How much does it cost to have your own warehouse for your online shop

Working out how much a warehouse of your own costs is the question that comes up when the living room, the box room or the small unit just can't take any more: orders go out late, stock doesn't add up and the founder spends afternoons wrestling with the packing tape. The short answer is that rent is only the start, and the real cost is measured in euros per order shipped, not euros per square metre.

Below you'll find each cost item one by one, a worked example with rough figures for a shop doing 600 orders a month, how storage cost is calculated, and when it pays off to set up your own unit versus outsourcing.

How much does your own warehouse cost for ecommerce

A warehouse of your own for an online shop doing 300 to 1,500 orders a month typically costs, as a rough guide, between 5,000 and 15,000 euros a month once you add up rent, staff, software, consumables and fit-out amortisation, plus an initial investment of 10,000 to 50,000 euros. Spread across your orders, at low volume the cost per order rockets.

The figures vary a lot depending on the region, product size, number of SKUs and seasonality. What matters is that most of that cost is fixed: you pay it just the same in a quiet February as in Black Friday week.

The space: rent, deposit and fit-out

A small or medium-sized online shop usually needs between 150 and 500 m², depending on how much stock it holds and how fast it turns over. Rental prices depend on the area, clear height (which determines how many shelving levels fit), lorry access and proximity to motorways. In industrial estates around major cities, the price per square metre can be double that of a smaller provincial capital; take that as an order of magnitude, not a rule.

On top of rent you need to add a deposit (usually two months or more), insurance, electricity, water, cleaning, maintenance, property tax passed on in some contracts, and an operating licence if the unit doesn't already have one. Then comes the fit-out:

• Shelving and racking, with anchoring and inspection.
• Packing tables, a goods-in area and a clearly marked dispatch area.
• Thermal printers, barcode scanners, scales and computers.
• Wifi that reaches every aisle (a classic problem: the scanner drops signal at the back of the unit).
• Pallet truck or stacker, alarm and CCTV.

That initial investment typically runs between 10,000 and 50,000 euros as a rough guide. If your product needs refrigeration, strict batch control or special security, it goes up.

There's also a sizing problem: if you rent for the Christmas peak, you pay for empty square metres ten months of the year; if you rent for average volume, in November the goods-in area can't cope. It's one of the signs that your logistics are overstretched that comes up most often.

Staff: the biggest line item

A warehouse doesn't run without people to receive, put away, pick, pack, dispatch, do stock counts and sort out issues. Even with low volume, holidays, sick leave and peaks force you to have more capacity than you actually use on an average Tuesday.

The cost of a person isn't just their gross salary: add employer social security contributions, training, health and safety, protective equipment and the unproductive time between tasks. As a rough guide, two or three warehouse operatives can add up to between 6,000 and 10,000 euros a month in employer cost, not counting whoever coordinates them.

And volume doesn't scale in a straight line. Picking 500 orders isn't five times picking 100 if product locations, picking routes and replenishment haven't been designed for it. Without wave picking and scanner-based validation, every extra order adds mistakes. We go into detail in our method for picking orders without errors.

Technology: WMS, integrations and labels

A spreadsheet will get you started, but it won't let you sell across several channels. If you sell on Shopify, WooCommerce or PrestaShop and also on a marketplace, you need stock to sync automatically, goods-in to be logged by SKU (and by batch where relevant), and every order to reach picking without anyone copying it out by hand.

That means a warehouse management system, connectors with your shop, a shipping label tool linked to your carriers, and someone to keep it all running. Monthly subscription fees are usually manageable; what's expensive is the setup and the day-to-day discipline. If system stock doesn't match what's on the shelf, your shop sells things you don't have, and the cost shows up as cancellations, complaints and reviews.

Set-up costs and paperwork

To sign a unit lease and hire staff you need to operate as a sole trader or as a limited company. Under Spain's Crea y Crece law, a limited company (SL) can be set up with share capital from just 1 euro, though you'll also need to budget for a notary, registration and an accountant, which as a rough guide come to a few hundred euros. On top of that come staff registration, a health and safety plan, and liability and goods-in-transit insurance.

Hidden costs of running your own logistics

What's visible goes into the budget. What gets forgotten is what ends up deciding whether the warehouse is profitable:

• Picking errors. The wrong item means a second shipment, collecting back the first one, customer service time and sometimes the entire product if it comes back damaged. A single error can eat the margin on several orders.
• Packaging. Boxes, void fill, tape, labels and inserts look like pennies until you multiply them by thousands of shipments and several box formats.
• Unnegotiated shipping rates. With a single carrier and low volume, you pay close to walk-in rates. Splitting shipments by destination and weight across carriers requires data, contracts and tracking.
• Returns. Receiving, checking and putting them back into stock takes time. If they pile up in a corner, that stock can't be sold.
• Tied-up capital. Deposits, shelving and equipment are money that isn't going into product, advertising or growth.
• Your time. If you spend two days a week chasing parcels or reconciling stock, you're not working on what actually grows the shop.

A worked example: a shop doing 600 orders a month

Picture a cosmetics and accessories shop with around 400 SKUs, 600 orders a month and small products. These figures are only indicative and are meant to illustrate the logic of the calculation:

• Rent for a roughly 250 m² unit including running costs: 1,800 euros a month.
• Two full-time operatives (employer cost): 5,800 euros a month.
• Warehouse software, labels and connectors: 300 euros a month.
• Electricity, insurance, cleaning and maintenance: 450 euros a month.
• Initial fit-out of 25,000 euros amortised over 5 years: around 420 euros a month.
• Packing consumables at around 0.80 euros per order: 480 euros a month.

