Amplifier is an Austin 3PL that also runs print-on-demand and heavy branded unboxing, and it publishes its full rate table, which many 3PLs don't. The numbers a small brand needs before signing aren't the per-order fees, though. They're the $100 monthly account fee that applies at any volume, the postage and packaging that sit outside the published rates, a prepaid balance Amplifier sets per account, a support structure where a dedicated account manager starts at $1,500 a month, and an accounts policy that lets Amplifier refuse to ship your inventory out during the fourth quarter.
Updated October 2026.
The short verdict
Amplifier suits a brand that wants to try a 3PL with no order floor and no term, especially a merch, music, creator or collectibles brand, or one that wants print-on-demand, kitting, inserts and personal notes handled under the same roof as its fulfillment. It also publishes a climate-controlled pallet storage rate, which many 3PLs, including Simpl, don't offer at all.
It is a weaker fit if you want one per-order price with postage inside it, or a named human contact without paying for a support plan. Its standard plan is email-only support with a published first response of 8 to 24 business hours, and the fixed fee adds up at very low volume: 50 single-item orders a month come to about $255 in fulfillment and account fees before postage, packaging and storage.
What Amplifier costs each month
Amplifier's pricing page and its fee explainer publish two per-order charges. The shipment fee applies to each shipment that leaves the dock, and the item fee applies to each unit picked. Both step down with monthly shipment volume.
Shipments a month | Shipment fee | Item fee |
|---|---|---|
1–100 | $2.15 | $0.95 |
101–999 | $2.05 | $0.90 |
1,000–2,500 | $1.95 | $0.85 |
2,501–5,000 | $1.90 | $0.80 |
5,001–10,000 | $1.80 | $0.75 |
10,001–20,000 | $1.75 | $0.70 |
20,000+ | Custom | Custom |
On top of that, every account on the published plan pays a $100 monthly account fee. Postage, packaging, storage and receiving are all billed separately.
Here is what the published table comes to at founder-level volume, assuming one item per order:
- 50 orders: $100 + 50 x ($2.15 + $0.95) = $255
- 100 orders: $100 + 100 x ($2.15 + $0.95) = $410
- 300 orders: $100 + 300 x ($2.05 + $0.90) = $985
Treat these as arithmetic from the published table, not a quote. Two things move them. A second item in an order adds another item fee, so a two-item order at the first tier costs $4.05 in fees rather than $3.10. And the calculator on Amplifier's pricing page blends the tiers, charging the first 100 shipments at $2.15 and the next ones at $2.05 rather than applying one rate to the whole month. The page doesn't say in words which method your bill uses, so confirm it; blending would add about $10 to the 300-order example.
What the examples leave out is most of the bill:
- Postage. Amplifier's rates exclude freight. Its standard domestic service is a multi-carrier 2 to 7 business day method using carriers such as USPS, DHL eCommerce, OnTrac and OSM, with expedited, 3-day, 2-day, next-day, oversize and international options.
- Packaging. Billed per container at Amplifier's listed rates. Its warehouse system chooses the container for each shipment, and Amplifier says it controls packaging choices.
- Storage. $1 a month for a small bin, $2 for a standard bin, $30 for a standard pallet and $45 for a climate-controlled (HVAC) pallet, assessed daily and charged monthly. Amplifier's storage policy applies a long-term rate to inventory that has sat for a full year; the current pricing page doesn't list that rate, so ask.
- Receiving and warehouse labor. $45 an hour.
- Returns handling. Listed as "$2.00 + $0.50". The page doesn't say what the $0.50 is charged per, so ask.
- Marketing drop-ins (inserts added to an order). The pricing page lists $0.25 and the fee explainer lists $0.20. Ask which applies.
- Split shipments. The shipment fee is charged per shipment, not per box: a large order that Amplifier packs into several containers within one shipment pays one shipment fee plus each container's packaging charge. An order that has to leave as two separate shipments, such as a poster in a tube plus a T-shirt, pays the shipment fee and a container charge twice. Amplifier's poster article says the extra fees are usually less than the dimensional-weight postage a single oversized box would trigger.
- Kitting and make-ready. Kitting jobs are $25 per SKU per job plus $0.25 a unit under 5,000 units, stepping down to $0.16 above 50,000. Inventory that arrives not ready to ship is charged per item to fix: $0.35 to apply a barcode, $0.50 to bag and barcode a small item, $0.75 to fold, bag and barcode third-party apparel, $0.75 to box glassware and $0.50 to roll a poster into a tube. The rates are on Amplifier's kitting and make-ready page.
What "no minimums, no commitment" means in practice
Amplifier's pricing page promises "instant signup with no shipment minimums and no long term commitment," and its about page says "We don't require monthly minimums or lock you into a contract." Both hold as far as volume and term go. There is no order floor, the published plan has no fixed term, and the signup page says you can "quit anytime without penalties."
