshop and DPD Lite rather than a service of its own.

What the four published figures cover, and where they disagree

The four cheapest published prices in this record are not four prices for the same thing. Parcel2Go's £2.39 has no stated band. Evri's £2.70 is the Postable tier, which is a large-letter shape rather than a parcel; its cheapest actual parcel is £3.04 for 0-1kg Small. Royal Mail's £3.95 is a 2nd Class Small Parcel up to 2kg bought online. Parcelforce's £11.95 covers anything up to 5kg. Ranked as published they look like a ladder; read against their bands they are four different products.

The most useful disagreement in the record is between two companies about a third. Evri's home page table carries a Royal Mail column beside its own and states £3.65 for a 1-2kg Small; Royal Mail's own grid prints £3.95 online and £4.25 in branch for its 2kg Small Parcel. We record only Evri's own column as Evri's price, because a company's claim about a competitor is not that competitor's published page.

Why twelve of sixteen publish nothing

Five of the companies here were read in full and carry no price anywhere: DPD, Yodel, Whistl, DX and ParcelBroker all route every number through a quote form that asks for the parcel and the postcodes first. That is a choice about what to publish, and it is recorded as one.

Seven more refused the request outright with an HTTP 403, including Interparcel, ParcelHero, Parcel Monkey, Transglobal Express, ParcelCompare, UPS and DHL Parcel UK. Those are recorded separately, because not knowing what a company publishes is not the same as knowing it publishes nothing, and collapsing the two would be the easiest way to make this record dishonest.

What cheap costs you

The cheap end of every published grid is the slowest service with the least cover. Royal Mail's £3.95 2nd Class Small Parcel carries no tracking to the door; its Tracked 48 equivalent is £3.65 online, which is both cheaper and tracked, and is the kind of inversion that only shows up when the grid is read as a grid.

Compensation is the other half. Every figure here includes some free cover and none of them includes much; extra cover is priced separately by all four companies and is not in any published headline. If what you are sending is worth more than the free limit, the cheapest published price is not the price you will pay.

Questions people ask about this

What is the cheapest way to send a parcel in the UK?

On published prices, Parcel2Go's home page figure of £2.39 including VAT is the lowest in this record, followed by Evri at £2.70 for a Postable and £3.04 for a 0-1kg Small, and Royal Mail at £3.95 for a 2nd Class Small Parcel bought online. All read on 10 September 2026.

Is it cheaper to book online than in a Post Office?

On Royal Mail's own grid, yes, on nearly every row. A 2nd Class Small Parcel is £3.95 online against £4.25 in branch, and a Tracked 48 Large Letter is £2.85 against £3.30.

Are booking brokers cheaper than going direct?

Sometimes, because they resell carriers at negotiated rates. Parcel2Go's own destination pages price services like Evri Standard Parcelshop and DPD Lite, so what you are comparing is that broker's rate for that carrier's service, not the carrier's own published price.

Why will not most carriers show me a price?

Twelve of the sixteen companies in this record do not. Five publish nothing without a quote form and seven refused an automated read. It is why this record exists.

Sending this abroad

• Australia: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Bahrain: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Belgium: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Brazil: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Bulgaria: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Canada: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• China: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Croatia: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Cyprus: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• the Czech Republic: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Egypt: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• France: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Germany: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Greece: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Guernsey: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Hong Kong: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Hungary: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• India: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Ireland: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• the Isle of Man: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Italy: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Japan: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Jersey: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Kenya: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Libya: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Lithuania: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Malaysia: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Malta: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Mauritius: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Montenegro: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• the Netherlands: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• New Zealand: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Northern Ireland: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Norway: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Pakistan: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Poland: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Portugal: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Qatar: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Romania: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Saudi Arabia: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Singapore: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• South Africa: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• South Korea: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Spain: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Thailand: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• the UAE: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• the USA: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages
• Vietnam: what carriers publish for a parcel, from their own price pages