How much should I charge?

Look around at a few active courier forums and I’d be surprised if you don’t see this question asked in one form or another. For people new to the courier game how much to charge is a really hot topic.

The answer of course is that “it depends”. This means that often you’ll find that even experienced couriers are unable or unwilling to pin rates down to a particular number – much to the frustration of the new starter trying to glean the information from them. Fortunately we have a large amount of work passing through the website, along with details on vehicle types, mileages, and courier pay! This means that for the first time, we’re able to give some real insight into the typical rates courier businesses are trading work between one another for. Below is an average rate (per loaded mile) achieved by vehicle type over the last few years, accurate as of today:

• Luton Tail Lift - £1.75 per mile
• XLWB Transit - £1.36 per mile
• MWB Transit - £1.24 per mile
• Sprinter - £1.23 per mile
• LWB Transit - £1.23 per mile
• SWB Transit - £1.08 per mile
• Small Van - £0.82 per mile
• Car - £0.76 per mile

To come to these figures we’ve made some sensible assumptions: We have not included very short journeys as the rate per mile is often affected by minimum charges. We’ve also only published results where we have a huge sample size so we can be sure our figures are accurate.

Of course rates will also very with location. You would expect a better rate in London and other built up areas, and a slightly lower rate for a clear run down the M6. You would also expect to charge a (end user/business) customer more than when you’re subbing for another courier company on mtvan. Having said this, we think our figures above provide a good starting point.

These statistics are available for free to mtvan members in real time (they’re always up to date). We also now provide a simple calculator to help you work out how much to charge based on rate and mileage too.