In short
- The captured Irish small-parcel lane starts at €7.76 for home delivery and has no recipient-pickup entry. An Access Point product name alone does not establish collection by your customer.
- Compare the recipient delivery type, parcel eligibility and working-day estimate together.
- A sender dropping a parcel at a shop does not establish pickup by the customer.
- Use your own completed-order data to decide what customers prefer; the rate card measures available services.
- AirPost is a peer-to-peer fulfilment network: online shops have their orders packed and dropped at a parcel point by verified people near their customers, who earn a fee per parcel from home. No warehouse, no minimum order volume.
Quoted lane prices, with platform costs
This article uses the domestic lane page captured on 6 October 2026, rather than carrier-only index prices. The quoted amounts include the platform charge; the published platform fee is €0.85 per parcel. The preparation charge agreed with your sender is additional. Euro quotes, including platform costs. The displayed timing is a carrier estimate, not a delivery guarantee.
Which pickup and home options are quoted in Ireland?
| Listed small-parcel service | Recipient delivery | Captured price | Displayed transit estimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| An Post Standard | Home | €7.76 | Next working day |
| UPS Access Point™ to Privat | Home | €11.89 | Next working day |
| Recipient pickup | Not quoted | No price to compare | No estimate in this lane |
Ireland's small-parcel selection is labelled home delivery for both An Post Standard and UPS Access Point to Privat. The recorded amounts are €7.76 and €11.89 respectively. The cheaper of these two observations is home delivery, and the captured lane has no recipient-pickup product. Do not invent a pickup price simply because a parcel can be handed over at a shop.
The UPS wording is an example of why the delivery badge matters. Access Point in a service name can refer to the sender's handover, while to Privat points to the recipient address. In the captured page the product is explicitly home delivery. Your checkout should follow the recipient delivery type rather than using a familiar phrase as a shortcut.
What should the delivery choice mean in checkout?
A small Irish webshop selling craft supplies could use the recorded An Post home option for an eligible ordinary order. A customer who requests collection requires a genuinely supported collection product, not the street address of an arbitrary post office. The table identifies what was available in this snapshot; it does not say that recipient collection is impossible across Ireland.
Give the buyer a clear recipient outcome: collection at a chosen supported location or delivery to the stated home address. Keep the network and delivery instructions visible alongside the option. If the service is missing for a real parcel or postcode, do not leave it as an attractive checkout promise that requires manual substitution after payment.
How should I read the quoted delivery time?
Both captured small-parcel entries show a next-working-day estimate. That does not promise arrival the day after a shopper clicks pay. Preparation, the sender's handover and the accepted service conditions remain part of the complete order journey. Keep your storefront's dispatch statement separate from the carrier's transit estimate, especially around weekends and missed collection cutoffs.
Break the journey into payment, preparation, handover and carrier transit. Only the last part is described by the transport estimate in this table. A parcel that waits to be packed can miss the sender's handover without the carrier being late. State the dispatch expectation using your actual workflow, then check the purchased service's estimate for the recipient.
How do collection instructions affect the order?
An Post's receiving information discusses ways to manage deliveries and what happens when delivery cannot be completed. These are recipient processes, not a new price for a pickup product on AirPost's card. An attempted home delivery subsequently held for collection should not be advertised as though the customer originally purchased planned collection delivery.
Check what the recipient needs in order to collect: the actual location, notification, instructions and service-specific conditions. Avoid copying one network's identification process or collection deadline into another option. This article does not assign a universal holding period. Use the selected service's current recipient information and keep that information in the order confirmation.
Which local details need a separate quote?
Retain the recipient's accurate Irish address and postcode information when you request a final quote. The national small-parcel minimum cannot settle every exceptional destination or determine which address fields your selected carrier requires. A successful test to one ordinary address is useful evidence, but it is not proof that every address has identical eligibility.
The small-parcel category is a starting filter, not a complete acceptance rule. Outer dimensions, a locker compartment or an exceptional postcode can remove an option. If two services are not both eligible for the same parcel, their prices are not interchangeable alternatives. Record the rejected condition so the order does not repeatedly fall back to an unsuitable default.
