Fourteen agents ranked by fee transparency, not by

Start with the number that matters: Documentation-completeness scores across five weighted dimensions, not a price ranking. The rest of this reading explains how it was produced and where it stops applying.

How the agents differ

Eleven agents appear in the source catalogue. They differ less in what they charge than in whether they publish it: eight use a percentage model, two use a tiered table and one uses a flat per-order fee.

Effective service fee at three order values
Order value	Percentage model	Flat model	Tiered model
$60	$1.80–$4.80	$5.00	$2.40
$200	$6.00–$16.00	$5.00	$8.00
$600	$18.00–$48.00	$5.00	$21.00

Modelled from each agent’s published model. The flat model wins below about $170 and loses above it.

Storage terms vary more in when the clock starts than in how long it runs. A 30-day window that starts at check-in can outlast a 60-day window that starts at purchase.

Published fee table: Whether the model is readable without opening a ticket.
Storage clock start: Check-in or purchase — a week of difference.
Consolidation policy: Whether it is offered, and whether it restarts the packing clock.
Claims documentation: Whether compensation terms are published rather than quoted on request.

Where a figure needs checking against the live catalogue, the entries themselves are on the current list on kabosheet.

Economy against express, held constant

Comparing lanes only means something if the parcel is held constant. One parcel, one weight band at a time, one item mix — anything else is a different question with a different answer.

Economy against express, US lane
Weight band	Economy	Express	Difference
1.5 kg	$5.90–$9.40	$11.40–$17.20	+$5.50
3 kg	$9.20–$15.10	$17.10–$26.40	+$7.90
5 kg	$14.80–$24.30	$25.30–$39.70	+$10.50
8 kg	$22.60–$36.90	$36.20–$57.10	+$13.60
12 kg	$31.40–$52.80	$48.90–$78.40	+$17.50

Modelled from published tariffs on the collection date.

Express buys eight days at 1.5 kg and seven at 8 kg, for two and a half times the money. That is the entire case for choosing on weight rather than on urgency.

At 1.5 kg: About $0.69 per day saved — a deadline makes this obvious.
At 8 kg: About $1.94 per day saved — a different week is the better lever.
At 12 kg: About $2.50 per day saved — a second parcel or a later date wins.

The bill, segment by segment

Six segments make up the landed cost, and only the first is the item itself. For a headwear order in our sample the average item value is $19.40, against $7.50 to $74.40 of everything else. That ratio is the single most useful number in this reading.

The six segments, with their sample ranges
Segment	Range	What moves it
Item value	$12.52–$168.48	Catalogue mix
Domestic delivery	$0.40–$3.10	Weight band
Service fee	$1.20–$9.80	Fee model, order value
International freight	$5.90–$9.40 at light (< 0.8 kg)	Billed weight, lane
Duty	$0.00–$17.40	Declared value, destination
Insurance	$0.00–$2.60	Declared value; optional

Item value is a published figure read from the source listings. The other five are modelled ranges and are labelled as such wherever they appear.

Read the table by column, not by row: the segments with the widest ranges are the ones worth spending attention on, and the widest by a factor of three is international freight.

What each budget actually lands

Budget bands behave differently because fixed and variable costs swap places as the order grows. At $150 the fixed components dominate; at $900 the item mix does.

The three budget rungs
Budget	Items	Dominant segment	Main risk
$150	3–5	Fixed costs	One heavy item moves the whole order a band
$400	6–10	Freight	Declaration accuracy and the 8 kg boundary
$900	12–20	Item value	Handling tier boundary; splitting becomes cheaper

Ranges derived from the census distributions, not from individual orders.

At the bottom rung, adding a fourth item often costs less than the freight you would pay to ship it separately. At the top rung, adding a fifteenth item can cost more than the item.

At $150: One seller, one parcel, no express. Consolidation has nothing to consolidate.
At $400: Consolidate, and confirm the declaration before paying freight.
At $900: Plan two parcels from the start rather than discovering the tier boundary.

Seasonality, month by month

Freight moves about 40% between the cheapest month and the most expensive, and transit moves about 75%. The transit movement is larger than the freight movement, which is the opposite of what most buyers plan for.

