Plenty of small businesses start by delivering their own orders, and for good reason: on paper it is the cheapest option. The vehicle is already there, and the driver is either on payroll already or is the owner. But cheapest on paper and cheapest in practice are not always the same thing, and the gap between them is easy to measure once you know where to look.
The short version
- The costs you can see (fuel, wear, insurance, wages) are only part of the cost of delivering yourself.
- The larger costs are hours, idle capacity and the price of a delivery that goes wrong.
- A seven-step worksheet below turns all of it into a cost per delivery you can set beside a quote.
- Doing it yourself is still the right call for small, steady, nearby volume.
Start with the costs you can see
These all show up in the books, which is why in-house delivery looks affordable.
| Cost | What to include | Easy to forget |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel and wear | Fuel, tires, oil changes, repairs. | Wear scales with kilometres, so a longer route costs more than it looks. |
| Insurance | The premium that covers the vehicle in business use. | Ask your insurer whether a policy written for personal use covers deliveries made for the business. |
| Parking and tolls | Tickets, meters, bridge or highway fees. | Tickets are a delivery cost, even when they arrive weeks later. |
| Wages | The driver's pay for the time on the road. | Time spent loading and walking to the door is on the clock too. |
The costs that never get a line
The hour the owner spends driving instead of selling. The sales rep pulled off the floor to make a run. The delivery that slips because the one person who can do it is in a meeting. The vehicle that sits idle on slow days but costs the same. The second trip when the first one found nobody home. None of these show up as a delivery line item, but each is real, and together they are usually larger than the fuel.
A worksheet you can fill in tonight
- Count a typical weekHow many deliveries do you make in a normal week? Call it N. Use a normal week, not your best or worst.
- Time one door to doorFrom the moment someone starts loading to the moment they are back, including parking, the handoff and the drive home. Call it T minutes. People often guess low, so time a few real ones.
- Work out the hoursWeekly hours = N × T ÷ 60.
- Value the hourPut a price on one hour of the person doing it. If they would otherwise be idle, use their wage. If they would otherwise be selling or serving customers, use what that hour earns the business.
- Add the vehicleWeekly fuel, a fair share of insurance and maintenance, and any parking or tolls.
- Divide(Hours × value of an hour + vehicle costs) ÷ N gives your cost per delivery.
- Compare like for likeSet it beside a quote for the same week, and make sure the quote covers the same pickups, waiting time and return runs.
The lumpiness test
The vehicle costs the same in a quiet week as in a busy one, and the person still has to be available. That is why in-house delivery gets more expensive per delivery exactly when business is slow.
| Measure | Busy week | Quiet week |
|---|---|---|
| Deliveries | 20 | 5 |
| Time at $30 an hour (45 minutes each) | $450 | $112.50 |
| Vehicle costs | $120 | $120 |
| Cost per delivery | about $28.50 | about $46.50 |
A courier that charges by the delivery or by the route follows your volume down as well as up. Whether that is cheaper depends on the quote, which is exactly why the worksheet exists.
When doing it yourself still makes sense
- Volume is small and steady, and the distances are short.
- The person delivering would otherwise be idle.
- The delivery needs you there, such as a custom installation or a handover that depends on knowing the customer.
- You have only a handful of customers who all sit on the same road.
In those cases outsourcing is not automatically cheaper. It is cheaper when the hidden costs above outweigh the visible ones.
When outsourcing tends to pay off
- Uneven volume. Busy weeks and quiet ones, where the vehicle and driver cannot flex.
- Fixed windows. Deliveries that have to hit a specific time are hard to protect when the driver is also doing something else. Setting a cutoff time is easier when capacity is not tied to one person.
- Expensive hours. Anywhere the person driving is worth more in another part of the business.
- Many stops close together. A route shares its driving between stops, which is why a multi-stop route costs less per stop than separate trips.
The middle path
It does not have to be all or nothing. Many businesses keep the few deliveries that need them and hand over the predictable ones, such as a weekly restock or a standing Tuesday run. Same-day versus scheduled delivery explains how to split the work, and how often to restock covers how to set the rhythm.
Frequently asked questions
What should I include when I cost my own deliveries?
Fuel, wear, insurance, parking and wages for the time on the road, plus the hours spent loading, waiting and returning. Then add the value of what the person doing it would otherwise be doing.
Is hiring a part-time driver cheaper?
It can be, but you take on a fixed cost for a variable workload, plus scheduling and cover for absences. Run the same worksheet with the part-time wage and see whether the quiet-week figure still works for you.
How many deliveries a week before outsourcing makes sense?
There is no single number. The break-even depends on distance, delivery windows, how uneven your volume is and what the person delivering would otherwise earn. The worksheet gives you your own figure.
Not sure which side of the line you are on? Send us a typical week of deliveries when you request a quote, and compare it against your own worksheet.