Tier at 1.0
The band table starts at half a kilogram because the billing step is 0.5 kg upward, so a 0.6 kg parcel and a 0.9 kg parcel pay the same first-kilogram fee. Our recorded first-kilogram fee was £8.40 on the lines we sampled, and the smallest billable unit is therefore £8.40 whatever the parcel weighs below 1.0 kg.
1. Round your chargeable weight up to the next 0.5 kg before reading any fee. 2. Compare the rounded figure against the band edges rather than against the scale weight. 3. If the parcel is 1.1 kg, check whether removing 150 g moves it back into the lower band.
Enter the carton dims in centimetres, divide the product by the divisor printed on the quote line, round up to the next 0.5 kg, then bill whichever figure is larger, scale weight or volumetric weight. The 1.0 kg boundary is where those readings first pull apart: a 22x25x10 cm carton measures 5,500 cubic centimetres, which bills 1.0 kg under divisor 6000 but 1.5 kg under divisor 5000, so half a kilo rides on one blank field. Recorded first weight on all six lines is £8.40, £8.40 per kg at 1.0 kg billed; the next rows we logged, 2 kg at £13.20 and 3 kg at £19.60, make the first kilo the dearest in the table. Three of our 12 rate reviews (Recorded, 2026-08-01 to 2026-10-02) carried no divisor, so their volumetric reading stays Not verified; price those builds on 5000, the cautious case, and request the scan-time dims before approving freight. Expect 8 to 19 days across the 24 UK lanes we tracked in the same window, the 8-day median on a four-parcel lane and the 19-day median on a three-parcel lane (Recorded).
Tier at 2.0
Above the first kilogram the increments are linear within a band, and ours ran at £4.80 per kilogram up to 2.0 kg. A 2.0 kg parcel billed at £13.20, which is £6.60 per kilogram, and the per-kilogram figure falls every time you move up a tier without crossing into the next one.
1. Multiply the increment rate by the extra kilograms above 1.0 kg. 2. Add the first-kilogram fee. 3. Compare the result against the next tier's fee at its lowest weight, because the jump is where the money goes.
Compare rows only inside one lane: take the row price, divide it by the billed weight we recorded, and keep the lane name and review date beside the result. In our 12 reviews (Recorded, 2026-08-01 to 2026-10-02) the step from 2 kg at £13.20 to 3 kg at £19.60 costs £6.40 for that extra kilo, while the first kilo stands at £8.40; the 3.8 kg row on the same table reads £26.40. Our £120 self-purchase ledger billed 3.8 kg and shipped for £20.00, or £5.26 per kg, on a lane whose row price we never captured: same billed weight, different lane, different per-kilo figure, so keep the lane label in the note. 1. Write goods, freight, service fee, packaging and settlement as separate lines. 2. Restate the service fee rule before you trust the total. 3. If a line is missing, hold the comparison. That build settled at £108.34 against £84.60 of goods, freight £20.00, a £6.13 service fee at 6% of goods plus domestic freight, £3.50 packaging, domestic legs ¥12 and ¥8 (all Recorded). If a lane changes after payment, request its new row price before the parcel moves.
Tier at 3.0
The third tier is where the increments start to ease: £5.80 per kilogram up to 3.0 kg, so a 3.0 kg parcel bills at £19.60 and the effective rate falls to £6.53 per kilogram. Volumetric weight starts to matter here more than at the lighter tiers, because a bulky 2.5 kg parcel can reach 5.5 kg on the volume row alone.
1. Measure the carton before weighing the contents. 2. Compute the volumetric figure at your line's divisor. 3. If volume beats scale by more than 1.0 kg, re-box rather than accept the tier.
Compute both divisor results before you accept a quote. Take a 40x30x25 cm carton at 30,000 cubic centimetres: divisor 6000 bills 5.0 kg exactly, divisor 5000 bills 6.0 kg, and because we round up to the next 0.5 kg the second reading lands on the row we recorded at £34.80. 1. Multiply length, width and depth in centimetres. 2. Divide by 5000, 6000 and 8000 in turn. 3. Round every answer up to 0.5 kg. 4. Bill the greater of the largest result and the scale weight. Recorded rows show £31.80 at 5.1 kg against £34.80 at 6 kg, so 0.9 kg of extra load costs £3.00 here, yet 8 kg and 8.5 kg both read £43.60: the table moves in 0.5 kg steps and some neighbouring rows carry the same figure. Shave 5 cm off that carton's depth and the 5000 reading falls from 6.0 kg to 5.0 kg exactly (Recorded). If a re-shoot is needed for dims, name the carton and the missing measurement in writing; explicit requests drew 6-hour replies, vague ones roughly 2 days (Recorded, 6 re-shoot entries).
