Rate per pallet is the wrong first question. Whether your orders fit the way we pick is the right one.

What is actually stored, and how it arrives — Palletised, cartons, or loose eaches — and whether a container arrives floor-loaded. A hand-unloaded container is charged by the hour rather than by the pallet, and that one difference has ended more quotes than any rate ever has
Your order profile, not your order count — A thousand single-item orders and a thousand mixed twelve-line orders are the same number and completely different businesses. Send ten real order lines and the quote becomes real with them
How many lines you carry, and how few of them move — Two hundred fast movers and two thousand with a long tail need different racking and different pick paths. A long tail is not a problem; a long tail nobody mentioned before go-live is
Storage conditions — Ambient, temperature controlled, hazardous classification, or high value under separate security. Say it at the enquiry — retrofitting a condition after go-live means a move, not an adjustment
Where the orders arrive from — A supported platform connection, a file drop, or a person typing them in. The third one works and is priced as labour, and it should be a decision rather than a surprise
If any of those reads like a no — Stop here and say so, and we will name somebody set up for it. A wrong 3PL is a year of small frictions and one bad peak, and neither of us wants to have found that out the expensive way

A pallet position is not a pallet — It is a defined footprint and height in a specific racking type. An overheight pallet takes two positions and is billed as two, and you should know which of yours do before you sign anything
Storage is billed on your peak, not your average — Because the space has to exist on the peak day. Some 3PLs bill the average and make it back elsewhere; ask which, because comparing one against the other on the headline rate is meaningless
Overflow is a real place, not a promise — When racking is full, stock goes to bulk floor storage at a stated rate. It does not go to a third-party shed you never see, and it never goes somewhere that adds a day to your dispatch
Peak is planned in writing, months before it — You give us a forecast, we tell you what we can hold and what we cannot. A forecast is not a commitment and we do not bill against it — it is how we avoid finding out together in the busiest week of your year
We will tell you when we are close to full — Before it affects you, and even when it means you start looking. A 3PL that lets a client walk into a wall it could see coming has already lost the account, just more slowly
Growing out of us is a normal outcome — Plenty of accounts should eventually run their own warehouse. We will say when we think you are near it, and the exit terms below are written so that saying it costs us nothing but the account

Receiving — palletised — Per pallet, checked, recorded and put away. Booked in against your purchase order so a short delivery is your supplier's problem on the day rather than yours at the count
Receiving — floor loaded or mixed — Per hour, because a hand-unloaded container is labour and cannot honestly be a per-pallet rate. Told to you before the container lands, not after
Storage — Per position per week, at peak occupancy, in the racking type the goods actually need. Bulk floor storage is a separate, lower rate
Pick — First line, then a lower rate per additional line on the same order. This is why ten real order lines matter more than a monthly order count
Pack and materials — Labour plus the box, at cost on the materials. Your own branded packaging is held free up to a stated number of positions
Carriage and labels — At carrier cost, on our rates or on your own account, and we will tell you which is cheaper for your parcel profile even when it is yours
Returns — Per unit received, graded, and either put back into sellable stock or quarantined to your rule. The rule is agreed at go-live rather than invented at the first return
Account and integration — One monthly fee covering the platform connection, stock reporting and a named contact. Not a percentage of anything
Projects — Relabelling, kitting, bundling, stock takes outside the agreed cadence — quoted per hour, approved in writing before anyone starts
Minimum monthly invoice — A floor, not a target. Small accounts cost more to serve than they generate, and a floor is a more honest fix than quietly deprioritising them
What is never charged — Receiving a corrected shipment after our error, re-picking our own mis-pick, and releasing your stock when you leave. Those three are ours

Sixty days' notice, the same in both directions — If we can end it with sixty days, so can you. A one-sided notice period is the clearest signal in this industry that the exit was designed to be expensive
No de-rack fee, no handover fee, no exit administration — Your stock is your stock. Charging a client to hand back their own goods is a toll on leaving dressed up as a service, and it is the reason most people read this section first
Stock released within ten working days of notice ending — On a schedule agreed in writing, loaded onto vehicles you or your new provider book. The clock is stated so nobody has to negotiate it while already moving
A disputed invoice never holds stock — We will argue about an invoice in writing like adults. Goods are not leverage, and a lien over a client's stock during a dispute is a thing we will not do even where it would be permitted
Your data leaves with you — A full export of stock movements, order history and returns in a readable format, at no charge, whether you are leaving or just checking. It is your operating history, not our retention tool
We will say when we think you should go — Outgrown us, or a specialist would serve you better. That conversation costs us an account and it is the reason the four points above can be written down at all

Pick accuracy is measured and published to you monthly — State your own target and report against it every month whether it was met or missed. A number that only appears in the months it was hit is not a service level
Same-day dispatch to a stated cut-off — The cut-off is real and it is earlier than you would like, because a cut-off that is missed twice a week is not a cut-off. Orders after it go on the next run and the confirmation says so
A mis-pick is ours to fix, at our cost — Re-pick, re-ship and the carriage both ways. It is not credited against your invoice at the end of the quarter — it never reaches the invoice
Stock counts on an agreed cadence, plus counts you can call — Perpetual counting through the year and a full count at an agreed point. You can call an ad-hoc count on any line at any time at no charge
Shrinkage tolerance is written down as a number — Every warehouse has one. A provider claiming zero either has not measured or is not telling you, and neither is reassuring. Above the tolerance is credited
Damage in our care is credited at your cost price — Not at retail, and not after an argument about which. The basis is agreed at go-live so the only question later is the quantity