Just like any other form of transaction, how much you pay for a courier service depends on many different factors; not the least of which are the quality and length of the service.

Quality of service

You do in fact usually get what you pay for. So if you are using the most cut-price courier around, you are probably also getting cut-price service. High quality courier services will include such things as: electronic tracking, online parcel tracing and full insurance on goods, to name a few. Bear in mind however, that if you are only sending a couple of documents a couple of kilometres across town with a bicycle courier, then cheap is probably just fine.

Distance, weight and size

The other factors of the "cost" equation are distance, size and weight. How far is the parcel to be taken – across town or across the world? International courier services, with their considerations of customs, international freighting and extended tracking requirements, have different pricing structures to local couriers. The size and weight of the parcel are important for all methods of courier delivery and are of particular interest for local collections. Your local only courier will need to know whether to despatch a bicycle, motor bike or van courier to collect your parcel, and this will also affect the price. Whilst weight is obviously very important in the determination of international freight costs, international couriers will pick up and drop off in commercial delivery vans and don’t really care about the size of the parcel.

Make sure you find out the charging schedules for different sizes and weights of parcel before you place an order with a courier or parcel delivery service.