Singapore's last-mile delivery market will hit US$14.5 billion in 2026 and nearly double to US$25.6 billion by 2031, according to Mordor Intelligence. Every dollar of that growth lands on a business P&L somewhere, and most enterprises cannot say exactly where theirs goes.
Last-mile delivery costs Singapore enterprises S$3 to S$20 per parcel before overheads
The market rate for moving one parcel across Singapore spans a 6x range. What you pay depends almost entirely on speed, not distance.
Industry pricing data from Singapore delivery platforms puts standard 1-to-3-day delivery at roughly S$2.50 to S$4.50 per parcel, same-day on-demand at S$7 to S$12, and express 1-to-2-hour runs at S$12 to S$18. These are the outsourced rates an enterprise pays a courier, and they already absorb the courier's labour, vehicle and routing costs.
One catch: those brackets buy a standard-size parcel, typically capped around 30kg with volumetric weight rules. Once an item needs a van rather than a parcel network, pricing switches to per trip and starts far higher. A 1.7m van runs S$26 plus S$0.50 per km with S$8 per extra stop, per Lalamove's official Singapore pricing page (2026), and comparable van bookings at GrabExpress and GoGoX start around S$25 to S$39 base before distance and stop fees.
That per-parcel fee is only the visible layer. Capgemini Research Institute data shows last-mile delivery now consumes 53% of total shipping costs, up from 41% in 2018, which means the final few kilometres cost more than warehousing, sorting and line-haul combined. We break down what that means for what sellers actually pay per delivery in Singapore in a separate piece.
To understand your pure cost, you have to look underneath the courier invoice at what delivery actually costs to produce. That starts with people.
Labour is half the cost: one in-house driver runs past S$3,000 a month
Labour is the single largest component of last-mile delivery, at roughly 50% of total cost according to 2025 SmartRoutes industry data. If you run deliveries in-house, that cost sits on your payroll.
A full-time delivery driver in Singapore earns S$2,000 to S$2,800 a month depending on experience and vehicle type, based on Lalamove Singapore's hiring guide, with Indeed placing the 2025 average at S$2,343 and van driver roles closer to S$2,602. On top of base salary, the employer pays CPF contributions of 17% for most working-age employees, which adds roughly S$400 a month on a mid-range salary.
The number that hurts is not the salary itself. It is the downtime. You pay the same S$3,000-plus whether the driver completes 40 stops or 4, and demand in most businesses is lumpy: heavy on campaign days, quiet midweek. Every idle hour is pure cost with zero parcels against it.
Before adding headcount for delivery, price the quiet days, not the peak days. Then add the vehicle underneath that driver.
The vehicle stack adds S$1,600 to S$2,000 a month per van
A driver is useless without a van, and in Singapore the van is a uniquely expensive asset. A Category C COE for goods vehicles closed around S$93,000 in mid-2026 bidding, per LTA results tracked by Motorist Singapore, before you have paid for the vehicle itself.
Most enterprises sidestep the COE by leasing. Long-term commercial van rental in Singapore runs S$1,300 to S$1,700 a month with insurance and maintenance typically bundled, based on 2026 rates from leasing providers like ABLINK. Diesel vans average around 14km per litre, putting fuel at S$150 to S$200 a month for a typical 2,000km of urban routes, before parking fees and ERP charges. If you are weighing ownership instead, our electric versus petrol delivery van cost comparison runs the full 5-year numbers.
Put the stack together for one in-house van and driver:
In-house delivery van (monthly, pure costs)
- Driver salary (mid-range): S$2,400
- Employer CPF at 17%: S$408
- Van lease with insurance and maintenance: S$1,500
- Diesel for 2,000km: S$180
- Parking, ERP and incidentals: S$150
- Total: roughly S$4,640 per month
Now divide by volume. At 400 parcels a month, that is S$11.60 per parcel. At 800, it drops to S$5.80. The cost per parcel is not set by the market. It is set by how full your van is.
