How much can you earn packing parcels from home?

Most pages answering this question do not answer it. They list "up to" figures with no method behind them, or they are job boards with nothing to fill the vacancy.

So here is the arithmetic, with every number taken from the same place the app takes it. What you are paid, what comes off, what is left per month and per year, and where the work exists at all.

How are you paid? #

A sender sets their own fee per parcel, per size. What the platform recommends is what most people charge, and it scales with the work rather than with the value of the goods.

The jump at the top is deliberate. A flat fee for every size means someone accepts a 30 kg box for the price of an envelope, and that is the version of this work that people quit.

Where does the money come from? A shop pays three things per parcel, and your fee is one of them.

What does that come to per month? #

Four weeks to a month — not 4.33, because a figure you actually reach beats one that disappoints every month. These are net figures: the 3% platform commission has already come off.

The third figure is the one to be careful with. 250 parcels a week is not a side income, it is close to a part-time job, and it only happens if the order volume in your area is actually there.

The first two are what most people do. Use the middle row if you want to know whether this is worth your time, not the bottom one.

What comes off? #

• A platform commission of 3% on your payout. That is the only deduction, and the figures above already include it.
• A minimum payout of €10.00. Below that the balance stays in your account and rolls on.
• A hold of 3 days after handover before an amount becomes payable, so a parcel that turns out to have gone wrong can still be corrected.

No subscription, no listing fee, no charge for the shipping label. The label is bought and paid for by the shop.

The commission is a percentage of the payout rather than a fixed amount per parcel on purpose. A flat fee would hit a €1.50 letterbox parcel far harder than a 30 kg box, and the letterbox parcel is where there is least to earn.

What does it cost you in time? #

Packing a parcel takes three to five minutes once you have done a few: pick the item, box it, print the label, stick it on.

The drop-off is one trip a week rather than one per parcel, because it fits into a trip you were making anyway. At 50 parcels a week that is roughly three hours of work plus one trip.

Whether the hourly figure that implies is good depends entirely on what else you would be doing with those three hours. For most people the answer is that they were margins of the day that produced nothing.

How much space do you need? #

Space matters more than people expect, and it is a more common reason to stop than the rate is.

What do you need, and what do you not? #

• ✓A printer for the labels — ordinary paper is fine.
• ✓A dry place to put a box, out of the sun and out of the way.
• ✓A one-off identity check with passport and selfie.
• ✓A payout account in your own name.
• ✕No money up front. No deposit, no subscription, no postage to advance.
• ✕No company registration to get started.
• ✕No fixed hours — you accept the requests you want and skip the rest.
• ✕No equipment beyond the printer and the shelf.

That identity gate is the reason this is not the work-from-home offer that finds you in your inbox. Why that distinction matters is set out in Is packing parcels from home a scam?. The full list — what you need, what you do not, and the nine sign-up steps — is in what you need to pack parcels from home.

How do you start? #

1. 1

   Create an account and pass the identity check

   Passport or ID and a selfie, once. Without it you cannot receive stock — that is a hard limit, not a recommendation.

2. 2

   Set your rate and your sizes

   Choose which parcel sizes you accept and what you charge for each. Start at the recommendation; adjust once you know how long a parcel really takes you.

3. 3

   Add a payout account in your own name

   An account belonging to somebody else is refused. That is exactly the check a reshipping scheme cannot pass.

4. 4

   Reply to a shop near you

   You agree which products are coming, how many boxes that is, and how long the batch will sit with you. If it does not fit in your cupboard, say so before the box is sent.

5. 5

   Pack the orders and drop them off

   Print the label, pack, and go to the service point when it suits you. One trip a week is enough as long as you stay inside the agreed handover time.

6. 6

   Withdraw your balance

   Your fee is booked at handover and becomes payable after 3 days. From €10.00 you can request a payout; below that the balance rolls on.

What about tax? #

What you earn here is taxable income in every country we operate in. How it is taxed differs: some countries have a small-earnings allowance, some require you to register as self-employed above a certain amount, some treat it as miscellaneous income you simply declare.

Because of that, this article deliberately gives no thresholds. A figure that is correct in the Netherlands is wrong in Spain, and a wrong figure about tax is worse than none.

What we can give you is the number itself. At 20 parcels a week on letterbox rates that is roughly €1,397 a year, at 50 parcels roughly €3,492 — the amount that appears on your yearly overview and that your tax authority will ask about.

Where does this work at all? #

Not in every country we list. This work needs two things in your country: a domestic shipping service at a price a shop will actually pay, and somewhere nearby to drop the parcel off.

Some countries have both, and some have neither today. The table below is refreshed from the live rate card rather than written by hand.

A country missing from that table is one where there is nothing to pack yet — not a country where it is expensive. The list can change without this article being rewritten.

When is this not for you? #

• You have no space that can stay free for a few weeks.
• You want a guaranteed amount each month. This is not that: if no shop near you needs a packer this month, you earn nothing.
• You live far from a service point and would make a separate trip for it. Then the travel time eats the fee.
• You are looking for a salary. This is a supplement, and anyone telling you otherwise about work you do in the margins of your day is selling something.

The honest summary: at a shelf in a cupboard this is a phone bill, at a spare room it is a real monthly amount, and at neither is it a salary. It is money you earn in time that was not earning anything.