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Packing Slip Cost Calculator — Order Documentation Cost Per Shipment

Calculate order documentation cost per shipment. Packing slips, pick tickets, and inserts — and find the savings from switching to paperless fulfillment.

Quick answer: Paper packing slips cost $0.08–$0.25 each plus $0.15–$0.30 labour to print and insert. At 1,000 orders/day, that's $85,000–$200,000/year. Electronic packing slips cut this 60–80%.

📄 Packing Slip & Order Documentation Cost Calculator

Packing slip + pick ticket typically
Ink/toner + printer depreciation
Print, collate, fold, insert into box
Promotional flyers, return forms, etc.
Annual Documentation Cost
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Material Per Order
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Total Per Order
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How to Use This Calculator

  1. Enter daily order volume — average outbound orders fulfilled per day.
  2. Set document count — most operations print a packing slip (customer copy) and a pick ticket (warehouse copy) = 2 docs/order.
  3. Include labour time — time to print, collect from printer, fold, and insert into box. This is often the biggest cost component.

Worked Example

500 orders/day, 2 docs, $0.012 paper, $0.04 print, 18 sec labour, $18/hr, $0.08 inserts.

  1. Material/order: ($0.012 + $0.04) × 2 = $0.104
  2. Labour/order: 18/3600 × $18 = $0.09
  3. Inserts: $0.08
  4. Total/order: $0.274
  5. Annual: $34,250

Switching to electronic packing slips (QR code on box, digital email) saves ~$24,000/year at this volume. WMS systems like ShipStation or Extensiv include paperless packing slip modules.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes — increasingly common in e-commerce. Options: email PDF packing slip, QR code on shipping label linking to order details, or customer account portal. Some B2B customers still require paper for receiving. Check your customer mix before going fully paperless.

Pick ticket: internal warehouse document showing picker what to pick, from where, and in what quantity. Packing slip: customer-facing document showing what's in the box and order details. Many WMS systems combine them or generate separate documents per purpose. High-tech warehouses use voice picking or scan-to-pick eliminating paper pick tickets entirely.