Failed deliveries add S$17 per parcel in pure waste
Every parcel that does not land on the first attempt roughly doubles its own delivery cost. The van still drove there. The driver still spent the time. Nothing was delivered.
A Loqate study put the average cost of a failed first-attempt delivery at S$17.20 per parcel globally, covering the repeat trip, customer service handling and rescheduling. Industry data puts first-attempt failure rates at 8% or higher for e-commerce parcels.
Run that against an enterprise doing 2,000 parcels a month. An 8% failure rate means 160 failed attempts, which is over S$2,700 a month in pure waste before counting the customers who do not come back. Failure clusters around missed time windows and recipients not being home, which is why tighter same-day windows fail less often than vague next-day promises.
Whatever delivery model you choose, first-attempt success rate belongs on your cost dashboard next to price per parcel.
Match your delivery model to your real volume, not your peak
The pure-cost math points to a simple rule: own the capacity you fill every day, and buy the rest per parcel. An in-house van only beats outsourced rates when it runs consistently full, which for most Singapore enterprises means 30 to 40 stops a day, every working day.
Below that, buying capacity by the block wins because you convert a S$4,600 fixed monthly cost into a variable one that scales to zero on quiet days. The trap is paying on-demand rates one parcel at a time when your orders could ride one route, the same solo-parcel penalty we cover in why home businesses pay more for delivery than enterprises. Block pricing is where the economics flip, because you buy a driver and a van for a fixed half-day or full-day and spread that cost across every stop you load onto the route, which is exactly how man-and-van and multi-stop delivery work.
BoxPls provides half-day support from $165 and full-day support from $299, depending on your business needs. No contracts, self-serve booking, on-demand across Singapore. We run your deliveries like we are part of your business. A 5% platform service fee applies at checkout, shown before you pay. This block model arrived with the August 2026 BoxPls restructure.
That is the same lever in-house fleets pull. A full day at S$299 across 20 drops is about S$14.95 per drop; push it to 30 drops and it falls to about S$9.97. Your per-drop cost is set by how densely you batch, not by a per-parcel rate card, and you carry none of the fixed fleet cost. Compare those numbers against your own cost per parcel from the breakdown above, and the right model for your volume becomes obvious.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does last-mile delivery actually cost a business in Singapore?
Outsourced rates run about S$2.50 to S$4.50 per parcel for standard delivery, S$7 to S$12 for same-day and S$12 to S$18 for express, based on Singapore platform pricing data. Those brackets apply to standard-size parcels; items that need a van are priced per trip instead, from about S$25 to S$39 base plus distance and per-stop fees. Producing delivery in-house costs roughly S$4,600 a month per van and driver, so the in-house cost per parcel depends entirely on how many stops that van completes.
How much does an in-house delivery driver cost beyond base salary?
Base salary of S$2,000 to S$2,800 is only the start, because employer CPF adds 17% on top, roughly S$400 a month at mid-range pay. Overtime, bonuses and paid downtime on quiet days push the true monthly cost of one driver past S$3,000 before any vehicle expense.
Is it cheaper to lease or buy a delivery van in Singapore?
Leasing at S$1,300 to S$1,700 a month usually wins for fleets under five vehicles, because it bundles insurance and maintenance and avoids a Category C COE that reached around S$93,000 in 2026. Buying only pays off with high daily utilisation over the full 10-year COE life, and the fuel type you pick changes the math further.
Wouldn't a large enterprise always save money running its own fleet?
Only when the fleet runs consistently full, which means roughly 30 to 40 stops per van every working day. Below that utilisation, the fixed S$4,600 monthly cost per van produces a higher per-parcel cost than outsourced rates, which is why many large retailers use hybrid models that flex overflow volume to couriers.
How can a business cut per-parcel delivery costs without hiring drivers?
Buying a driver and a van by the block spreads one driver and one vehicle across every stop, which is the same lever that makes in-house fleets efficient, without the fixed cost. BoxPls provides half-day support from S$165 and full-day support from S$299 across Singapore, so a full day loaded with 20 drops works out to about S$14.95 per drop, with a 5% platform service fee shown before you pay.