Total: around 9,250 euros a month, not counting shipping or your own time. Divided across 600 orders, that comes to over 15 euros per order for warehousing and picking alone. If one month you only sell 400 orders, fixed costs barely drop and cost per order climbs above 22 euros. If you reach 1,200, it drops a lot, but you'll probably need a third person and more space.

That's the key point: your own warehouse gets cheaper with high, stable volume, and punishes the quiet months. If you want to break down every cost item for your own case, our guide to ecommerce logistics costs and how to cut them has the detail.

How much does storage cost and how is it calculated

Storage cost is what it costs you to keep goods in stock, regardless of whether they sell or not. It's calculated like this:

1. Add up the space costs for a month: rent, running costs, insurance and shelving amortisation.
2. Divide by the actual capacity used: per square metre, per shelf location or per pallet.
3. Assign each SKU the space it takes up. A product that sits on the shelf for six months costs far more to store than one that turns over weekly.
4. Add the cost of capital tied up in stock and shrinkage (expiry, breakage, obsolescence).

Always keep storage separate from order fulfilment (picking, packing and dispatch) and from shipping. That way you'll know which part grows with orders and which grows with stock. When outsourcing, it's usually charged per pallet or per location; we cover it in the article on pallet storage for ecommerce.

The 4 types of storage for an online shop

A practical way to classify them, based on who manages the space, is this:

• Your own warehouse. An owned or rented unit, with your own team. Maximum control and maximum fixed cost.
• Self storage. Small units rented by the month. Cheap for storing, but with limited access hours, no packing area and no daily carrier collections.
• Shared warehouse or logistics coworking. You rent space within a unit with shared services. You still do the picking and packing yourself.
• Logistics operator (3PL). They store, pick, ship and manage returns. You pay per use.

Self-storage units: how much they cost

A small self-storage unit can cost from a few tens of euros a month upwards, depending on size and city. It's useful for holding backup stock, but not for day-to-day operations: every order means a trip there. And if you're thinking of fitting out storage units yourself in a unit for your own use, the cost of partition walls, doors, access control and licensing can easily run into the tens of thousands of euros, depending on size: that's a property business, not a logistics solution.

When your own warehouse pays off (and when it doesn't)

It can make sense if several of these conditions apply:

• High, stable volume all year round, without peaks that double the workload.
• Very specific handling needs: assembly, personalisation, bulky products or special requirements.
• You already have the space or the equipment, and mature processes.
• Someone in the company with genuine hands-on warehouse experience.

It usually doesn't pay off if you sell between 100 and 2,000 orders a month with marked seasonality, if you have many SKUs across several channels, or if the founder ends up filling every gap. To decide calmly, have a look at when it's worth outsourcing ecommerce logistics.

Checklist before signing a lease on a unit

• Do you know your current cost per order including every line item?
• Have you worked out that cost for your quietest month and your peak month?
• Does the contract have a minimum term? What happens if in two years you need double the space?
• Who covers holidays and sick leave for the team?
• Do you have software that syncs stock across all your channels?
• Have you negotiated rates with more than one carrier?
• Who manages returns, and how many days do they take to get back into stock?

Fixed structure versus variable cost

Outsourcing turns the unit, the team and the software into a cost that rises and falls with your orders. The fair comparison isn't rent versus price per order, but total cost per order shipped in your real-world scenario, peaks and quiet months included.

At Furgox we see this every day from our 6,800 m² warehouse in Murcia: orders go out in under 24 hours, the carrier is chosen for each shipment based on destination and weight, and the brand sees stock, orders and returns in an included dashboard. There's no sign-up fee or minimum term; you pay for storage, picking per order and shipping according to each brand's volume and product. You can see everything included in our fulfilment services for online shops.

Frequently asked questions

How much does goods storage cost?

It depends on how much space your stock takes up, how long it sits in storage and the area. In your own warehouse you work it out by adding up rent, running costs and amortisation and spreading it per square metre or per pallet; a logistics operator usually charges per pallet or location occupied. What pushes the cost up most is stock that doesn't turn over.

How is storage cost calculated?

Add up all the monthly space costs (rent, utilities, insurance, amortised shelving) and divide by the capacity used, in square metres, locations or pallets. Then assign each SKU the space it takes up and how long it stays, and add the cost of tied-up capital and shrinkage.

What are the 4 types of storage?

For an online shop, the four usual models are your own warehouse, self storage, shared space within a unit, and a logistics operator or 3PL. They differ in how much control you have, how much fixed cost you take on, and who does the order picking.

How much does a self-storage unit cost?

A small self-storage unit can cost from a few tens of euros a month, depending on size and city. It's useful for holding backup stock, but not for picking orders daily: it has no packing area, has limited access hours, and carriers don't collect from there.

How much does it cost to set up a company to run a warehouse?

A limited company (SL) can be set up with share capital from 1 euro, and notary, registration and accountancy costs come to, as a rough guide, a few hundred euros. The expensive part isn't the company itself, but what comes after: the unit's deposit, fit-out, staff and insurance.

If after doing your own numbers you want to compare them against what outsourcing would cost, tell us your volume, your product and your destinations on Furgox's pricing page or book a demo of the service and we'll give you a fixed rate for your case.