Tier at 5.0
This is the widest band on the lines we recorded. A 3.8 kg chargeable parcel billed at £26.40, an effective £6.95 per kilogram, and a 4.9 kg parcel billed at the same £26.40 because the band edge sits at 5.0 kg. Two parcels of very different weight paying one fee is the defining feature of band pricing, and it also means the tier is the best value on the table at its top end.
1. Fix the exact weight at which your tier ends. 2. Work out how many grams of headroom you have. 3. Use the headroom deliberately, because 4.9 kg and 3.1 kg cost the same.
Book heavy consolidations against rows, not against an average. Recorded rows put 10 kg and 11.5 kg on the same £54.60, so 1.5 kg of extra load carried no extra freight at those steps; divided by billed weight, the 11.5 kg case works out at £4.75 per kg against £8.40 for the first kilo, and a 14 kg quote from our sample followed the same tier structure. 1. Ask for the row price at your planned billed weight. 2. Ask again for the next boundary above it. 3. Compare the two before you consolidate. When the next boundary is more than 3 kg away, fill the carton; when it is closer, hold weight back or split. Watch rate creep, because 4 of our 12 reviews (Recorded, 2026-08-01 to 2026-10-02) showed a first-weight rise on a lane we had already priced, the largest +£1.60, which makes any quote older than one review cycle Not verified for budgeting. Volume also drives the row at this size: a 50x40x30 cm master carton is 60,000 cubic centimetres, billing 12.0 kg under divisor 5000 and 10.0 kg under 6000 (Recorded).
Time the money as carefully as the weight. Recorded credit events in the window number 14, with 9 landing inside 3 days and the slowest at 11 days, so a £1.60 first-weight correction is not a same-week refund; two promotional codes were refused inside the same window with no reason we could verify, so treat code value as Not verified and price the build without it. Our three self-purchase ledgers settled at £108.34, £48.75 and £167.93 (Recorded). Storage bites hardest above 10 kg: with the free window counted from the inbound scan, Community-reported charges of £0.20 per item per day fell on 8 of our 24 parcels for 1 to 14 days, the longest adding about £2.80 per item. 1. Read the inbound scan date before approving a heavy consolidation. 2. If the free window closes within 7 days, ship as one carton. QC logged 23 flags across 85 curated entries, split 11 label, 6 edge or border of which 5 were lighting artefacts, 4 hardware and 2 stitching (Recorded); hardware flags are the ones worth a second look on heavy parcels.
Tier at 8.0
Crossing into the fifth tier adds £5.40 to the bill in one step, from £26.40 at 4.9 kg to £31.80 at 5.1 kg. Our recorded £61.50 quote sat in this tier for a 6.8 kg parcel, an effective £9.04 per kilogram, which is higher than the lighter tiers because the increment rate rises rather than falls.
1. Check the gap to the previous tier before you add anything to a parcel near 5.0 kg. 2. If the addition is worth less than £5.40, leave it out or move it to a separate parcel. 3. Re-measure after any change, because the band edge applies to the chargeable figure rather than to the scale weight.
Tier at 10.0
The heaviest recorded tier runs from 8.0 kg to 10.0 kg and billed £54.60 at the top, an effective £5.46 per kilogram. The rate per kilogram is the lowest in the table, and the risk per parcel is the highest, because one damaged carton at this weight contains the whole of a haul.
1. Compare the tier fee against splitting into two parcels at £26.40 each. 2. Choose the split when the fee difference is under £2.00, because two parcels also give you two insurance positions. 3. Choose the single parcel when the goods are cheap and the deadline is tight.
Boundaries, not midpoints
Every number in this article is a band edge rather than an average, and the averages hide where the money moves. Across 6 lines and 9 weight bands from 0.5 kg to 10.0 kg, the tier boundaries sat at 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10 kg, so a parcel at 4.9 kg and a parcel at 5.1 kg differ by £5.40 while two parcels at 3.1 kg and 4.9 kg differ by nothing at all.
1. Write the boundary weights beside your own order before you settle. 2. Treat every 200 g near a boundary as a priced decision. 3. Re-run the calculation whenever the carton changes, because the boundary applies to the chargeable figure, not to the item.
The data point behind this note
On the recorded band table from 6 lines with boundaries at 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10 kg, a parcel at 4.9 kg and one at 3.1 kg both billed £26.40 while a 5.1 kg parcel billed £31.80 — a £5.40 step for 200 g (Recorded).
Rates last checked 2026-10-02. Where a figure is community-reported we say so; where we could not verify it, we write Not verified instead of estimating.