Four other terms shape what you actually pay:
- The $100 account fee applies at any volume. It is billed monthly, starting one month after signup, and Amplifier's fees policy says "our monthly subscription fees cannot be cancelled once charged and all subscription fees paid are non-refundable."
- A prepaid minimum balance. Amplifier's terms of service say: "Your Account must be funded at or above the Minimum Balance ('Minimum'), which Amplifier may set, in order to receive Services. Immediately on notice to you, Amplifier may raise or lower your Account Minimum." The amount isn't published and is set per account based on Amplifier's view of the risk. A separate billing article says Amplifier "typically does not require deposits," so ask what your minimum will be.
- Daily card billing. Fulfillment is charged to the card on file each day for that day's work; storage is assessed daily and charged monthly. Invoicing in arrears is available only once Amplifier approves credit terms.
- Rate changes. The fees policy lets Amplifier raise rates when regulation increases its costs or when US inflation runs above 3 percent, "even for Clients with special pricing." Fee disputes must be submitted in writing within 60 days.
Amplifier also offers a negotiated track. Its switching page describes a "bespoke" contract where a multiyear commitment earns flexibility on pricing and payment terms, with the caveat that those contracts "can take time and often involve legal fees." For a small brand, the public plan is the realistic one.
Support: what is free and what costs extra
This is the term most likely to surprise a small brand. The standard plan includes email support from the general team, with a stated first response of 8 to 24 business hours depending on severity. Phone, chat, meetings and a named account manager come with paid plans, published on Amplifier's support plans page.
Plan | Monthly fee | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
Standard | Free | Email support; priority 1 first response in 8 business hours, priority 3 in 24 |
Level 1 | $500 | Up to 8 ops hours; phone support |
Level 2 | $1,500 | Up to 20 ops hours; live chat and a Notion teamspace; a dedicated account manager; video syncs twice a month; priority 1 response in 4 hours |
Level 3 | $3,000 | Up to 40 ops hours; weekly video syncs; priority 1 response in 1 hour, 24/7 |
Client Success hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm Central. If you expect to want a person who knows your account, price Level 2 into the comparison: at that point a 100-order month costs $1,910 in fees before postage.
Leaving Amplifier
The no-term promise holds, but the mechanics of leaving are worth reading before you join. Amplifier's accounts policy says you close the account through Client Service and "must outship or dispose of all of your inventory to stop being billed for storage, SKU Support, and any applicable monthly fees." Removal and disposal requests "are handled on a case-by-case basis and can take a month or more to process," and the same section states: "Amplifier further reserves the right to refuse offboarding or outship projects during Q4."
That last clause matters if you might switch providers in the fall. A brand that decides in October to move for peak may not be able to get its inventory out until January, and it keeps paying storage and the account fee in the meantime. Plan any move for the first half of the year, and keep the rest of the timeline in mind: account access ends 10 days after closing, and Amplifier may hold your minimum balance for up to 90 days to cover lingering returns and other charges.
Liability and insurance
Three terms define who carries the risk on your stock:
- Amplifier's storage policy says "Amplifier does not carry coverage to insure against any such loss or damage of Client Inventory and that securing such insurance coverage is your responsibility."
- The same policy says Amplifier "is not responsible for breakage or loss of items during transit that have been picked and packed by Amplifier."
- The terms of service cap Amplifier's liability for lost or damaged inventory at the lower of your replacement cost or its depreciated fair market value, less salvage, and exclude lost sales revenue.
These are standard warehouse terms rather than a mark against Amplifier; our own terms of service also require the brand to insure its inventory. The practical steps are to add the warehouse to your own inventory policy and to look at Amplifier's shipping insurance, offered since November 2025, which covers loss or damage after a shipment leaves the building, up to an insured value you choose.
How Amplifier operates
- An Austin warehouse that doubles as headquarters. Both are at 8015 Burleson Road near Austin-Bergstrom airport; the legal entity is Copernica, Inc. doing business as Amplifier. Its Austin page describes over 100,000 square feet with more than 30 feet of clear height. The storage policy says the building has both climate-controlled and non-climate-controlled space, and inventory goes to the non-climate-controlled side unless you say otherwise.
- More than twenty years in Austin. Founders Jef Sewell and Joel Bush started it after Sewell's own ecommerce business launched in 1998. The company leased its first dock-high warehouse in 2004 and ran the LIVESTRONG wristband program, which it says shipped more than 38 million wristbands in under ten months.
- Software. Manhattan Associates SCALE as the warehouse system, Amplifier's own order management and API layer, the My.Amplifier dashboard, plus Zapier and an MCP server.
