What is delivery actually costing you?
Most shops set a delivery charge once and never check it against what a drop costs. Put your real distances and driver cost in and see the number per drop, per week and per year.
Defaults to 55p, HMRC’s approved mileage rate for cars and vans for the first 10,000 business miles from 6 April 2026. Change it if you know your real cost.
Each delivery costs you
£5.65
more than you charge for it
£4.40 of running costs plus £3.75 of driver time = £8.15 a drop.
Across 60 deliveries a week that is
−£17,628 a year
£339 a week. Delivery would break even at £8.15 a drop at this distance, and the whole operation costs £25,428 a year to run.
Why the far zone is the one to check
A flat charge across one area means the customers nearest you subsidise the ones furthest away. Run this twice, once for your nearest postcode and once for your furthest, and the gap is the argument for charging by zone or by road distance.
What this includes, and what it does not
It counts the two costs that scale with each delivery: the running cost of the vehicle for the round trip, and the driver’s time door to door. The mileage default is 55p a mile, which is HMRC’s approved rate for cars and vans for the first 10,000 business miles from 6 April 2026 — it was 45p before that date, so a figure you were given last year is now wrong. Above 10,000 miles the approved rate is 25p.
Source, checked 26 October 2026
It does not include insurance you would pay anyway, the cost of the food, card fees, or the orders you would lose by charging more. It is a floor, not a full profit model: if a drop loses money on these two costs alone, it loses money.
What to do with the answer
Run it for your nearest postcode and your furthest. If the far one is underwater, the fix is usually zones with their own charge and minimum order, or pricing by road distance rather than a radius — a driver cannot drive a straight line, and the gap between the two is biggest exactly where it costs you most.
About this calculator.
Where does the 55p a mile come from?
What is left out of the figure?
What do I do if the far postcode loses money?
Want delivery charged properly on your own site?
Zones, road distance, minimums by area and a free-delivery threshold, all editable by you.
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