Bouquet Price vs Delivery Fee: What You Actually Pay at Checkout
The question comes up almost every day: a customer selects a bouquet of garden roses or ranunculus, sees the price on the product page, and then notices a different total at checkout. That gap is the delivery fee, and it is not hidden — it is simply calculated separately from the bouquet itself. This article breaks down exactly how the two costs are structured at Five Flowers, what affects the delivery charge, and what to double-check before you confirm your order so there are no surprises when the flowers arrive.
The Bouquet Price Covers the Flowers and Assembly Only
When you browse the Five Flowers catalogue and see a price next to a bouquet of peonies, spray roses or tulips, that figure reflects the cost of the stems, the conditioning work done in the cold room, and the assembly itself. Florists here keep cut flowers at two to four degrees Celsius until the moment they are wrapped, which is part of what you are paying for — proper cold-chain handling, not just a bunch of stems rubber-banded together. The bouquet price does not include the courier, the packaging box used for long-distance transport, or any time-specific scheduling fee. This is standard practice across professional flower delivery in Russia and is not unique to Five Flowers. Many customers from Europe or North America expect a single all-in price similar to what large international platforms charge, but those platforms typically build a flat delivery cost into every bouquet and then adjust the flower quantity downward to compensate. Here the flowers and the logistics are priced transparently and separately. A bouquet of fifty centimeter David Austin roses costs what it costs because of the variety and stem count, not because delivery to a nearby district has been folded in at a hidden markup. Understanding this split from the start means you can compare options accurately and choose a bouquet based on what the recipient actually receives, not on a blended number that obscures both components.
Bouquets we can deliver
How the Delivery Fee Is Calculated and When You See It
The delivery fee appears at the checkout stage, after you have selected the bouquet, entered the recipient's address in Saint Petersburg or another Russian city, and chosen a delivery window. The fee is calculated based on three variables: the distance from the nearest Five Flowers preparation point to the delivery address, the time slot you select, and whether the order falls within standard hours or requires an early morning or late evening run. Deliveries within the central districts of Saint Petersburg carry a base rate. Orders to addresses further from the centre — Pushkin, Peterhof, Kolpino and similar areas — carry a higher fee because the courier travel time increases significantly. For deliveries to other Russian cities, the fee reflects the logistics of getting a temperature-controlled shipment there within the one-to-two hour window that keeps flowers fresh. You will see the exact delivery amount before you are asked to pay anything. The system calculates it automatically once the address is entered, so you can adjust the delivery zone or time window and watch the total update in real time. No payment is taken until you confirm the full order with both the bouquet cost and the delivery fee displayed together. If the address is difficult to locate — a new residential complex without a registered street number, for example — it is worth calling the shop directly so the courier route can be confirmed before dispatch and the fee quoted accurately.
Time Slots and Why They Affect the Price
Five Flowers operates delivery across a wide daily window, and the time you choose matters both for freshness and for cost. Standard delivery slots during daytime hours carry the base delivery rate. Early morning deliveries — those scheduled before nine in the morning — require the courier to begin the route before regular traffic patterns settle, and that is reflected in a modest surcharge. The same applies to late evening slots, typically after nine at night, when a dedicated run is made specifically for your order rather than grouped with others in the area. This is not a penalty for choosing an unusual time; it is simply the real cost of a single dedicated run. For flowers like anemones or sweet peas that have a shorter vase life than, say, chrysanthemums or alstroemerias, choosing an earlier slot is genuinely worth the small additional cost because the recipient gets the flowers at their freshest. Ranunculus, for instance, continues to open after delivery and looks its best within the first twenty-four to thirty-six hours — getting it there in the morning of a birthday rather than the evening before makes a real difference. When you are ordering from abroad and calculating the delivery time across time zones, the checkout form shows Saint Petersburg local time, which is UTC plus three. Factor that in when selecting a slot so the flowers arrive when someone is actually home to receive them, since bouquets left in a warm corridor for several hours will deteriorate faster than those handed directly to the recipient.
What the Packaging Fee Covers and When It Applies
For deliveries within Saint Petersburg, bouquets travel in the standard wrapping chosen by the florist — kraft paper, fabric, or a combination suited to the specific flowers. Delicate varieties like garden roses with open heads or lisianthus with branching stems get extra internal support so petals do not bruise in transit. This packaging is included in the bouquet price. For deliveries to other Russian cities, where the flowers travel a longer distance and must maintain their condition through temperature changes, a rigid transport box is used. That box and the internal conditioning material — water tubes, damp foam inserts, reflective lining — carry a separate packaging fee that appears at checkout alongside the delivery charge. It is a real cost and a necessary one: flowers shipped without proper temperature-buffered packaging to cities like Moscow, Kazan or Yekaterinburg would arrive wilted regardless of how well they were conditioned at the source. The packaging fee is not large relative to the bouquet price, but customers ordering for the first time sometimes mistake it for a hidden surcharge and contact the shop to question it. It is worth knowing in advance that for city deliveries within Saint Petersburg you will see only a delivery fee added, while for intercity orders you will see both a delivery fee and a packaging fee listed as separate line items before payment. Both are calculated automatically based on the destination entered, and both are shown clearly before you confirm.