Twelve months, freight and transit medians
Month	Median freight	Median transit	Window state
Jan	$9.80	18 days	Open
Feb	$10.40	21 days	Tight — origin holiday
Mar–Jun	$9.10–$9.60	16–18 days	Open
Jul	$9.50	18 days	Tight — EU network
Aug	$11.20	22 days	Surcharge begins
Sep	$10.80	21 days	Surcharge
Oct	$12.60	26 days	Surcharge plus delay
Nov	$12.90	25 days	Surcharge
Dec	$11.80	28 days	Tight — cut-off

Medians across the sample. Monthly splits are small in some cells and are shown for shape rather than precision.

If you can move a shipment by three weeks, the cheapest month and the most expensive month differ by more than the express premium. Timing is a bigger lever than lane.

Why storage and insurance share a figure

Both clauses are anchored to the declared value. Storage is charged against an item you have not yet shipped; the insurance ceiling is set by the value you declared. Raising one without the other creates a gap that only appears when something goes wrong.

Storage and insurance at three declared values
Declared value	Premium range	Compensation ceiling	Verdict
$40	$0.00–$0.80	$40	Not worth insuring
$120	$0.60–$2.40	$120	Marginal
$400	$2.00–$8.00	$400	Worth insuring

Premium from published carrier rates; break-even from the loss-probability model in the insurance tool.

Deadlines decide more claims than ceilings do. A parcel left unopened for nine days can lose a valid claim under a seven-day term, which is a worse outcome than a low declared value.

Check which clock start applies before relying on a storage deadline.
Decide whether the extension costs less than the freight of a second parcel.
Photograph the parcel before opening it, on the day it arrives.

The vocabulary, defined once

Most confusion in this subject comes from four terms used interchangeably: billed weight, scale weight, rehearsal and consolidation. They describe different things and cost different amounts.

Landed cost: Item plus domestic delivery plus service fee plus freight plus duty plus insurance. Six segments, not one.
Billed weight: The greater of scale weight and volumetric weight. What the tariff applies to.
Volumetric weight: Volume in cubic centimetres divided by a divisor, usually 5000.
Rehearsal: Packing the parcel before the international payment so freight can be quoted on packed dimensions.
Consolidation: Combining parcels from several sellers into one shipment. Not the same as packing.
QC: Photographs taken at the warehouse before shipping; a separate step from rehearsal.

Each misuse has a cost attached. Treating billed weight as scale weight understates freight on every bulky parcel; treating consolidation as packing overstates the saving available.

Billed weight ≠ scale weight.
Consolidation ≠ packing.
Rehearsal ≠ QC.
Landed cost ≠ item price + freight.

Ownership at each handoff

Eight handoffs separate payment from delivery, and each has a nominal owner. One of them — the QC verdict — has no owner at all: the warehouse takes the photographs and you decide what they mean.

Payment to seller: Agent owns the transaction; you own the accuracy of the buy request.
Seller to warehouse: Seller owns dispatch; agent owns follow-up.
Check-in: Warehouse owns registration; the storage clock starts here at some agents.
QC: Shared and therefore ambiguous — the only genuinely unowned step.
Packing: Warehouse owns dimensions; you own the consolidation instruction.
Export: Agent owns documentation; you own supplying complete details.
Clearance: Carrier owns the filing; you own the declaration.
Last mile: Carrier owns delivery; you own address accuracy.

Tail risk concentrates at the seller, the clearance desk and the doorstep. Two of the three are entirely within your control before you pay.

Median and p90 at the three longest handoffs
Handoff	Median	p90	Tail cause
Seller to warehouse	3 days	8 days	Seller does not confirm
Import clearance	2 days	9 days	Random inspection
Last mile	5 days	15 days	Failed delivery attempt

From the 96-order sample.

What this reading rests on

Everything here traces to one of three sources and carries a collection date. Item prices are published figures read on 2026-10-05; freight and duty are modelled from published terms; transit figures are measured from order timestamps.

Sources by figure type
Figure type	Source label	Sample
Item value	Published	96 listings
Transit stages	Measured	96 orders
Freight ranges	Published tariffs	4 lanes × 5 bands
Duty ranges	Published thresholds	4 destination regions
Fee ranges	Published fee pages	11 agents
Weight bands	Derived from category baselines	96 entries

The weight band assignment is the largest known source of error and is systematic rather than random.

Where a figure was unavailable we record “Not measured”. That is a deliberate choice: an empty cell is more useful than a plausible one, because it tells you where the uncertainty actually is.

Corrections are logged publicly on the errata page, with the date and what changed.

Fourteen agents ranked by fee transparency, not by hype