DHL vs DPD vs GLS in Europe: 2026 prices by country

DHL, DPD and GLS are the three names a European web shop meets first, and it is tempting to pick one and use it everywhere. Each of the three is strong in some countries and absent in others, and the cheapest of them in Germany is not necessarily the cheapest one next door.

All figures are our own, measured on 29 September 2026 on the live shipping options page: a small parcel (up to 5 kg, 35 × 25 × 15 cm), the carrier’s cheapest service, the delivery time the page states. They include our €0.85 platform fee, which is the same for every carrier, so the differences are the carriers’ own.

Which is cheaper, DHL, DPD or GLS, in each country? #

Read the dashes as carefully as the prices. In Austria the choice is not between these three at all; it is GLS against Österreichische Post, which charged €7.91 to the door and to a post office on the same day. In Spain, Italy and Sweden DHL is the only one of the three we can book domestically, and in Italy it is not the cheap option: Poste Italiane was €5.24 to a shop and InPost €4.46 locker to locker.

Germany: the only country where all three compete #

Germany is the fair test: all three have a domestic service on our map, and the spread is widest. The table adds the two larger sizes, because the ranking changes less than the gap does.

Three things follow. DPD charged the same for a small and a medium parcel, so it is the obvious default for anything up to 10 kg. GLS was the most expensive of the three but the only one stating next-day delivery, which is worth something for a customer who paid for speed. And DHL, the brand German customers know best, cost €3.72 more than DPD per small parcel — roughly €372 per hundred orders — for the same stated delivery time.

One German peculiarity from the pickup point vs home delivery comparison: none of the three offers a pickup-point delivery on our German rate card; they all deliver to the door. Only UPS delivers to an Access Point. The full picture for the German market is in ship to Germany without a German warehouse.

DPD or DHL in the Netherlands? #

GLS is not on our Dutch rate card, so here it is DPD against DHL — and against PostNL, which most Dutch customers get by default. DPD was cheapest to a point at €6.85, but the page stated up to 4 working days for that service; DPD to the door cost €7.85 within 2 days. DHL’s For You Dropoff cost €8.38 and stated next day. PostNL sat in between at €7.84 to a point and €8.12 to the door, also next day. For a shop that sells mostly in the Netherlands the real question is PostNL or DHL, which we compare separately in PostNL vs DHL in the Netherlands.

Belgium, Czechia and Poland: DPD against the locals #

In Belgium DPD is the only one of the three on our map, at €6.88 to a service point with next-day delivery. It is not the cheapest carrier in the country: Mondial Relay charged €5.38 to a point (3 days) and bpost €6.29 to a point (next day).

In Czechia it is DPD against GLS. GLS was cheaper to a point (€3.12, about Kč 76, against €4.66), DPD cheaper to the door (€5.30, about Kč 129, against €5.61). Both stated next day. Balíkovna was the cheapest service overall at €3.07, about Kč 75, to a point.

In Poland DPD competes with Poczta Polska, ORLEN Paczka and InPost. To a point DPD was the cheapest service we measured, at €3.32 (about zł 14.49); to the door it was the most expensive of the domestic options at €5.57 (about zł 24.31), where Poczta Polska charged €3.52 (about zł 15.37).

What does crossing a border cost with each? #

Many shops use DHL, DPD or GLS because they ship from one country to many. These are the cross-border small-parcel prices from Germany and the Netherlands, measured the same day.

DPD is again the cheapest of the three on every route where it appears, but the more useful comparison is with the domestic row. A DPD small parcel from Germany to Austria cost €12.10; the same size inside Austria with GLS cost €8.48 and with Österreichische Post €7.91. From Germany to the Netherlands DHL cost €20.29, while DHL inside the Netherlands cost €8.38. The border is where most of the money goes, whichever brand is on the label. Our European shipping rates index shows that pattern for every country at 2, 5 and 10 kg.

Who is behind DHL, DPD and GLS? #

• DHL — in the Benelux the parcel business is DHL eCommerce Benelux, formerly DHL Parcel Benelux, part of DHL Group. In Germany it is DHL Paket.
• DPD — part of Geopost, which also runs Chronopost, SEUR, BRT, Speedy and Jadlog. DPD Netherlands states 2,760 pickup points in the Netherlands and 150,000 in Europe. That explains the gaps on our map: in Spain the Geopost brand is SEUR (€6.50 to a shop on our rate card), in France our map carries Chronopost.
• GLS — a subsidiary of International Distributions Services, formerly Royal Mail Group, covering more than 50 countries with 99,600 parcel shops and 36,000 lockers according to GLS itself. On our map it is domestic in Germany, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia and Denmark.

Which one should you choose? #

• ✓Germany: DPD as default up to 10 kg; GLS when the customer paid for next day.
• ✓Netherlands: DPD to the door if 2 days is fine; PostNL or DHL when next day matters.
• ✓Austria, Slovakia and Denmark: GLS is the one of the three you can book — compare it with the national post first.
• ✓Czechia: GLS to a point, DPD to the door.
• ✕One carrier for all of Europe. On our map none of the three is domestic in more than 8 of the 14 countries where one of them appears.
• ✕Shipping cross-border because the brand is the same. A German DHL label to the Netherlands cost more than twice a Dutch DHL label.

How AirPost fits in #

With local fulfilment through AirPost, a verified person in your customer’s country holds a batch of your stock and ships each order as a domestic parcel. You choose the service per product and destination country — DPD in Germany, GLS in Austria, whatever the table says — and we buy the cheapest label within that choice. You pay the label, the fee you agree with your sender and our €0.85 platform fee per parcel; no subscription, no storage costs. How far that brings your average shipping cost down is worked out in parcel shipping costs in Europe.