Piedmont Warehousing & Manufacturing Support: A woman-owned, full-service warehousing and manufacturing support company exceeding expectations since 1975
Private industry employers paid an average of $46.89 per hour worked in June 2026. Wages accounted for $32.82 of that. Benefits accounted for the other $14.07, a full 30 percent, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release published September 9, 2026. For full-time private industry workers the all-in figure was $54.00 per hour.
That gap is the part sellers leave out when they price in-house Amazon prep. The math usually starts with an hourly wage and stops there.
The two cost structures are shaped differently
In-house prep is a fixed cost with a variable output. You pay for the hours whether 400 units arrive or 4,000. Rent, tables, printers, poly bags, and tape come with those hours. So does the person untangling a mislabeled pallet at 4 p.m. on a Friday.
Outsourced prep is a variable cost with a fixed unit price. You pay per unit handled. A slow month costs less. Volume spikes cost more and get absorbed without a hiring decision.
Neither structure wins on its own terms. The right one depends on how steady your volume is and how much of your own time the work consumes.
Sellers leaning toward outsourcing should work through how to choose an Amazon prep center before comparing quotes.
Where in-house prep wins
Low, steady volume favors keeping the work inside. A seller moving 500 units a month through a single SKU can prep in a garage for the cost of materials and a few hours. Outsourcing that adds receiving fees and freight legs to a job that took an afternoon.
Control is the second argument. Fragile, high-value, or heavily customized products sometimes warrant hands you can supervise directly. Sellers running frequent packaging experiments also move faster when the packaging table is down the hall.
Where outsourced prep wins
Volatility is the strongest case for outsourcing. Fourth-quarter volume runs well above a summer baseline, and staffing to the peak means paying for idle labor most of the year. Staffing to the average means missing the peak.
Location is the second case. A prep center sitting near an inbound freight lane shortens the distance between your container and Amazon’s dock. Prepping far off the freight route adds a leg that no per-unit saving covers.
Multi-channel selling is the third. Sellers shipping to Amazon, a Shopify store, and a retail buyer need three different pack-outs from one inventory pool. A provider already running pick and pack handles that from a single pool of stock.
Build the comparison on loaded cost
Compare an outsourced per-unit quote against a loaded in-house cost, not a wage. A loaded cost includes payroll taxes, insurance, paid time off, supervision, materials, square footage, equipment, and the throughput you lose while training someone new.
Run the number against your slowest month and your busiest month separately. A per-unit rate that looks expensive in February often looks cheap in November, and the annual figure is the one that decides it.
Then add the error cost. Units that reach a fulfillment center without correct prep get charged back to the seller under Amazon’s published fee schedule. Amazon publishes its current schedule of FBA fulfillment fees and related charges in Seller Central. Check it against your own defect rate before deciding that in-house prep is cheaper.
A hybrid is a real answer
Sellers often split the work rather than choosing. Steady replenishment SKUs go to a prep center on a standing schedule. New launches, fragile items, and photography samples stay in-house where they can be watched.
Either way, the provider side needs a real prep center onboarding plan rather than a purchase order. The split usually follows predictability. Work you can forecast belongs where it is cheapest per unit. Anything unpredictable belongs where you can react to it fastest.
The question underneath the spreadsheet
Prep is not the product. Every hour spent bagging units is an hour not spent on sourcing, listings, or pricing. Some sellers value that hour at zero because it does not show up on an invoice.
Price your own time honestly, put it in the model, and the comparison usually resolves itself.
Piedmont Warehousing: 3PL Warehousing and Manufacturing Support
Piedmont Warehousing & Manufacturing Support is a woman-owned, ISO 9001:2015 certified 3PL in Spartanburg, South Carolina, serving the Upstate since 1975. Warehousing, fulfillment, and light manufacturing run under one roof on the I-85 corridor.
Our Services Include:
- 3PL Warehousing Solutions — Receiving, storage, picking, fulfillment, and cross-docking on the I-85 corridor
- Warehousing Services — Product receiving, storage, barcode scanning, and outbound shipping
Weighing outsourced prep against adding headcount?
Contact Piedmont Warehousing to talk through volume, SKUs, and timing.
About the Author
Ada Wallace is President of Piedmont Storage and Repack, LLC, operating as Piedmont Warehousing & Manufacturing Support in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She brings more than 24 years in the warehousing and manufacturing support industries and leads the second generation of Wallace family ownership of a business founded in 1975. Under her leadership, Piedmont holds ISO 9001:2015 certification and Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) designation, serving clients across Spartanburg, Greenville, Anderson, Cherokee, Laurens, and Union counties. She can be reached at awallace@piedmontwarehousing.com.
Works Cited
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — June 2026.” BLS.gov, U.S. Department of Labor, 9 Sept. 2026, www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm.
Amazon. “2026 US FBA Fulfillment Fee Changes.” Amazon Seller Central, Amazon.com Services LLC, accessed 12 Sept. 2026, sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/GABBX6GZPA8MSZGW.
This article is general industry information and is not a substitute for current FDA guidance, Amazon’s published seller policies, or professional compliance advice for your specific products.