---
title: "What does it cost you to send and get back an order? The maths that eats your margin"
description: "Sending a box costs around €5 and a return almost double. The real cost of shipping and returns in a small online store and how to set the free-shipping limit."
date: "2026-10-29"
category: "Websites for business"
keywords: "how much does it cost to ship an order, online store shipping costs, how much does a return cost, free shipping threshold, courier prices for small shops"
portada: "/portadas/portada-envios-y-devoluciones-tienda-online.webp"
---

An online stationery shop in Telde sells personalised notebooks at €24. In its first month it closed 40 orders and celebrated: almost a thousand euros in sales. By the third month, with 120 orders, the owner showed me the bank statement and it didn't add up. She was selling three times as much and earning the same. The problem wasn't the sales or the price: it was every box that went out and, above all, every box that came back.

Shipping is the most underestimated cost when you set up an online store, because it doesn't appear in any monthly fee and you don't see it until you've shipped fifty orders. Here you have the real figures and the three calculations worth doing before you set your prices.

## What you pay the courier for each box

With a low-volume contract (fewer than 200 shipments a month), these are the reference prices in Spain:

- **Mainland, 1-2 kg, 24-48 h:** between €4.50 and €7 per shipment, depending on the agency and whether you have a daily pick-up at the shop.
- **Mainland, up to 5 kg:** between €6 and €10.
- **Balearic Islands:** add €2-4 to the mainland price.
- **Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla:** between €12 and €25, and with customs and paperwork on top. If you ship from an island, this changes the whole business.
- **Cash on delivery:** €2-3 more for handling and, sometimes, a percentage of the amount. It almost never pays off.
- **Pick-up point:** €1-2 cheaper than home delivery, and many customers prefer it.

There are two details that blow up the invoice without you noticing. The first is **volumetric weight**: a large, light box is charged by the space it takes up, not by what it weighs. The second is the **return of delivery notes**: if a parcel arrives at a home where nobody is in, it comes back to you and they charge it as a new shipment.

## A return costs more than a shipment

Here is the part that sinks margins. A return isn't "the same but in reverse":

- **Collection or return shipping:** €4-8, and in many shops the business pays it so as not to lose the sale.
- **Refund of the original shipping:** if you charged €3.50 and the customer returns the item, you normally refund all of it.
- **Labour:** opening, checking, ironing, re-labelling and putting it back in stock. Between 5 and 10 minutes per parcel that someone has to be paid for.
- **A product that can no longer be sold as new:** in fashion and footwear, a significant share of what comes back arrives creased, without a tag or with a smell. That is a direct loss.

That's why a real return moves between €8 and €15, even if the transport alone is €5. In fashion, between 15% and 30% of what is sold comes back; in stationery, electronics or household goods, much less, but not zero.

## The three calculations you have to do

Take your average order, your margin and your courier price. With that you can already decide.

**1. How much do I lose per order if I charge cheap shipping?** If the agency charges you €5.20 and you charge €3.50, you lose €1.70 on every order. With 100 orders a month that's €170. It's not a catastrophe, but it's money coming out of your margin, not out of the till.

**2. What do returns cost me?** With 100 orders, 20% returns and €8 per return, that's 20 returns and €160 a month.

**3. Add it up and compare it with your gross margin.** The two items together are €330 a month, almost €4,000 a year. If your sales are €3,500 a month with a 50% gross margin (€1,750), those €330 eat **19% of your gross margin**. There's the answer to why you sell more and earn the same.

## The free-shipping threshold isn't chosen by eye

"Free shipping over €30" is the most repeated sentence in online stores and the one most copied without doing the maths. For free shipping not to cost you money, the extra order has to generate enough margin to pay for the transport: with a 50% margin and a €5.20 shipment, you need €10.40 more in purchases to cover it. If your average order is €35, the reasonable threshold is around €45, not €30.

The alternative that almost always works: **charge for shipping and be transparent**. A customer who sees "shipping €4.50" in the cart doesn't leave; one who discovers the cost at the end does. And a shop that gives away shipping on every order is giving away, on average, 10-15% of its margin.

## Four decisions that lower the invoice

1. **A single box size.** Buying 200 identical boxes is cheaper than improvising, and it avoids volumetric weight.
2. **In-store or pick-up point collection.** It eliminates the shipping cost and failed deliveries.
3. **An honest product page.** Sizes, measurements and real photos. Half of fashion returns are born from a badly explained size.
4. **Review the contract every six months.** Courier prices drop as soon as your volume rises, but nobody lowers them for you unless you call.

## The detail almost nobody looks at

On the website, the shipping cost has to be visible **before** asking for personal details. A cart that hides the transport until the last step generates abandonments and, worse, customers who feel cheated when they finally see the total. That's a design problem in the store, not a courier problem, and it's fixed in an afternoon.

If you have an online store and you don't know whether shipping is eating your margin, or if you're thinking about selling online and want to see first how many orders you need for it to pay off, you can [request a free design proposal](/solicita-web/en) and we'll look at it with your numbers.

You may also be interested in:

- [How much does an online store cost](/blog/en/cuanto-cuesta-una-tienda-online) — the monthly fee nobody asks about before starting.
- [Websites for online stores](/blog/en/web-para-tiendas-online) — the sections a store that actually sells needs.