Courier or checked bag: is it cheaper to ship a suitcase than pay airline baggage fees?

Budget-airline checked-bag prices have climbed for a decade, and cabin allowances keep shrinking alongside them. That has left a genuine question hanging over every packing list: at what point does it become cheaper to courier a suitcase to the destination instead of checking it in at the airport?

A 2016 comparison of European budget-carrier bag prices against courier quotes for the same routes found the answer was, mostly, no. Checked bagged costs on European budget carriers were compiled via TravelSupermarket in March 2016, covering 16 products from 11 airlines, while courier quotes for a large 76cm x 48cm x 29cm suitcase came from MyParcelDelivery, shipped at 15kg, 20kg and 25kg on 1, 2 and 3-5 day services from London to 21 European destinations. Ten years on, with excess-baggage fees rising faster than shipping prices, that comparison is worth re-running.

The 2016 baseline: checking a bag usually won

As reported in 2016, Europe's budget airlines were already charging widely different prices for the same 20kg hold bag. Norwegian had the cheapest checked-bag price at the time, around £7 for 20kg on some fares, while Ryanair was the most expensive at roughly £45 for 20kg, or £90 for a round trip. Against that, a 1-day courier service from London was rarely competitive: only 5 of the 21 routes tested came in under £140 for a 20kg case, and Bulgaria or Romania — the most expensive destinations in the sample — cost around £147 on a 1-day express service. 2-day courier services were only marginally cheaper, and Croatia topped that list at roughly £135.

The one exception was the slowest tier. On 3-5 day courier services, prices for several European routes fell below the most expensive budget-airline bag fee of the time (Ryanair's roughly £45), though they still sat above the cheapest airline prices such as Norwegian's £7 and Jet2's £11. The 2016 conclusion held that checking a bag was, for almost every combination of route and speed, the cheaper option — courier shipping only closed the gap when a traveller could plan several days ahead and pick a route with a moderate distance.

In 2016, only the slowest, cheapest courier tier came close to matching a budget airline's checked-bag fee — and even then, most airlines still won on price.

What has changed by 2026

Two things have moved since 2016, and they move in opposite directions. First, budget-airline bag fees have risen and fragmented further: Ryanair's 20kg checked bag now typically costs £25-£55 when booked with the flight, climbing to £35-£70 if added afterwards, with a stated maximum near £60 online. easyJet's 23kg bag now starts from £9.49 online but can run to £50 depending on route and season, or a flat £50 if bought at the airport. Both airlines also now charge steeply for weight over the allowance — roughly £9 per kilo on Ryanair and about £12 per kilo on easyJet, purchased online.

Second, dedicated luggage-shipping firms — among them Send My Bag, LugLess and Luggage Forward — have grown into a mainstream alternative rather than a niche courier hack. Send My Bag quotes a 30kg case shipped within the UK from as little as £18 on its standard service, or £29 between the UK and France; a 30kg case from the US to the UK on its 1-2 day express service runs to about $147. Luggage Forward, aimed at slower, fully door-to-door international shipping, starts around $99 per bag domestically and $354-$679 internationally depending on region, with delivery in 7-11 business days on its standard tier. LugLess estimates a domestic 50lb (23kg) bag shipped in the US from around $25, against a typical $35-$60 airline checked-bag fee for the same weight — a case where the two are now close enough that either can come out ahead depending on the specific airline and route.

Where shipping now wins: overweight and extra bags

The clearest reversal since 2016 is for bags that exceed the standard allowance. Take a 30kg case flown on Ryanair, which allows 20kg in the hold: the traveller pays a representative online bag fee of around £30 for the first 20kg, then Ryanair's roughly £9-per-kilo excess charge on the remaining 10kg — about £90 more. That is close to £120 in total for one direction. Shipping the same 30kg case within the UK through Send My Bag's standard service costs around £18 — roughly 85% less than the airline's overweight bag, on these representative prices.

US domestic travel shows a similar pattern at a different scale. LugLess's own comparison puts a 70lb (about 32kg) overweight bag at $100-$200-plus once an airline's checked-bag fee and overweight penalty are combined, against roughly $65 to ship the same bag through LugLess — again a sizeable saving once a bag crosses the "standard" weight line. The pattern repeats for a second or third bag on the same trip: airlines charge full price, or more, for each additional piece, while shipping firms' per-bag rate does not escalate the same way.

• Single bag, within the weight allowance, booked in advance: checking it with the airline is still usually cheaper.
• Overweight bag: courier or luggage-shipping is very often cheaper once the per-kilo excess fee is factored in.
• Second or third bag on one trip: shipping firms typically charge close to their standard per-bag rate rather than an escalating airline fee.
• Tight timescale (next-day or two-day international courier): airline checking usually still wins, mirroring the 2016 finding.
• Several days' lead time on a domestic or short-haul route: the cheapest shipping tiers can undercut even a moderately priced airline bag fee.

What has not changed

The 2016 study's core caution still applies: courier and shipping companies charge a broadly flat fee across a range of weights, so a bag well under the maximum gets no discount, exactly as budget airlines rarely discount a checked bag that comes in under its weight cap either. Neither side of this comparison rewards packing light — the saving from shipping only appears once a bag is genuinely heavier, or more numerous, than a single standard airline allowance. For the average one-bag, on-time traveller, checking in with the airline — booked in advance, weighed at home — remains the cheapest option, just as it was in 2016.

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