- Shopify connects through Order Desk. Amplifier has a Shopify App Store listing, and its help center says the integration is done with the Amplifier app supported by Order Desk. You register, then email Client Success, and Amplifier configures the connection for you; orders import, inventory syncs and tracking posts back when orders ship. Amplifier's shopping carts page also shows BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Etsy, eBay, Amazon, TikTok Shop, Gumroad and Bandcamp. The published plan includes one order source plus manual orders.
- Onboarding is self-serve. You create the account, add SKUs, submit an advance shipment notice and send inventory. Receiving takes 1 to 3 business days when the shipment follows Amplifier's routing guide, and "one or two weeks, maybe longer" when it doesn't.
- Next-business-day dispatch, with a 2pm cutoff for expedited orders. Amplifier's shipping-times article says in-stock orders placed by midnight CT normally ship the following business day, and in-stock orders placed by 2pm CT with a 2-day or next-day ship method ship the same day. Orders placed Friday through Sunday ship on Monday. During peak, its 2026 peak article says processing "can sometimes require 3 to 5 days," compliant inventory must arrive by November 18, 2026, non-compliant inventory by November 4, and the last peak ship day is December 23.
- Branding is the strength. Custom packing-slip messaging, including one-to-one messages to a customer, branded labels, print-on-demand, rule-based inserts, VIP kitting and personal notes are built into the platform, which Amplifier calls "Amplification."
- Returns run through the Two Boxes platform, with Loop, Happy Returns, AfterShip, Narvar and Redo as customer-facing front ends, per Amplifier's returns page.
What customers say
The independent record is thin. Amplifier's Google listing shows a 3.8 rating from 43 reviews, and its Shopify App Store listing has a single five-star review. Amplifier's homepage states a 99.9% accuracy rate and says it credits the fulfillment fees on a mispicked order; that is its own figure, not an audited one.
With that few data points, ask Amplifier for two or three references from brands at your volume and in your category, and ask those brands about receiving times, how a fee dispute went and what support felt like on the free plan.
Who Amplifier suits
- Merch, music, creator and collectibles brands. This is Amplifier's heritage, and its catalog of inserts, posters, kitting and print-on-demand is built for it.
- Brands that want print-on-demand and fulfillment under one roof, so printed goods and stocked goods ship together.
- Brands that care about unboxing. Rule-based inserts, personal notes and branded packing slips are standard features rather than custom projects.
- Products that need climate-controlled pallet storage, published at $45 a pallet.
- Very small or uncertain-volume sellers who want to try a 3PL with no order floor and no term, and who can absorb $100 a month plus usage.
Questions to ask Amplifier before you sign
- What minimum account balance will you set for my account, and what would cause you to raise it?
- Which container rates apply to my products, and what does a typical order of mine cost in packaging?
- Does the bill use the tier my monthly volume lands in, or blend the tiers the way the pricing calculator does?
- Is the marketing drop-in fee $0.20 or $0.25, and what is the $0.50 in the returns fee charged per?
- If I needed to leave in October, when would my inventory actually ship out?
- Does your shipping insurance cover my product category, and what does it cost per shipment?
- Which support plan would I need to get a response within a business day?
Alternatives by situation
You ship a few dozen orders a month. Amplifier's no-floor plan is a genuine option, and so is packing orders yourself a while longer. Amplifier's entry cost, $100 plus usage, is lower than Simpl's $750 floor at that volume. Our 3PL minimums comparison lays the floors side by side.
You want postage inside the per-order price. Fulfyld publishes a postage-inclusive rate starting at $7.98 an order for a 4 to 12 ounce package on standard shipping at up to 250 orders a month; our Fulfyld comparison covers the details. Simpl prices the same way, below.
You're comparing Austin options. Our Austin 3PL guide covers the local field, and our Austin fulfillment page explains what a central Texas warehouse does for transit times.
You want a short term rather than none. Published terms vary more than most brands expect. Our 3PL contract terms comparison sets notice periods and exit terms side by side, and our switching guide covers the move itself.
You want an all-in rate and a dedicated contact included. That's how Simpl works, so here is the fair comparison.
