COD payment cycle: when couriers pay sellers in Pakistan

On a cash on delivery order the buyer pays the rider, not you. The money then sits with the courier until it settles your account. How long that takes, and how much comes off first, decides how much stock you can buy next week. Everything below about each courier is from its own website, checked in October 2026.

How COD money gets from the buyer to you

1. You book the parcel with its COD amount: the price plus your delivery fee.
2. The rider delivers it and collects that amount in cash.
3. The courier marks the parcel delivered and adds it to your next payment.
4. It takes its charges and the 2% tax off, and sends the rest to you.

Two clocks run here. The first is delivery: from booking to the buyer’s door. The second is settlement: from delivery to money in your account. Couriers only promise the second one, and it starts on the day of delivery, not the day you booked. A parcel that takes five days to reach a small town is five days later in your payment.

A parcel that comes back pays you nothing. It only adds a charge to the statement, if your courier charges for returns.

When each courier says it pays

• Leopards. Its Retail COD page lists “Weekly COD disbursements directly to your bank account”, and its FAQ answers “within a week” for how long the amount takes after delivery. You register with your bank name and IBAN, and pay the service charge when you book, so it does not come off your payout. Leopards also describes a Leopards Wallet with “real-time settlements” for merchants, without saying who can use it or what it costs.
• TCS. Its Retail COD page promises “timely payment clearance” and “no hidden fees”. Its online COD account form asks for “Bank Account Details for IBFT”: your IBAN, bank, branch and account title. Neither says how many days. Ask.
• PostEx. Its COD page is about upfront payment: you book, PostEx picks up from your door, and the upfront payment is “transferred instantly”, with the line “no more waiting for weeks”. Its FAQ calls this early cash settlement. The standard settlement days, and the cost of getting paid upfront, are not on the site.
• SLGTrax. trax.pk now opens SLGTrax, and its e-commerce page promises “cash payback within 24 hours of delivery”. It does not say how the money is sent.
• M&P. The COD page says “quick paybacks” and the Retail COD page “Quick Reimbursement”. Neither gives days or a payment method.
• Call Courier. Its site now says “Call Courier is Now PostEx”. Ask PostEx about the payout on an old Call Courier account.

These are the couriers’ own words for their advertised services. A corporate or e-com account is a contract, and its payout terms are whatever that contract says. For rates, pickup and returns side by side, see the best courier services in Pakistan. Our Urdu guide to opening a courier COD account covers the papers each one asks for.

What to get in writing before your first parcel

Most of what decides your cash is not on any courier’s website. Ask the account manager or the express centre, and keep the answer in a message or email:

• How many days after delivery the money reaches your account, counting working days or all days.
• Which day of the week payments go out, if they go weekly.
• Bank transfer, cheque or wallet, and in whose name the account must be.
• Every charge that comes off the payout: delivery, COD or handling fee, returns, fuel, GST.
• Where you see the statement for each payment, and whether it lists every tracking number.
• Who you contact when a delivered parcel is missing from a payment, and how long they take.

Then send a few parcels and watch what actually happens. The first two or three payments tell you the real cycle better than any promise.

What comes off before you are paid

The amount that lands in your account is the cash collected on delivered parcels, minus whatever the courier takes first. Depending on the courier and your account, that can be:

• Delivery charges, if you did not pay them at booking. On Leopards Retail COD you pay at the counter, so they do not appear again.
• A COD or handling fee, on accounts that charge one.
• Return charges on parcels that came back. Leopards says Retail COD has no return fee; the others we checked do not publish theirs.
• 2% income tax on the gross amount collected. How it works and what the Finance Act 2026 changed is in registering an online business.
• Repayment of any advance or financing you took from the courier.

Your statement should let you see each of these per parcel. If you only get one total, ask for the breakdown. A wrong charge on one parcel is easy to miss in a total and easy to catch in a list. How to set a delivery fee that covers these is in delivery charges for an online store.

Match the courier statement to your own orders

Couriers make mistakes, and nobody checks your money for you. Once a week, after the payment lands, match it against your own list. A simple sheet is enough, one row per parcel:

• Order number and date
• COD amount the buyer was told to pay
• Courier and tracking number
• Status: out, delivered or returned, with the date
• Paid on (date of the courier payment that included it)
• Amount received for it after charges and tax

Then go down the statement:

1. Tick off every tracking number on it against your sheet, and fill in the date and amount.
2. Look for delivered parcels with no payment date that are past the courier’s promised days. Those are the ones to chase.
3. Check that each COD amount matches what you booked. A wrong amount at booking is your loss.
4. Check returned parcels: every return charge should match a parcel that is physically back with you.
5. Total the money received and write it next to the bank credit, so the two agree.

