What does a pick cost in your warehouse?
A pick costs more than the picker's hourly wage. On top of it come shift premiums, temporary staff in the season, sickness and turnover, and picking errors with their returns; if you can actually give up the picking floor space, add it in. Together that makes the all-in cost per pick. This calculator works it out from your own figures and sets it against warehouse automation on a pay-per-pick model, where you pay per order line instead of investing in equipment.
| Cost block | Share | € / pick |
|---|---|---|
| All-in cost per pick | – |
These items hang on picking, but they never appear together on one invoice. Switch off whatever does not apply to you.
The status quo gets more expensive as wages rise and the share of temporary staff grows. The price per order line is set in the contract and stays flat; on the NEO side only the wage for staffing the stations rises. Calculated with 3 % wage growth per year and 2 percentage points more temporary staff per year. Both are model assumptions.
File the result, pass it on to purchasing and management, or bring it along to the conversation.
What changes in your warehouse
Your racks stay where they are. The goods come to the person instead of the other way round.
| Today, manual | Conventional automation | With NEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront investment | none | investment in the millions, frequently double-digit | €0You pay per order line |
| Construction phase | none | rack removal, conversion or new build | noneRetrofit into the existing shelf racking |
| Time to go-live | – | 12-36 months | 6-8 weeksWMS integration ~4 weeks |
| Picking rate | – picks/hr | high throughput, fixed capacity | 350 picks/hrper NEO:pickstation |
| Error rate | 0.1-0.3 % | depends on the system | < 0.01 %€10 to €30 per avoided return |
| Storage density | Your floor space today | high, after a new build | 2-3×on the same floor space |
| Walking distance per shift | 10-16 km | eliminated | eliminatedThe robots cover the distance, your people stay in place |
| Peak season | Temporary staff at a 20-40 % premium | sized for the peak, underused in normal operation | People in the same pick cycleThe fleet covers the base load, extra people only join for the peak |
| Cost profile | tied to the number of people employed | depreciation over 10-15 years | follows the volumeFewer orders mean lower costs |
NEO:runner fleet, NEO:pickstation, NEO:os, installation, maintenance, spare parts, software updates and every later scale-up. If a robot breaks, that is our problem, and no fixed asset appears on your balance sheet.
You start with one station instead of converting the whole hall. Additional robots and stations follow once the figures have held up in live operation. You do not commit to a full rollout. Any minimum volume is set out in the offer.
“Currently, there is no other provider besides NEO that offers goods-to-person automation specifically for shelf-racking environments.”
“No other provider combines such a simple automation solution with higher storage density like NEO. We see great potential to significantly support our fulfillment strategy with NEO.”
Ranges turn into measured figures
In the Fit-Check we go through your product range, your layout and your volume profile and replace every assumption in this calculation with a measured figure. You get a concrete price per order line instead of the range that stands here.
- ConversationWe look at your pick figures and your racks and tell you whether NEO is an option for your warehouse. One appointment is enough.
- Feasibility on siteAisle width from 85 cm, usable height up to 250 cm, integration with your WMS.
- OfferYou receive a fixed price per order line. Performance figures and exit terms are in the contract.
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Frequently asked questions about cost
Eight questions that get asked in the warehouse and skipped in the calculation.
What does a pick cost in a manual warehouse?
The usual calculation divides a picker's annual staff cost by their picks. The result is systematically too low, because it only contains the direct wage. Add shift premiums, temporary staff in the peak, team leads, sickness, turnover, onboarding, picking errors together with their returns, and the cost of floor space, and the all-in cost per pick comes out considerably higher. How much higher depends on the product range, the shift model and seasonality.
What is the all-in cost per pick?
The all-in cost per pick is the total cost incurred today per order line actually picked, including every item that is already being paid for but rarely appears on one common invoice. It is the only comparison figure against which an automation offer can be judged seriously. Compared against the bare hourly wage, the same offer looks more expensive than it is.
Which cost blocks do most calculations miss?
Four items are missing most often, and the industry works with these orders of magnitude. Temporary staff in the peak costs 20 to 40 percent above the permanent wage. Sickness, turnover and onboarding add up to 5 to 10 percent of staff cost at a turnover rate of 25 to 40 percent. Picking errors create returns that cost 10 to 30 euros per case without ever being charged to picking. And a share of team leadership sits in almost no calculation, although it grows with the number of pickers. Walking is deliberately not on that list: in person-to-goods warehouses it ties up around half of the paid working time, but it already sits inside the pick rate you enter. Adding it on top counts it twice.
How does pay-per-pick work in warehouse automation?
Under the pay-per-pick model the provider carries the robots, the picking station, the software, the installation and the maintenance, and stays their owner. The operator pays a price per order line, with no upfront investment. Costs therefore rise and fall with order volume, and no fixed asset with a depreciation schedule is created. The operator still provides the staff at the picking station.
How do the costs of pay-per-pick and conventional automation differ?
With conventional automation using stacker cranes or shuttle technology, an investment in the millions stands at the start, frequently in the double-digit range, plus a construction phase and 12 to 36 months to productive operation. Under the pay-per-pick model the upfront investment disappears entirely; you pay per order line. The exact price depends on product range, layout and volume profile and is set in the offer.
What daily volume is this calculation meant for?
The recommendation is a daily volume from 5,000 picks in the shelf-racking area to be automated. That is an economic recommendation and not a hard threshold: warehouses with a mixed product range, high turnover or strong seasonality have the largest lever, because the hidden cost blocks weigh heaviest for them.
Do new racks have to be installed for the automation?
No. The existing shelf racking stays where it is, and autonomous mobile robots drive through the existing aisles. The prerequisites are an aisle width from 85 centimetres and a usable rack height up to 250 centimetres. The articles in the automated area are repacked into bins, area by area during live operation.
When does this show up in my costs?
The saving starts at go-live, and six to eight weeks pass until then. Integration with the existing warehouse management system takes about 4 weeks of that; the WMS stays in charge. Parallel operation during the implementation is possible, and the warehouse does not have to stand still.