Topic | Amplifier | Simpl Fulfillment |
|---|---|---|
Per-order fees | $2.15 shipment + $0.95 per item at 1–100 shipments a month, stepping down with volume; postage and packaging extra | Starting at $7/order, including up to 3 picks, packing, postage and packaging; carrier surcharges, when they apply, are billed per our terms |
Fixed monthly charge | $100 account fee at any volume | No account fee; a $750 monthly minimum, billed pay-the-difference |
Term | No term on the published plan; quit anytime | 3-month term, auto-renewing, 60 days' notice |
Storage | $1 small bin, $2 standard bin, $30 pallet, $45 HVAC pallet per month | $3 small bin, $5 large bin, $15 shelf, $40 pallet per month; ambient only |
Account manager | Dedicated manager on the $1,500 a month Level 2 plan and above | Included for every client, reachable by email with same-day responses |
Dispatch | Standard orders ship the next business day; expedited orders placed by 2pm CT ship the same day | Orders received before 12pm CT ship the same day |
Receiving | $45 an hour | Free when the shipment meets our receiving requirements |
Onboarding | Instant self-serve signup; Shopify set up by Amplifier via Order Desk | 5 to 7 days, no onboarding fee |
Standard ecommerce fulfillment accounts at Simpl have a $750 monthly minimum, billed pay-the-difference: if a month's order billing comes in under $750, we bill the shortfall so order billing reaches $750. Because our per-order rate includes postage, that floor is roughly 90–100 orders a month for light packages on standard shipping; heavier, larger or faster shipments reach it with fewer orders. Merch drops are the exception: Simpl does not require monthly minimums for merch drop fulfillment, which matters if you're comparing the two for a drop. On dispatch, 98.8% of orders received by 12pm CT on a business day ship the same day (September 21 to October 23, 2026; the method is on our guarantees page).
The tradeoffs run both ways. Amplifier's published plan has no term at all, while our agreements run in three-month terms that renew automatically with 60 days' notice, so Amplifier is more flexible on term. On storage, Amplifier's published bin rates of $1 and $2 a month and its $30 pallet rate sit below our $3 and $5 bins and $40 pallet, though bin sizes and what each rate includes may differ between the two, so compare on your actual footprint rather than the unit price. We store ambient only, so a product that needs climate control is a better fit for Amplifier than for us. Details are on our pricing page and terms of service.
Simpl Fulfillment is a 3PL too, so weigh our read of a competitor with that in mind.
Sources
- Amplifier pricing
- How Amplifier calculates fulfillment fees
- Amplifier support plans
- Amplifier kitting and make-ready pricing
- Amplifier terms of service
- Amplifier accounts and fees policies
- Amplifier storage policy
- Amplifier billing
- How quickly Amplifier ships orders
- Amplifier shipment and item fee definitions
- Amplifier 2026 peak season
- Amplifier ship methods
- Amplifier shipping insurance FAQ
- Amplifier Shopify integration via Order Desk
- Simpl Fulfillment pricing
FAQs
How much does Amplifier fulfillment cost?
Amplifier publishes a $2.15 shipment fee plus a $0.95 item fee at 1 to 100 shipments a month, stepping down to $1.75 plus $0.70 at 10,001 to 20,000, and a $100 monthly account fee. At 100 single-item orders that is about $410 in fees before postage, packaging, storage and receiving, which are all billed separately.
Does Amplifier have a monthly minimum?
There is no order-volume minimum and no fixed term on Amplifier's published plan, but the $100 monthly account fee applies at any volume and is non-refundable once charged, and Amplifier's terms require you to keep a prepaid minimum balance that it sets per account and may change on notice. The amount isn't published, so ask before you sign.
Does Amplifier's price include shipping?
No. Amplifier's published rates cover picking and packing labor. Postage and packaging are charged separately, with packaging billed per container at Amplifier's listed rates. Ask Amplifier to price a sample shipment of your actual product before you compare it with a 3PL whose per-order rate includes postage.
Does Amplifier require a contract?
Not on its published plan. You sign up online, agree to its terms of service and policies, and can close the account at any time without a termination penalty. Amplifier also offers negotiated contracts that it says involve a multiyear commitment and can take time and legal fees. Closing an account requires shipping out or disposing of all inventory first, which can take a month or more, and Amplifier reserves the right to refuse offboarding during the fourth quarter.
Does Amplifier integrate with Shopify?
Yes. Amplifier has a Shopify App Store listing, and the integration runs through Order Desk. After you create a My.Amplifier account you email Client Success, and Amplifier configures the Order Desk connection for you. Orders import automatically, inventory syncs and tracking numbers post back to Shopify when orders ship. The published plan includes one order source plus manual orders.
Where is Amplifier located?
Amplifier's warehouse and headquarters are at 8015 Burleson Road in Austin, Texas, near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The company has operated in Austin for more than twenty years and describes the building as over 100,000 square feet with both climate-controlled and non-climate-controlled storage.
Is Amplifier a good 3PL for a small Shopify brand?
It can be, particularly for merch, music, creator and collectibles brands, for anyone who wants print-on-demand and branded inserts handled alongside fulfillment, and for sellers whose volume is too small or uncertain for a 3PL with a monthly minimum. Budget for the $100 account fee plus postage and packaging on top of the published fees, expect email-only support unless you buy a support plan, and plan any future move for outside the fourth quarter.