Send the missing ones to the courier in one message, with tracking numbers and delivery dates. If you keep stock in a sheet already, add these columns to it or keep a second tab; our guide to inventory management for a small business shows a stock sheet these rows can sit next to.

Plan for money in transit

On COD you pay for stock, packing and ads before the order, and the money comes back later. Count your own cycle from your last 20 or 30 delivered orders:

• Days from order to booking (confirmation and packing).
• Days from booking to delivery, from tracking.
• Days from delivery to money in your account, from the statements.

Add them up. That is how long each rupee is away from you. Multiply it by what you spend a day on stock and ads, and you have the cash you need to keep going without waiting.

Example. Say you spend Rs 15,000 a day on stock and ads, and your own count comes to 10 days from order to money in the bank. About Rs 150,000 is out at any time. If you only have Rs 80,000, you will run out of stock around day five and wait for payments to catch up. These are example numbers; use yours.

Ways to shorten the gap without borrowing:

• Confirm and book the same day. Every day an order waits is a day later in your payment.
• Cut returns. A returned parcel is stock and courier money that never comes back; see how to reduce COD returns.
• Take an advance on custom and high-value orders, so the stock is paid before you buy it.
• Ask your supplier for a few days’ credit once you have bought from them regularly.
• Before Eid and sale days, buy stock from money you already hold, not money still with the courier.

The COD profit calculator shows what each order leaves you after courier, returns, packing and ads, so you know how much of each payment is really profit and how much has to go back into stock.

Early payment and financing from couriers

Some couriers will pay you before the buyer does, or lend against your COD parcels. What they say on their own pages, as of October 2026:

• PostEx offers upfront payment on COD orders on its COD page, and separately PostEx Growth Capital, which it calls Sharia-compliant revenue financing, repaid “based on your monthly sales”.
• Leopards Financing, on its fintech page, advances “up to 70%” of COD consignments booked through the Leopards E-Com portal, without collateral, with repayment settled as your orders are delivered.
• SLGTrax lists financing on its website, including instant credit with repayment “aligned with your COD settlements”.

None of these pages give the price. Before you take one, ask what it costs in rupees on a Rs 100,000 advance, what happens to the advance on a parcel that comes back, and if you can stop at any time. Use it to buy stock for orders you can already see coming, not to cover a month that lost money.

Where your store fits

Storelala does not collect or hold your cash. The courier collects it from the buyer and pays you on its own schedule, under your own account with it. What Storelala does is keep the order: cash on delivery is built into checkout, you book PostEx, Leopards or TCS right from the order screen, and the tracking number stays on the order and goes to your buyer on WhatsApp. That gives you the tracking number to match against each line of the courier’s statement.

Questions sellers ask

How long does TCS take to pay COD amount?

TCS does not publish a number of days. Its Retail COD page, checked in October 2026, promises ‘timely payment clearance’, and its online COD account form asks for bank account details for IBFT, which points to payment into your bank account. Ask at the express centre or your account manager how many days after delivery it pays, and get it in writing.

When does Leopards pay the COD amount?

For Retail COD, Leopards says it pays weekly, straight to your bank account, and that the amount is paid within a week of successful delivery. You give your bank name and IBAN when you register. On a corporate or e-com account, ask whether the same schedule applies.

What is the PostEx payment cycle?

PostEx’s site is built around upfront payment on COD orders: you book, PostEx picks the parcel up, and it says the upfront payment is transferred instantly. Its FAQ also mentions early cash settlement. It does not publish its standard settlement days or what upfront payment costs, so ask for both before you sign.

Why is the COD amount I received less than what my buyers paid?

The courier takes its charges before it pays you: delivery charges if you did not pay them at booking, any COD or handling fee, charges on returned parcels, and 2% income tax on the gross amount it collected. If you took an advance or financing from the courier, the repayment comes off the same transfer.

What should I do if a delivered parcel is missing from my COD payment?

Wait until the courier’s promised payout date has passed, then send the tracking number, the delivery date shown in tracking and the amount to your account manager or the courier’s support, in writing. Keep a list of these and check each one off when the money arrives.

Storelala is the Shopify alternative in Pakistan: your own store at yourbrand.storelala.com, cash on delivery, JazzCash, Easypaisa and cards at checkout, the courier and tracking number on every order, and no marketplace commission. It runs from your phone and is free to start, with no card needed. Start your store and know which parcel every rupee came from.