What is the cost difference across 100 orders?
For an example batch of 100 eligible small parcels, the captured An Post observation totals €776.00 and the UPS observation totals €1,189.00. The difference is €413.00. This is a comparison of the two quoted home products, not the financial benefit of switching customers to a collection point. Keep that distinction in the budget and in customer-facing copy.
The extra label amount is only one side of a delivery decision. Also record uncollected shipments, additional transport, customer support time and any work needed to resend the order. Use actual invoices and completed-order records. The rate snapshot cannot predict those outcomes, and a saving on purchased labels alone does not prove a lower total cost per completed sale.
Can the rate card tell me what customers prefer?
No. It shows quoted products, not a survey or a checkout experiment. Keep the customer's chosen option when you offer more than one service, and compare similar products and eligible destinations. A shop selling urgent replacement parts can have a different delivery preference from a shop selling gifts. Present both options honestly before drawing a conclusion from your own data.
Separate preference from availability. If home is not quoted for a parcel, the customer's selection of pickup does not show that pickup was preferred over home. Equally, a home-only lane does not prove that collection would never be wanted. Keep unavailable options out of the preference calculation and report which alternatives buyers actually saw.
How do I choose a default without guessing?
Check an eligible parcel
Use the sealed weight and outer dimensions for a representative order. Confirm domestic origin and destination and test a real recipient postcode. Note whether the service actually delivers to a point, a locker or the address; do not infer this from the handover location.
Make the supported choice clear
Name the recipient delivery method and the network in the storefront. If a point service needs a selection, retain the selected location with the order. If the lane has only one delivery type, describe that limitation clearly rather than displaying an unpriced alternative.
Budget the completed order
Use the accepted quoted label amount and add the sender's preparation charge and materials. Keep optional collection and extra services separate. Record the cost of uncollected or resent parcels when it occurs, so a low starting label amount does not conceal a repeated operational problem.
Review comparable orders
Compare baskets with the same eligible parcel profile and destination conditions. Look at the options customers actually saw, the delivery they selected and the eventual outcome. Change your default when the evidence supports it, and request a fresh quote if the parcel or service conditions change.
The European pickup-versus-home guide gives the wider context. Read the related shipping budget guide for the country or cluster setup. The separate carrier-only index uses a different price basis; it should not be mixed with the fee-inclusive table in this article.
If you are budgeting outsourced preparation, compare the sender's actual offer through AirPost for webshops. Add that agreed amount to the matching label quote. Keep the quoted delivery method, dispatch arrangement and expected recipient experience together when evaluating the total order cost.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Is pickup cheaper than home delivery in Ireland?
The captured Irish small-parcel lane starts at €7.76 for home delivery and has no recipient-pickup entry. An Access Point product name alone does not establish collection by your customer. Compare only two eligible options for the same parcel before treating the difference as a saving. Where an option is absent, this snapshot cannot settle the comparison.
Do these quotes include platform costs?
Yes. The table uses captured domestic lane quotes with platform costs, rather than the carrier-only index. The sender's preparation charge and packaging are additional. For a complete webshop budget, also retain any applicable optional collection or extra-service charges from the accepted quote.
Does a parcel-shop name mean my customer collects the delivery?
No. A product name can describe where the sender hands the parcel over. The recipient delivery label in the quote determines whether the customer receives at home or collects at a supported location. Keep those two events separate in checkout text and customer emails.
Can I promise the displayed working-day estimate after payment?
The carrier estimate does not include your shop's waiting time before preparation and handover. State the dispatch expectation separately and verify the selected service's conditions. A parcel that misses handover can have a longer purchase-to-arrival journey than the table's transport estimate suggests.
How do I know which option my own customers want?
Offer eligible, accurately described choices where they are available, retain what buyers actually selected, and review completed-order outcomes. The rate card itself is not customer-preference evidence. If only one option was available, its selection should not be counted as proof of preference over an option the customer never saw.
Sources
Budget preparation and a supported Ireland delivery option for your actual parcel.
Compare webshop fulfilment