How interstate delivery pricing works in Nigeria

Local delivery is priced by distance

Inside a city, the cost of a delivery is dominated by how far the rider travels and how long the trip ties them up. So a bike or van run is quoted as a base fare covering the first kilometres plus a per-kilometre rate after that.

Bike and van carry different base fares because they cost different amounts to run. Weight barely enters the calculation until the item stops fitting on a bike.

Interstate is priced by weight and dimensions

On a line-haul lane the vehicle is going to Abuja whether your carton is on it or not. What you are buying is space and payload, so the fare follows weight and dimensions rather than kilometres.

This is why a heavy 5kg box of documents and a light but bulky 5kg carton of foam can cost very different amounts.

• Actual weight: what the scale reads at the hub.
• Volumetric weight: length × width × height converted into a weight equivalent.
• Chargeable weight: whichever of the two is greater.

Cut-offs matter more than speed

Lane transit times (typically 2–5 days) are set by departure schedules, not by how fast a vehicle can drive. A parcel dropped ten minutes after the daily cut-off waits for the next manifest, which is the single most common reason a delivery looks slow.

If a shipment is time-critical, book against the earlier cut-off rather than paying for a faster service that still misses the departure.

How to reduce what you pay

Most overpaying on interstate freight comes from packaging, not from the rate card.

• Pack tight — dead air inside a carton is charged as volumetric weight.
• Consolidate several small parcels heading to the same city into one shipment.
• Declare dimensions accurately so the hub does not re-rate the shipment on arrival.
• Use a scheduled drop before the cut-off instead of an urgent same-day pickup.