Common Mistakes Foreign Customers Make When Reading the Total
The most frequent misunderstanding is converting the bouquet price to a home currency and budgeting based on that figure alone, then being surprised when the checkout total is higher. The second is selecting a delivery address in a district that falls outside the standard zone and not noticing the higher delivery fee before confirming. If you are ordering from outside Russia and using a card issued abroad, also check whether your bank applies a foreign transaction fee on top of the total shown — that is a bank charge entirely separate from anything Five Flowers adds, and the shop has no control over it. Another mistake is entering a recipient's address without the flat number or entry code for a secured building. In Saint Petersburg, most apartment buildings have a door code or intercom system, and without it the courier cannot complete the delivery. The order will be held at the door and the flowers — particularly moisture-sensitive varieties like hydrangeas or open peonies — can suffer if they wait outside in summer heat or winter frost. The checkout form has a field for delivery notes; use it to add the entry code, the floor, and any instruction about whether the recipient knows the delivery is coming. Surprise deliveries are common and lovely, but the logistics need to be precise. Finally, do not assume that a higher bouquet price automatically means delivery is included — at Five Flowers it never is, regardless of the bouquet value.
How to Confirm the Final Price Before You Pay
The order summary page at Five Flowers shows a line-by-line breakdown: bouquet price, delivery fee, and packaging fee if applicable, followed by the total. Review each line before entering payment details. If the delivery fee looks unexpectedly high, the most common reason is that the address entered falls into an extended zone — check that the street name is spelled correctly in Russian transliteration, because an error can route the calculation to the wrong district. If you are unsure about the address or the zone, the shop's customer service line is available during operating hours and staff can give you an exact delivery quote before you place the order. For corporate orders — a set of bouquets sent to multiple addresses on the same day, for example for a company anniversary — each address carries its own delivery fee, and the total is the sum of all individual deliveries. There is no bulk delivery discount applied automatically, but it is worth asking when placing a large order. When ordering well in advance for a specific date, the price shown at the time of ordering is the price you pay — there is no dynamic pricing that adjusts closer to the date. Seasonal availability can affect which varieties are in stock, but the fee structure does not change based on the calendar. Confirm the order, save the confirmation email with the breakdown, and contact the shop immediately if anything in the summary does not match what you selected during checkout.
The pricing structure at Five Flowers is straightforward once you know what each line item represents: the bouquet price is for the flowers and the work that goes into preparing them, and the delivery fee is for getting them to the address on time and in good condition. Both figures are shown before any payment is taken, and for intercity orders a packaging fee joins them as a third transparent line. Foreign customers ordering flowers for someone in Russia most often run into surprises not because the shop hides costs but because the split-pricing model is different from what they are used to at home. Read the checkout summary carefully, enter the recipient's full address including building entry details, choose a time slot that accounts for the Saint Petersburg time zone, and the order will go through cleanly with no unexpected charges on the other side. We deliver bouquets across Russia in 1–2 hours.
Frequently asked questions
Is delivery ever free at Five Flowers?
Delivery is not automatically free on any order. The fee depends on the delivery zone and time slot chosen. Promotional periods may occasionally include reduced or waived delivery fees, but those are announced separately. The standard checkout always shows the delivery cost as a distinct line before payment is taken, so you always know what you are paying for transport.
Can I pay for the bouquet now and settle the delivery fee separately later?
No. The full amount — bouquet price plus delivery fee, and packaging fee where applicable — is charged in a single transaction at checkout. The system calculates all components together once you enter the delivery address and select a time slot. There is no option to split the payment or add the delivery charge after the fact.
Does the delivery fee change if I order the same bouquet to two different addresses?
Yes. Each delivery address is calculated independently based on its zone and the time slot selected. If one address is in a central district and another is in an outlying area, the delivery fees will differ. The checkout handles multiple addresses as separate orders, each with its own delivery line item shown before you confirm.
What happens to the delivery fee if I need to change the address after ordering?
Contact the shop as soon as possible after placing the order. If the courier has not yet departed, the address can be updated and the delivery fee recalculated. If the new address falls in a more expensive zone, the difference is charged. If the courier is already en route, changes may not be possible, so double-check the address carefully at checkout.
Are there flowers that cost more to deliver because of how fragile they are?
The delivery fee is based on zone and time slot, not on the specific variety in the bouquet. However, fragile flowers such as open peonies or garden roses with large heads are packed with additional internal support for intercity shipments, which contributes to the packaging fee shown at checkout for those orders. The packaging material and method are chosen by the florist based on what the specific stems require.
Ready to send a bouquet?
Pick a city, choose the flowers, and we will hand them over with a photo confirmation.
Choose a city →