Peak Season 2025 - Pricing Surcharges

Thank you for partnering with Flexport to power your logistics needs – we want to help you achieve your best Peak yet. 

From October through mid-January each year, as with most peak seasons, many of our carrier partners are adding peak surcharges to cover the additional equipment, trucks, and labor needed to manage the higher volume of packages through the holiday season. Carrier peak surcharges are rates per package that vary by package weight, zone, and/or your peak volume’s increase relative to non-peak volume. This year, there is a lot of variability by carrier, but they range from DHL’s $0.62 per package to UPS’s >$4.00 per package to Ontrac and UPS’s $105 Large Package peak surcharge. You can find published surcharges by carriers at their websites linked here: UPS, DHL, Ontrac, and USPS. 

But there is good news! We have worked hard to diversify our carrier mix and negotiate these surcharges on your behalf - as we know that keeping costs low is critical. In the table below, we outline the surcharges we will apply. While surcharges are unavoidable, we estimate that Flexport is saving merchants $0.5-$3 per order! If you were to self-ship with any of the large carriers your costs could be dramatically higher than what you see working with Flexport.

Below is a breakdown of the fees we will charge from October 15, 2025 through January 17, 2026. We will have one charge per order for unit based merchants, one charge per shipment for zone based pricing merchants. The charge varies based on weight, service level, and if you trigger carriers’ additional handling / large package surcharges. Unit based pricing merchants’ charges will be based on the total weight and size of the items in an order; zone based pricing merchants’ charges will be based on their package billable weight. We charge this way because our carrier selection depends on package weight and size. Peak fulfillment surcharges will appear as separate line items in your invoices.