Parcel collection and delivery: what collection costs against dropping it off

What the companies publish for this

How to decide between collection and drop-off

1. Price the service online first. Royal Mail's online price beats its branch price on nearly every row of its grid: £3.95 against £4.25 on a 2nd Class Small Parcel, £4.65 against £5.70 on Tracked 24.
2. Add the collection fee, if the carrier prints one. Royal Mail publishes 30p an item on Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 bought online. It is the only published collection fee in this record.
3. Weigh the parcel against the walk. Below a couple of kilos, drop-off is nearly always cheaper and rarely inconvenient. Above ten, collection stops being a preference.
4. Check the drop-off network, not just the price. The companies that price a drop-off tier assume a shop near you. That is a coverage question their own price pages do not answer, and this record holds no shop locations.

What the published grids say about handing a parcel over

Royal Mail is the only company in this record that publishes the same service at two prices depending on how you buy it, and the gap is consistent rather than token. Across its grid, buying online saves 30p on a 2nd Class Small Parcel, 45p on a Tracked 48 Large Letter, £1.05 on a Tracked 24 Small Parcel and £1.70 on a Tracked 24 Medium Parcel. The premium is largest on the services people are in most of a hurry to buy.

Evri's published table splits its sub-2kg bands into Small and Standard rather than by how the parcel is handed over, so its figures do not answer this question directly. Parcel2Go's destination pages name ParcelShop services explicitly, such as Evri Europe Standard Parcelshop at £7.79 to Germany, which is a drop-off product priced as one.

Why collection is priced separately at all

A drop-off parcel arrives at a carrier's network under its own steam. A collected one costs a driver a stop, and the stop costs roughly the same whether the parcel is worth three pounds or thirty. That is why collection is a flat fee where it is published at all, and why it is a larger proportion of a cheap parcel's price than an expensive one's.

It is also why collection windows are wide and why they are the thing most often complained about. Nothing in this record measures reliability, and this page does not claim to: it measures what is published about price.

What neither option includes

Both routes are the carriage only. Fuel and remote-area surcharges, cover above the free compensation limit, Saturday delivery and any customs charge on a parcel leaving the UK are added to whichever you choose.

A failed collection is the one asymmetric risk. If nobody is in, the parcel does not move that day and the price does not change, whereas a drop-off has already happened. That is not a published figure, so it is not in the record; it is worth knowing all the same.

Questions people ask about this

How much does parcel collection cost?

Royal Mail publishes 30p per item when you buy Tracked 24 or Tracked 48 postage online. No other company in this record publishes a collection fee at all, which is not the same as collection being free.

Is it cheaper to drop a parcel off?

On Royal Mail's own grid, buying online and dropping off beats the branch price on nearly every row, by 30p on a 2nd Class Small Parcel and by £1.05 on a Tracked 24 Small Parcel.

Can I arrange a courier to collect an item without a printer?

Several carriers sell printer-free labels where the shop or the driver prints for you. None of the four companies that publish a price in this record prints a separate figure for it, so the price you see is the service price.

Does collection cost the same however heavy the parcel is?

Where it is published, yes. Royal Mail's 30p is per item rather than per kilo, which makes it a much bigger share of a cheap parcel's price than of an expensive one's.

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